[van-announce] March 4th, 7pm - The Culture/s of Movement Building - Performance & Community Conversation @ Rhizome - FREE

[mia amir]

The Culture/s of Movement Building
March 4, 7:00 – 11:00
Rhizome Café, 317 East Broadway, Vancouver, Unceded Coast Salish Territories
Co-hosted by Streams of Justice
All-ages welcome! FREE! Childcare provided.

The Culture/s of Movement Building will be an evening of incredible
performance including the screening of an excerpt of Strength, Survival,
Sisterhood: Power of Women in the DTES as well as critical community
conversations exploring both the role of creativity and culture in our
organizing, and what contribution artists can make to movement.

Speakers/Artists include:

*Joan Morelli and Priscillia May of the Downtown Eastside Power of Women
Group;

*Hari Malagayo Alluri of the Press Release Collective; and

*Omari Newton, Urban Ink Resident Artist

The evening will close with performances by up-and-coming youth hip-hop
artists Kuyas United in Solidarity and others!!!

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Event Speakers/Artist Bios

Joan Morelli has resided in Canada for over thirty years and has raised her
children on limited wages. She has been a tireless activist, actor, and
writer in the Downtown Eastside for approximately two decades.

Priscillia May from Witsuwit’en Territory. She is a single parent of one
child and is an activist, artist, and volunteer in the Downtown Eastside.

The DowntownEastside Power of Women Group is a group of women from all walks
of life who are either on social assistance, working poor, or homeless; but
we are all living in extreme poverty. Our aim is to empower ourselves
through our experiences and to raise awareness from our own perspectives
about the social issues affecting the neighbourhood.

Hari Malagayo Alluri immigrated with family to South Van, Coast Salish
Territories at the age of 12. He works with grassroots groups, facilitates
anti-oppressive media arts empowerment programs for youth, and collaborates
on creative work based in community and movement.

Press Release is a collective of movement poets. We first  came together out
of a shared desire to bare witness to various forms of community resistance
and building, initially producing a free zine and participating in
opposition and critique of the Olympics on Unceded Coast Salish Territories.
Mostly women and people of colour, the group continues to ask each other and
our communities how to generate poetry, dialogue and vision without being
co-opted by processes of cultural gentrification.


Omari Newton a Montreal-born professional actor whose work can be seen on
television, film and stage. His stage work in Québec has earned him a number
of favorable reviews and awards. Some career highlights include a best
supporting actor nomination for his work in the Centaur Theatre’s production
of Joe Penhal’s *Blue Orange* (soirée des masques). Now a resident of
Vancouver, Omari is the writer of The Lamentable Tragedy Sal Capone, a hip-hop
theatrical powerhouse that deals with the complex relationship between
culturally minoritized youth and the police.

The Kuyas United in Solidarity is a hip-hop duo with roots from the
Philippines and Cuba. Sol Diana and David Dennis are young emcees that rap
on issues of injustice, race and community a from a working class
perspective.