CREATING SEXY LOVE CONNECTIONS FOR THE REVOLUTION!

A night of speed dating & sensual self-expressions under candlelight

Join us as we celebrate beauty, creativity, and love in all its forms!

Open to all sensual expressions & sexual identities/Speed dating open to single folks & performances open to all!

May 26th @ The Commons

8:00pm-midnight

(speed dating from 8-10pm & performances from 10-midnight)

388 Atlantic Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11217

Take the A, C and G to Hoyt-Schermerhorn; F to Bergen Street; B, M, Q, R, 2, 3, 4 and 5 to Atlantic-Pacific

$35 in advance & $40 at the door (includes speed dating & performances)

$25 (includes either speed dating or performances)

Featuring Poetry, Music & Burlesque Show

To register for speed dating &/or purchase your tickets, please contact:

Tania @ 646-594-4344

or

Jackie @ 908-644-8701

All funds generated will go towards the Cultural Caravan for Peace & Solidarity Through Latin America

Through the Women’s Empowerment & Self-Healing Project, we-the Caravan womyn and community womyn-shared and examined our stories in the context of living in a racist, classist, and patriarchichal society. We healed collectively through running and participating in self-healing circles. We released past traumas, and shared our stories through painting and poetry. We also healed and connected through the power of dance and songs. This journey was all about REMEMBERING. We shared and reclaimed our ancestral ways of healing!

About the philosophy of the healing circles and the emotional release work:

A Healing Circle is based on the political analysis of the systems of oppression that impact our lives like racism, classism (capitalism), patriarchy (and its progeny sexism, heterosexism, etc), and how we have internalized the hurt, anger, oppression inflicted on us, our people, our families and loved ones and our ancestors. This is an anti-violence group! We mediate. We create relatedness. We analyze (racism, capitalism, sexism) in our society and in our interactions. We share our histories and the history of circle work. We get introduced to “energetic” work. We have communal lunches. We delve into emotional release work, the structure and role it has, and why it is important. We all do emotional release work (including facilitators). Everyone takes turns. Emotional release is when we work the energy, hurt, trauma that is stored in our bodies and “empty” it by vomiting, shaking, laughing, crying, etc. All these tools are natural and innate to us. We use them when we are children, but as we grow up we are taught to become repressed, silenced, subdued. This healing work provides with an opportunity to break free from all the oppression that lives inside of us, and then move into action to liberate our own communities.

The high point of the Cultural Caravan’s second week in Playas was the completion of the mural on Sunday, August 15. Painted by local teenagers and kids under the direction of Alex Yagual and Edison Borbor of the Associación Cultural Mullo and Caravanista Javier Salamanca, it depicts the local kids’ visions of Playas’ past, present, and future, all above an undercurrent of the sea and its wildlife.

The mural enabled the kids to learn about their roots and express their ideas about what needs to be improved in Playas. Their vision of the future includes a new school, a new hospital, and a new stadium for the Barcelona soccer team. That last image caused a passer-by to ask, “Where’s the Emelec stadium?” (Barcelona, from Quito, and Emelec, from Guayaquil, are Ecuador’s two most popular teams, although Deportivo Cuenca, from the country’s third-largest city, is currently in first place.)

Meanwhile, the women’s healing and children’s theatre projects continue. The healing project, with nine women from their thirties to their eighties, had its first healing circle, and is beginning to train them to conduct healing circles. The women are excited and empowered about doing this, says Caravanista Tania Romero, and it’s an opportunity for women to connect and break the isolation in their lives by sharing their stories.

The Teatro del Niños kids, who are 6 to 10, begin intensive rehearsals this week for the performance of Beba en la Isla Nena, which will take place on Sunday, August 22. The production is intended to bring out the kids’ creativity and help them learn about the destructive effects of militarization on the environment. (Ecuador is fairly environmentally conscious; it’s been poor enough so that people don’t waste things, biodegradable plastic bags are commonplace, and one of the country’s biggest political struggles recently has been indigenous people resisting oil-company pollution in the Oriente, the eastern provinces in the Amazon watershed.)

It hasn’t been all work. On Friday, Caravanistas took an ecotour from the nearby town of Morro, riding a motorboat past the coastal mangrove swamps to watch dolphins swim in the estuary and hike on an island where hundreds of fragatas—frigate birds—nest. And on Satuday night, we went to a salsateca by the beach and danced until the cops came to enforce the 3 a.m. closing time.

We arrived in Playas, Ecuador, in the evening of Tuesday August 3rd. It’s a beach town of about 30,000 people, about an hour from Guayaquil, the biggest city on Ecuador´s coast. It’s a fishing town and resort for working-class Ecuadoreans; few foreigners go there. Away from the beach, some parts are intensely poor–cinderblock houses with ill-fitting tin roofs, skinny stray dogs and cats wandering the dirt streets, chased by groups of kids.

We’re working with a local group called the Asociación Cultural Mullo, in the back of the city’s firehouse, the Cuerpo de Bomberos. Their goal is to build an economically sustainable, politically just, and environmentally friendly Playas, and sustain local cultural traditions. We’re here for solidarity with them, with the larger goal of using the arts to feed an international political movement to achieve those ends. So we’ve started three projects: a healing group for women, a mural to be painted by local teenagers and artists, and a children’s play of Rafael Landrón’s Beba en la Isla Nena.

Friday night we marched in an Ecuadorean second line, a parade behind a brass band celebrating el Divino Niño. Later on we went to a pasillo concert by the beach–pasillo is the distinctly Ecuadorean music genre, sort of like Latino Hank Williams–sad, waltz-time songs of broken and lost love, the requinto (small, high-pitched guitar) playing leads with the dolorous soul of a blues guitar, a klezmer violinist, Coleman Hawkins on ¨Body and Soul.”

Today we met with Hugo Vazquez, a veteran of the ‘60s revolutionary movement here who later became an official in Pachacutik, a political party that grew out of the indigenous people’s movement of the ‘90s. He’s now active in Alianza PAIS, a movement that came out of the 2006 elections that brought Rafael Correa to power.

5 de agosto

Caravana Cultural por la Paz y Solidaridad por Latinoamérica

Ollin Imagination – Queens, New York, United States

EVENTO DE BIENVENIDA Y APERTURA

Video: memoria y oralidad del Cantón Playas / Cultura Chola Costeña

Lugar: Benemérito Cuerpo de Bomberos

6 de agosto

Fiestas del Divino Niño

Barrio Los Angelitos

Participación de la Red de Gestores de Playas

7 de agosto

Taller con Mujeres

Caravana Cultural por la Paz y Solidaridad por Latinoamérica

Ollin Imagination – Queens, New York, United States

Lugar: Benemérito Cuerpo de Bomberos

9 de agosto

DIA DE LA CULTURA

Mañana de Teatro Infantil:

Rafael Landron, “Beba en la Isla Nena.”

Caravana Cultural por la Paz y Solidaridad por Latinoamérica

Ollin Imagination – Queens, New York, United States

Coliseo María Mazzarelo

9h00

PREGON CULTURAL RED DE GESTORES CULTURALES

15h00 principales calles del Cantón

Participan Pescadores, artistas, gestores culturales, artesanos, servidores turísticos, ciudadanía.

NOCHE DE EXPRESIÓN ARTÍSTICA

Caravana Cultural por la Paz y Solidaridad por Latinoamérica

Ollin Imagination – Queens, New York, United States

Parque Infantil

20h00

12 de agosto

Día de la Juventud

CONCIERTO JUVENIL

Participación de Red Juvenil y de la Red de Gestores de Playas

Diagonal  a Jefatura política

20h00

15  de agosto

FIESTAS DE CANTONIZACION DE PLAYAS

I. Municipalidad de Playas

20 de agosto

Elaboración de murales

Caravana Cultural por la Paz y Solidaridad por Latinoamérica

Ollin Imagination – Queens, New York, United States

Av. Principales del Cantón

21 de agosto

FESTIVAL AFRO

Asonep

Participación de la Red de Gestores de Playas, CIMARRON, MIRADA NEGRA, CODEMUNE, ASONEP

Parque Infantil

9h00

28 de agosto

1er Encuentro Intercultural con Cholos, Montubios y Afro descendientes de la Costa

Participan:

CODEMOP, CIMARRON, MIRADA NEGRA, CODEMUNE, ASONEP, RED PLAYAS, UCOPAP, MULLO, ENGABAO, SAN ANTONIO, DATA DE VILLAMIL, ARENAL, MORRO, POSORJA, ISLA PUNA

Parque Infantil

9h00

Cultural Walk-a-thon for Playas, Ecuador

June 13, 2010

10am-4pm

Meadow Lake @ Flushing Meadow Park , Queens , NY

Our dreams, solidarity and resistance rise from the concrete to the ocean!

Come walk for solidarity with the people of Playas, Ecuador . All funds will go to support the Cultural Caravan for Peace & SolidarityThrough Latin America that will be building with local artists and activists in the beach town of Playas this August!

We’ll be meeting at the park at 10am to start walking at 11am.

We’ll be culminating with a BIG picnic and BIG art circle!

Bring your instruments, poetry, favorite dishes, and other creative creations/expressions to share!

Take the Queens bound 7 train to Shea Stadium and walk towards Meadow Lake

For more information or to register to walk, please contact Tania Romero via e-mail at tani_romero2@yahoo.com.

By registering to walk and getting sponsored by your community you will be supporting families, youth, artists, activists, healers both here and in Playas to connect, build, and learn from each other. You will also be supporting to build and strengthen a cultural movement for freedom and solidarity from here to Latin America !

A NIGHT OF CREATIVE DEVIANCE & LIBERATION…

Friday February 26th!

7pm-11pm

@ The Brecht Forum

451 West Street (between Bank and Bethune Streets), NY , NY 10014

Also….a night to celebrate the darkness of winter, and connect to our ancestral energies, our imaginations, and dreams!!!

Presenting drumming, dance, music, poetry, mask-making, face-painting/carnival make-up, card-reading….

Tamales, Empanas & Drinks for Sale!!

Auctioning art work by Tongan painter vaimoana niumeitolu & Mexican painter Anuar Rosaldo

Performances by:

Aztec Dance Circle Cetiliztli Nauhcampa

Poetry & Music by Ollin Imagination

Gabriella Callender and Erica de la Rosa from Mahina Movement

Spiritchild of Mental Notes

Freeborn from Movement in Motion

Korushite Rock Band

Bomba Yo

Percussionist Joel Chassan

$20 at the door

$15 with Carnival Attire!

(No one will be turned away!)

All funds will go to support the Cultural Caravan

for Peace & Solidarity Through Latin America

For more information, please e-mail Tania at tani_romero2@yahoo.com

-Project Sponsored by Ollin Imagination, Mahina Movement, Casa Atabex Aché & World Without Wars-

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In spite of the snow and the chilly currents, our third gathering to plan for the Cultural Caravan for Peace & Solidarity was filled with warm love and energy! Creative self-expression was the rule of the night! We were blessed with the presence of amazing community artists, amongst them Gabriella Callender from Mahina Movement and Graciella Barreto, Venezuelan poet and protest singer representing her community in Union City, NJ. We also counted with the presence of long-term community activists like German Ramirez and Julman Tolentino. In the midst songs, poetry, and stories charged with resistance messages, we gathered to further develop the v ision of the Caravan. 

It has been decided that the caravan will initiate its journey first traveling to Playas, Ecuador throughout the whole month of August of 2010. Playas is a small beach and fishing town on the southern part of the coast of Ecuador. The caravan hopes to support and build with local artists and activists in Playas, who are currently working to preserve their native art and culture as well as build their first cultural center ever! Please stay tunned for the developments of the Cultural Caravan for Peace & Solidarity Through Latin America!

For more information please contact Tania Romero at tani_romero2@yahoo.com.

Saturday December 26th

7-11pm 

@ the Brecth Forum

451 West Street (between Bank and Bethune)

DJ Oja spinning throughout the night!

Performances by:
Graciela Barreto, Venezuelan Poet and Protest Singer
Gabriella Callender from Mahina Movement
Red Nex Poetry Squad
Michelle Clausell
Dahlia, Pop-rock singer
and many more….

Auctions, bar, food and art for sale!

Also celebrating the birthdays of two amazing community radical artists-Rafel Landrón, from Ollin Imagination, and Gabriella Callender, from Mahina Movment!

Donation: $15-$20
(all positive peeps welcome if cash flow is low!).

All proceeds will go towards funding a Cultural Caravan for Peace & Solidarity traveling though Latin America next year!

Bring all your gente along!!!

For more information, please contact:
Tania Romero at tani_romero2@yahoo.com

Event sponsored by Ollin Imagination, Mahina Movement, Casa Atabex Ache
www.ollinimagination.blogspot.com 

 www.mahinamovement.org

www.casaatabexache.org