Just in... New York City premier at the National Black Theatre, May 1, 2009. More info to come.
HURRICANE SEASON: the hidden messages in water
a two-womyn show about unnatural disaster and a great shift in universal consciousness
Climbing PoeTree presents a multimedia show and 50-city tour that obliterates the boundaries between performance and activism. HURRICANE SEASON: the hidden messages in water interweaves spoken word poetry, sound collage, shadow art, dance, film and animation to explore critical issues facing humanity through the kaleidoscope Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.
Water, the performance's extended metaphor, guides the audience on a vivid journey of unthinkable tragedy and undeniable promise from a single drip into a violent storm that culminates in climactic moment of possibility and resurrection.
Hurricane Season tackles global warming, environmental injustice, policing, prisons, militarization, corporate domination, gentrification, and displacement as they manifest from one gulf to another, with a powerful tale of resistance, resilience, creativity, and survival.
Hurricane Season connects the issues that surfaced in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to the "unnatural disasters" disenfranchised communities are experiencing nation and worldwide. The objective of Hurricane Season is not only to stir in people the fervor of transformation, but also to channel that energy into immediate, meaningful, and tangible action. A "solution-cipher", facilitated by Sallome Hralima, follows every show with community leaders and grassroots organizations whose work addresses the issues raised in Hurricane Season on a local level. The aim is to cross-pollinate creative strategies for self-determination, and to turn the passion generated in the show into action manifested in the community.
Hurricane Season will tour the nation beginning on the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina (August 29, 2008). The crew will travel throughout the country in a vehicle converted to run on recycled vegetable oil from America's fast food addiction.
As Facilitator for the Solution-Cipher, I aid local organizations in each tour stop in presenting the work they do to audience members. This Cipher enables organizations and residents to cross-pollinate solutions to the world's seemingly insurmountable issues and demonstrates that another world is possible - and we ARE proof.
To discover more about the show, the strategy, the tour, and the artists, visit hurricaneseasontour.com. Find out ways you can get involved in this exciting movement and help Hurricane Season have the widest impact imaginable!
is a community arts organization focused on providing outlets that support and engage emerging creative talents within the visual and performing arts. Through collaborations with underrepresented artists and partnerships with educators, activists and community leaders, DOPE SWAN works to strengthen the connections between art, livelihood and community.
STAFF Raquel Wilson, Curatorial Director Sallomé Hralima, Community Liaison Sarah Kolker, Programs Administrator, community art projects Lichiban aka Licsi Szatmari, Curator, visual & music events
DOPE SWAN has worked with a diverse selection of creative talents that represent a vast mixture of mediums. Specializing in tailoring services to fit the needs of the individual artist, DOPE SWAN is focused on helping our artists market themselves while meeting their professional goals.
Visual Arts
Akintola Hanif, documentary photojournalist & filmmaker kolks, mixed media artist Lichiban Szatmari, painter & illustrator Lorenyetta Strickland, fine arts photographer Toofly, painter & illustrator Raquel Wilson, curator & art director
DOPE SWAN is dedicated to ensuring strong ties between the community and it’s artists by creating programs that not only enhance our member artists, but provide insight and direction for our communities.
Brooklyn, Stand Up! Documenting the Brooklyn Renaissance Brooklyn, Stand Up! will be a year-long exploration into the many ways in which Brooklyn’s self-made artists, activists and entrepreneurs cross traditionally strict professional guidelines - challenging every business model and social construct.
The project includes "A Great Day in Brooklyn ," a feature story in an international magazine, monthly arts programming, an online archive of interviews , arts exhibition, and scholarship fund for Brooklyn students wishing to pursue an education in the arts.
for colored girls Excerpts from Ntozake Shange’s choreopoem Just as the Obie-winning drama for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf is gearing up for a Broadway stage in August 2008, DOPE SWAN produced an an abbreviated performance in July 2008 as a “teaser” before the official opening. With young women ages 12-18 as the special guests, the production included a post-show dialogue with Sheron "Umi" Smith (author, educator, & mother of Mos Def), Julia Chance (writer, fashionista), Kevicha Echols (educator, psychologist), and Roopa Singh (educator, journalist, poet). This production will enabled young women to witness this ground-breaking piece and discuss the issues it brings up in an intimate space with some of New York’s most influential female artists and activists.
Fight!: Being Mad & Angry Enough to Change Stories of Ordinary Women Doing Extraordinary Things Fight! is the story of women who grew weary of waiting for change to come to their communities and decided to impact their own lives through active participation. A mix of first and third person accounts, Fight! hopes to serve as a blueprint for other women and girls who are mad and angry about the substandard living conditions women deal with globally.
The project will include a book, art exhibit and interactive CD component. All proceeds from the project will be donated to organizations working hands on to make changes in quality of life issues affecting women and girls in the areas of education, healthcare, career training and housing. For more information, visit www.thefightproject.org
THE RE:CONSTRUCTION PERIOD™ (TRP)develops and cultivates innovative curriculum and programming to support youth organizations, institutions and communities. TRCP’s programs and curriculum are designed to enhance young people's ability to identify their passion, excel in a technological and media-driven world and make significant social change locally and internationally.
Specific Goals
Using techniques in media education, leadership training, and personal development, TRCP creates youth programs and curriculum that:
Exposes young people to new ideas and cultural perspectives;
Challenge them creatively;
Help them develop critical thinking, public speaking and literacy skills; and
Provide them with the knowledge, tools, and relationships they need to generate powerful, insightful action toward social change.
Philosophy
Booker T. Washington shares his view of the Reconstruction Period inAmerica in his autobiography Up From Slavery. In it he says:
"It could not have been expected that a people who had spent generations in slavery ... could at first form any proper conception of what an education meant. In every part of the South, during the Reconstruction period, schools, both day and night, were filled to overflowing with people of all ages and conditions, some being as far along in age as sixty and seventy years. The ambition to secure an education was most praiseworthy and encouraging. The idea, however, was too prevalent that, as soon as one secured a little education, in some unexplainable way he would be free from most of the hardships of the world ..."
THE RE:CONSTRUCTION PERIOD™ (TRP) is committed to returning the “ambition to secure an education” to young people. The programs and curriculum created for schools, organizations, and communities are designed to provide youth with opportunities to explore mediums to free themselves from disempowering and predictable futures. TRP focuses on three main areas in its programming: Media, Arts, and Activism.We are a youth development organization that believes young people, when given the resources, have solutions to the world’s most complex problems.We also believe that when given access to information, tools of advocacy and mediums for self-expression, young people are pre-disposed to leadership and community-building.
Through this model, THE RE:CONSTRUCTION PERIOD™ seeks to examine and challenge systems of oppression aimed toward youth of color.The young people of TRCP work together to dismantle the mental, emotional, and cultural impediments that mock their dreams and to improve the lives of those, including themselves and their communities, whose dreams and goals have been deferred.
History
As a second year math teacher in a public school in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, Jamilah Seifullah recognized a number of her students were on the verge of dropping out of school.The reasons varied – problems at home, physical/emotional/sexual abuse, bullying, failing grades and special needs, and an overall disinterest in the educational paradigm.Her belief in the resilience and innate passion of young people led her to a brainstorming session with Sallomé Hralima – an educator, youth organizer, and close friend.Together they researched successful youth programming in New York City and identified what was missing for the young people Ms. Seifullah worked with daily.What they determined was that programs that are mostly youth-led, focused on their passions, included media and arts, and occurred within and outside of schools are most effective in supporting youth in taking control of their own education and ultimately their futures.
In October 2007, without 501(c) 3 status, a board, administrative staff, or funding, The Re:Construction Period™ began with Reel to Real Talk (an after-school program at Frederick Douglass Academy IV) and The Stoop (a Saturday community program open to youth borough-wide).It has grown from two programs to five in less than a year.To date, over twenty individuals and organizational leaders have requested that TRCP recreate their two flagship programs in their schools and communities.
Though all TRCP’s programming is done presently within the New York City area, its vision is global.
Overview of Programs and Projects
The Stoop -The Stoop’s mission is to create an empowering reciprocal relationship between teens who are taking their destinies into their own hands and successful urbanites who are examples of those destinies fulfilled, thereby building a powerful intergenerational cultural and professional network.
Reel to Real Talk (RtRT) -A two semester media art project that has students view independent films, have meaningful conversations in groups, take action inspired by the films, and create documentaries of their own.
Battle of the Bands BK (BOB)-A benefit concert that merges youth, activism, and music.BOB is an event that will host New York high school acts in a musical talent competition and encourage youth to become active humanitarians.Proceeds from the concert and the BOB winner of the concert will be chosen by the audience. Visit their blog.
Frederick Douglass Academies Academic and Cultural Exchange (FACE) – An annual 5-day competition amongst Frederick Douglass Academies in New York.FACE’s mission is to unify all of the FDAs, to propel the FDA brand within the academic community, and to serve as a model for innovative programming. FACE provides academic and creative problem-solving opportunities for students in junior high and high school.Competitions include: Black History Bowl, Academic Bowl, and Poetry/Spoken Word Competition.
“Our company was created in the spirit of contribution to children and community,” said Sallomé Hralima, the company’s owner. “Phefeni, and companies like ours, reflects a new voice of social concern and equips the average consumer with an opportunity to demonstrate they are more than spectators on the philanthropic scene. We aim to create an example for upcoming lifestyle brands to follow in which commitment to contribution guides the company’s mission.” (Sallomé Hralima, Thursday, January 12, 2006,3:33:12 AM)
What is (RED)?
(RED), created by Bono (U2 singer and activist) and Bobby Shriver, is a brand designed to engage business and consumer power in the fight against AIDS in Africa. (RED)works with the world's best brands to make unique (PRODUCT) RED-branded products and direct up to 50% of their gross profits to the Global Fund to invest in African AIDS programs with a focus on the health of women and children. (RED) is not a charity or "campaign". It is an economic initiative that aims to deliver a sustainable flow of private sector money to the Global Fund. (PRODUCT) RED launched on March 1, 2006 in the UK and on October 13th, 2006 in the US. Current product partners include Converse, Gap, Motorola, Emporio Armani, Apple, Hallmark, Dell, Microsoft and American Express (UK only). (Source - http://www.joinred.com/red/factsheet.asp)
This is for the children.It is the realization of a dream to combine commerce with social restoration, an apparel company created to address the needs of the world’s children. We aspire to bring undeniable transformation on global playgrounds.
Phefeni Childrenswear is an apparel company inspired by the children of Soweto, South Africa who stood up against the forced Afrikaans education. Products, ranging from newborn to size six, include onesies screened with the lyrics of Stevie Wonder's "Isn't She Lovely" and bibs & burp cloths with authentic Ashanti fabric. Each piece is made to be culturally relevant with functionality in mind.
We appeal to consumers considered "conscious" and "trend-setting." This support base has a commitment (expressed or not) to contribution and a demand for brands that embody this idea of commerce and contribution. At Phefeni, we believe that daily activities like shopping for our children can function as a humanitarian effort. Phefeni customers create and sustain communities based on giving, communities inspired altruistically to action. Created with the world's little ones in mind, and partnering with Inspire Learning, beginning Summer 2009, a donation from each purchase will be made to a children’s organization. Phefeni will be a vehicle for progress within various countries where our little ones currently suffer conditions that deny them their childhood.
Nelson Mandela said, “No business concern, with an eye to future planning, can afford to ignore the plight of children as inheritors of ‘a tomorrow.’” We live in a world where the international poverty line has been set at $1.08 a day, half a million women continue to die each year during pregnancy or childbirth (almost all of them in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia), approximately 600 children under five die every day in Afghanistan due to pneumonia, poor nutrition, diarrhea and other preventable diseases, one billion children live in extreme poverty, over 115 million children do not attend school, and the number of AIDS orphans worldwide will exceed 25 million by 2010. With large corporations such as IKEA and Starbucks recognizing that social responsibility is good for business, Phefeni Childrenswear stands out as one of few companies created with a vehicle for customers to actively transform these statistics embedded in its design.
This website may appear scattered. Nevertheless, in my crown it all makes sense. This online portal is my attempt at sharing the beauty, strangeness, and comedy that is my life.
HURRICANE SEASON:
As Facilitator for the Solution-Cipher, I aid local organizations in each tour stop in presenting the work they do to audience members. This Cipher enables organizations and residents to cross-pollinate solutions to the world's seemingly insurmountable issues and demonstrates that another world is possible - and we ARE proof.
