The Voice of Dissent
“I am not here to entertain you; I am here to disturb you. Those who are here for entertainment, I request them, please go.” It’s unusual, if not rare, for a live performer to begin by saying that to the audience. The compact of patronage that’s implicit is what Sambhaji Bhagat smashes right at the onset of his performance. For him, this art is a quest for the truth that will liberate the people he represents.
❗❗PRIDE REQUIRES ACTION❗❗
Celebrating Pride?
What better way to uplift LGBTQ people’s lives than by joining our campaign to #EndTransDetention?
Honor the legacy of Pride by taking action until all of us are free.
Sign here & share with 3 friends:
https://www.endtransdetentions.org/petition
As the world watches Cairo burn, I can’t help but think that the flames of protest engulfing Egypt were sparked by Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian street vendor who set himself on fire on December 17 after police confiscated his vegetable cart. The desperation that he expressed through his act of self-immolation caught on, literally, and spread across the country, into Algeria, and now to Egypt.
Born as a side project Las hijas de Violencia approaches the subject of street harassment and gender based violence through performance art, punk and video that is addressing socially legitimized male violence. "As actresses and as women we feel directly affected and consider it urgent to address the real cause of the problem: its ideological nature.
My skin is black,” the first woman’s story begins, “my arms are long.” And, to a slow and steady beat, “my hair is woolly, my back is strong.” Singing in a club in Holland, in 1965, Nina Simone introduced a song she had written about what she called “four Negro women” to a young, homogeneously white, and transfixed crowd.
This month’s blast of arctic air may have roused climate-change skeptics. But the composer Laura Kaminsky and the painter Rebecca Allan were unfazed. Holed up in their apartment in Riverdale in the Bronx on one of the coldest days in decades, these longtime artist-activists were doing what came naturally: fighting the planet’s warming.
Marian Anderson, the legendary African American contralto, sang at the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday in 1939 after she was refused a performance at Washington’s Constitution Hall by the Daughters of the American Revolution because she was black. Over 75,000 people attended the performance, which was broadcast live on the radio and arranged in part by First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt with the support of her husband, President Franklin D.
Demonstrators aligned with the Occupy Wall Street movement sang their way into handcuffs during a Bronx foreclosure auction Monday to protest the housing crisis that continues to plague the borough.
They serenaded a courtroom of real estate investors with the lyrics, "Y'all are speculating off people's pain. With all due respect, you should be ashamed."
In May 2010, as oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster continued to spread in the Gulf of Mexico, growing outrage from residents in New Orleans at the response by government agents and corporate executives, opened up new horizons of political possibility.
IMAPCT are youth activists who view the creative arts and leadership training as a way to develop ourselves and change the world in a positive way. They believe that they must be the message that bring through hardwork, focus, discipline, unity and the principles of S.O.S. safe space, outstanding effort and service to their family friends and community.
Jameela Jamil has opened up about how she’s “not here to be liked” in a frank new interview with Meghan Markle.
In the latest episode of Archetypes, Meghan’s Spotify podcast, the Duchess speaks with both Jamil and Shohreh Aghdashloo about the “stereotypes and judgements women face in the world of activism”.