Lois Wheeler Snow, 97

Lois Wheeler Snow, Critic of Human Rights Abuses in China, Dies at 97
by Amy Qin, The New York Times, April 11, 2018

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Artists come together for global human rights at Dixon Place

This weekend, Dixon Place hosts a new arts festival dedicated to global issues around human rights. The International Human Rights Arts Festival has been launched by DP and producer Tom Block's Institute of Prophetic Activist Art, an educational venture drawing from a spectrum of mystical philosophies, from Martin Buber to Black Elk, for creative engagement with societal concerns. Last evening's opening ceremony was introduced by the venerable television writer, producer and progressive activist Norman Lear. Richard Nixon, he reminded us, derided his groundbreaking All in the Family as a show for and about "queers, fags, homos and hippies."

Well, "queers, fags, homos and hippies," frequently make up the audience at Dixon Place and might well enjoy much that's on tap at the IHRA fest now through Sunday. And there's certainly a lot with 2016 Bessie-winner Joya Powell (Outstanding Emerging Choreographer) showing work today at 1:30 with her troupe, Movement of the People Dance Company, on a bill with Spilling Ink Dance Company, a troupe devoted to the arts of India and the Indian diaspora. Another up-and-coming dancemaker, Jessica Chen has commissioned works for a 10pm show tonight featuring her J CHEN PROJECT troupe, Tom Tsai, Karla Garcia and Heather Robles. Edisa Weeks (Delirious Dances) and Jacqueline Dugal (Dugal Dance Projects) share tomorrow evening's 9pm slot.

And, whew! That's just the dance part!

With performance, film, poetry, theater, music, visual arts, kids activities, discussions, lounge performances and the ever-handy Dixon Place bar, there's truly something for every interest. Get a schedule of events and ticket information (including day passes) here.

Dixon Place
161A Chrystie Street (between Rivington and Delancey Streets), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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Leila Alaoui, 33

Leila Alaoui, Photographer Wounded in Burkina Faso Siege, Dies at 33
by Dan Bilefsky, The New York Times, January 19, 2016

Memorial gathering planned for Blondell Cummings

Blondell Cummings
(photo: Jack Mitchell)

The life of Blondell Cummings--dance artist, activist, friend and inspiration to many--will be celebrated on Sunday, October 4 (5-7pm) in a gathering at New York Live Arts.

Facebook event page

New York Live Arts

219 West 19th Street (between 7th and 8th Avenues), Manhattan

(map/directions)

Legendary dance artist Blondell Cummings passes

RIP, Blondell Cummings

This morning, our dance community is reeling from the news that a beloved veteran artist and advocate for social justice, Blondell Cummings, has died. Few people were aware that Blondell had pancreatic cancer.

I hope to have more information for you later today. For now, here is a recording of her most recent appearance as moderator of a roundtable discussion at 92Y's Fridays at Noon program. The event opened with a performance of Manufacturing Consent by Edisa Weeks.

Blondell Cummings--Point of Reference

March 27, 2015

Open Season: conversation on the arts and urban justice

Open Season

An Evening of Art and Conversation 

about our Culture of Confinement

Wednesday, Dec 10, 6pm

at Urban Justice Center Human Rights Project

Featuring:

•Dr. William Jelani Cobb, UConn Professor and New Yorker contributor
•Bryonn Bain, Poet and New York University Professor
•Esther Armah, MSNBC Contributor
•Taneya Gethers-Muhammed, Brooklyn Public Library
•Lumumba Bandele, NAACP Legal Defense Fund
•Paloma McGregor, Dancer and Choreographer

•Moderator: Shani Jamila, Artist and Human Rights Project Director

Dance performances curated with Dancing While Black

Soundscape by DJ Jahsonic

Community partners include the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, NYU’s Prison Education Program, Angela’s Pulse and Articulations. Additional support is being provided by The Studio Museum of Harlem.

This event is open to all.  A $15 donation is suggested, but no one will be turned away for a lack of funds. Please register below, a ticket is required.

To RSVP, please click here and fill out the form at the base of the page.

Contact: openseasonrsvp@gmail.com

Urban Justice Center Human Rights Project
40 Rector Street (at West Street), Manhattan
(map/directions)

U Win Tin, Burmese activist writer, dies

U Win Tin, Writer Jailed by Myanmar Junta, Dies
by Douglas Martin, The New York Times, April 22, 2014

Political performance artist Tania Bruguera to speak at NYU's IFA

A lecture by

Tania Bruguera

Tania Bruguera, Immigrant Movement International Pin
(photo courtesy of the artist)

at The Institute of Fine Arts

Tuesday, April 8, 6:30pm

RSVP required*: Click here.

*Seating in the Lecture Hall is on a first-come, first-served basis with RSVP. 
There will be a simulcast in an adjacent room to accommodate overflow.

About the artist

Tania Bruguera is one of the leading political and performance artists of her generation. Focused on the application of art to everyday political life, she works to transform the condition of "viewer" to one of active citizenry, shifting social affect toward political action. Bruguera's long-term projects, such as Immigrant Movement International (conceived 2005, initiated 2010), are intensive interventions in the institutional structures of collective memory, education, and politics.

The recipient of numerous awards including the Prince Claus Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship, Bruguera is part of the original Occupy Wall Street movement and has been an advisor in cultural rights and artistic freedom to the United Nations Human Rights Council. She is currently at work on a book on the collaborative art process with Claire Bishop.

The Institute of Fine Arts
1 East 78th Street (near Fifth Avenue), Manhattan
(map/directions)

For more information on the Artists at the Institute lectures at the Institute of Fine Arts, click here.

Blondie says NO to Putin

Blondie’s Debbie Harry reveals they refused to play Sochi over human rights
by Andrew Potts, Gay Star News, February 10, 2014

Miklos Jancso, 92

Miklos Jancso, Who Directed Stylized Films of War and Tyranny in Hungary, Dies at 92
by Bruce Weber, The New York Times, February 1, 2014

Reflections: Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger’s Last Night on Stage
by Jesse Wegman, The New York Times, January 28, 2014

For Seeger, Years of Singing and Sailing to Save His Hudson River
by Joseph Berger, The New York Times, January 28, 2014

Pete Seeger, 94

Pete Seeger, Songwriter and Champion of Folk Music, Dies at 94
by Jon Pareles, The New York Times, January 28, 2014

Writing of Afghan women to be presented at Queens library

The Friends of Richmond Hill Library

and The Afghan Women’s Writing Project

present

Readings from the Afghan Women’s Writing Project
featuring novelist and founder Masha Hamilton

at Richmond Hill Library, Queens

Monday, January 13, 6:30pm

Admission: Free

A selection of poems, essays, and stories by participants of the Afghan Women’s Writing Project will be read by audience members, AWWP staff and volunteers, and special guests. AWWP believes that to tell one’s story is a human right, and this work testifies to the bravery of Afghan women and to the power of their words. Author and AWWP founder Masha Hamilton will also read from her latest novel What Changes Everything.  Admission is free.

Masha Hamilton is the author of five acclaimed novels, most recently What Changes Everything, which the Washington Post praised for its “elegantly wrought prose (which) conveys terror as well as tenderness” and 31 Hours, which the Washington Post called one of the best novels of 2009. In October 2013, she finished sixteen months working in Afghanistan as Director of Communications and Public Diplomacy at the US Embassy. She is currently working as Communications Director for Concern Worldwide. She also founded two world literacy projects, the Camel Book Drive and the Afghan Women’s Writing Project.

Masha is the winner of the 2010 Women’s National Book Association award, presented “to a living American woman who derives part or all of her income from books and allied arts, and who has done meritorious work in the world of books beyond the duties or responsibilities of her profession or occupation.” She began her career as a full-time journalist, working in Maine, Indiana, and New York City before being sent by the Associated Press to the Middle East, where she was news editor for five years, including the period of the first intifada, and then moving to Moscow, where she worked for five years during the collapse of communism, reporting for the Los Angeles Times and NBC-Mutual Radio and writing a monthly column, Postcards from Moscow. She also reported from Kenya in 2006, and from Afghanistan in 2004 and 2008. 

Richmond Hill Library
118-14 Hillside Avenue, Queens
Train: J or Z to 121 Street
Bus: Q10, Q55, Q56

A photo archive of the Palestinian experience

Photographs Tell a History of Palestinians Unmoored

by Isabel Kershner, The New York Times, November 28, 2013

Jazz artist Esperanza Spalding calls for action on Guantanamo

Esperanza Spalding
(photo by Johann Sauty)

Esperanza Spalding: Guantanamo Doesn't Represent 'Our America'
by TELL ME MORE STAFF, NPR, November 22, 2013

A Chinese poet's memoir of imprisonment and torture

Captivity as a Mirror of Society
Liao Yiwu’s ‘For a Song and a Hundred Songs’
by Larry Rohter, The New York Times, July 2, 2013

Music for peace: Davide Martello plays in Turkey's Taksim Square

Music in Istanbul Is Intermission for a Protest
The Pianist Davide Martello Calms Istanbul Tensions
by Sebnem Arsu, The New York Times, June 14, 2013

Ai will, Ai will rock you!

Ai Weiwei Is Making a Rock Album
by Allan Kozinn, The New York Times, March 11, 2013

Quilts tell stories of survival

Survivors’ Stories of Abuse, Sewn Tight
by Tammy La Gorce, The New York Times, February 8, 2013

Jayne Cortez, 78 [New York Times obituary]

Jayne Cortez, Jazz Poet, Dies at 78
by Margalit Fox, The New York Times, January 3, 2013

See also: http://infinitebody.blogspot.com/2012/12/jayne-cortez-76.html