walidah (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} badsis) wrote,@ 2008-08-04 13:56:00 |
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Brazilian Hip Hop and Riding Cowboys
Last week was super busy but good. It was the weekend of The Community Strategic Training Institute (CSTI), a regional conference for organizers held every year by Western States Center. I used to work for WSC when I was 17 through when I graduated college, and it was an awesome experience, I learned so much about organizing work and strategies and tactics. It’s interesting to be back around the organization and CSTI and see it through eyes that now have 10 more years of experience.
But I was really happy to be asked to be part of it again. Thursday night there was a screening of an incredible film, Moving to the Beat www.moving2thebeat.com, which is about hip hop in Sierra Leone, made by Abdul Fofanah. It was one of the best documentaries I’ve seen, it covered so many different issues including sexism and the civil war and African diaspora. It was really powerful. And Abdul was there, along with one of the groups in the film Rebel Soulz and there was a good q and a, and then Rebel Soulz performed, along with a hip hop group from Brazil Fato Criminal who happened to be in town. It was really dope to see all this hip hop from around the globe and the ways that people are using hip hop as an organizing tool everyway. It was also hilarious to see that regardless of what country or what language, emcees are the same; you say one song, they do three, you say three songs, they do six! Microphone fiending is universal I guess.
Then on Friday I facilitated an all day poetry writing workshop Clandestine Poems: Poetry for Social Change. It was cool, we had a small group, six folks, but it was cool because the setting was more intimate and everyone got to share and support one another. I was really nervous, because it’s been a while since I worked with adults, and I haven’t really worked with adult organizers. But I was super excited too, to get to work on developing exercises and discussion points where I get to incorporate social change and poetry together. I think (I hope at least) that it went well and was useful for the folks who took it, cause I know it was really useful for me. I came up with a lot of cool exercises that I was excited about, even though I way over prepared and we didn’t get to half the stuff I wanted to do. But it was nice to have six hours just to focus on writing and delve more deeply.
Then Saturday night me and Turiya facilitated a group poetry writing session at the banquet, and then hosted the talent show. I was worried about the group poem, I wasn’t sure how it would come off, but it actually came together really well, I thought, and turned out to be a moving collective creation. And the talent show was cool, lots of different voices. One group CSAM, is a group of women who are about to be deported, and they sang while one of them did a sort of spoken word piece telling of her experiences over it. We had a poem about sexual consent by a former student of Turiya and mine Sci Fi class Tash who is awesome, and someone even brought a bagpipe and rocked it out. It was a fun way to spend the evening.
Turiya and I performed Friday night at one of the best events I’ve been to in a while, In Other Words annual banquet dinner. IOW is the feminist bookstore here in Portland; in fact, it’s the last non profit feminist bookstore in the country. Which is just depressing when you think about it. But being there was so inspiring. Everyone had such great energy. The other perfomers were incredible. There was a group Fellina’s Arrow, that Turiya and I totally want to work with. And Bruce got up and did a drag king show to the song “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy,” which was hilarious, sexy, kinky, talented and a brilliant commentary on gender. And then the audience was so awesome. They gave Turiya and me a standing ovation, which felt really good, it’s been a minute, since you don’t really get standing ovations in classrooms. We stayed for the whole night and it’s one of the few times when I was truly sad when an event was over.
Then yesterday I didn’t do shit! I slept late and watched bad movies, trying to rest up to get back to work…
Last week was super busy but good. It was the weekend of The Community Strategic Training Institute (CSTI), a regional conference for organizers held every year by Western States Center. I used to work for WSC when I was 17 through when I graduated college, and it was an awesome experience, I learned so much about organizing work and strategies and tactics. It’s interesting to be back around the organization and CSTI and see it through eyes that now have 10 more years of experience.
But I was really happy to be asked to be part of it again. Thursday night there was a screening of an incredible film, Moving to the Beat www.moving2thebeat.com, which is about hip hop in Sierra Leone, made by Abdul Fofanah. It was one of the best documentaries I’ve seen, it covered so many different issues including sexism and the civil war and African diaspora. It was really powerful. And Abdul was there, along with one of the groups in the film Rebel Soulz and there was a good q and a, and then Rebel Soulz performed, along with a hip hop group from Brazil Fato Criminal who happened to be in town. It was really dope to see all this hip hop from around the globe and the ways that people are using hip hop as an organizing tool everyway. It was also hilarious to see that regardless of what country or what language, emcees are the same; you say one song, they do three, you say three songs, they do six! Microphone fiending is universal I guess.
Then on Friday I facilitated an all day poetry writing workshop Clandestine Poems: Poetry for Social Change. It was cool, we had a small group, six folks, but it was cool because the setting was more intimate and everyone got to share and support one another. I was really nervous, because it’s been a while since I worked with adults, and I haven’t really worked with adult organizers. But I was super excited too, to get to work on developing exercises and discussion points where I get to incorporate social change and poetry together. I think (I hope at least) that it went well and was useful for the folks who took it, cause I know it was really useful for me. I came up with a lot of cool exercises that I was excited about, even though I way over prepared and we didn’t get to half the stuff I wanted to do. But it was nice to have six hours just to focus on writing and delve more deeply.
Then Saturday night me and Turiya facilitated a group poetry writing session at the banquet, and then hosted the talent show. I was worried about the group poem, I wasn’t sure how it would come off, but it actually came together really well, I thought, and turned out to be a moving collective creation. And the talent show was cool, lots of different voices. One group CSAM, is a group of women who are about to be deported, and they sang while one of them did a sort of spoken word piece telling of her experiences over it. We had a poem about sexual consent by a former student of Turiya and mine Sci Fi class Tash who is awesome, and someone even brought a bagpipe and rocked it out. It was a fun way to spend the evening.
Turiya and I performed Friday night at one of the best events I’ve been to in a while, In Other Words annual banquet dinner. IOW is the feminist bookstore here in Portland; in fact, it’s the last non profit feminist bookstore in the country. Which is just depressing when you think about it. But being there was so inspiring. Everyone had such great energy. The other perfomers were incredible. There was a group Fellina’s Arrow, that Turiya and I totally want to work with. And Bruce got up and did a drag king show to the song “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy,” which was hilarious, sexy, kinky, talented and a brilliant commentary on gender. And then the audience was so awesome. They gave Turiya and me a standing ovation, which felt really good, it’s been a minute, since you don’t really get standing ovations in classrooms. We stayed for the whole night and it’s one of the few times when I was truly sad when an event was over.
Then yesterday I didn’t do shit! I slept late and watched bad movies, trying to rest up to get back to work…
