Body Ecology debuts FREEBIRTH at Legendary WOW Cafe Theatre.....
Manhattan, New York- 7pm, March 9th and 10th, Body Ecology Performance Ensemble will perform RingShout for Reproductive Justice: Freebirth. Tickets are 10 dollars pre-sale and 15 dollars the nights of the show. The performance takes place at WOW Cafe Theatre 59-61 East 4th Street, 4th Floor.
Freebirth explores Black women’s power to liberate our bodies, lives and reproductive choices.
After a billboard surfaced in SoHo proclaimed, "the most dangerous place for a black child is in the womb," Body Ecology launched a visionary RingShout for Reproductive Justice campaign with radical performance as a major tool for sustained dialogue about reproductive freedom for Black women.
The third performance confronting this issue, FREEBIRTH is an interactive, multi-media performance exploring Black women's power to liberate our bodies, lives and reproductive choices.
RS4RJ is dedicated to utilizing integrated cultural arts-based processes to explore the personal, political, spiritual, creative, economic and environmental factors impacting the reproductive health of black girls and women.
A powerful cultural practice among Black people, the ring shout has long been a tool for praise, worship, healing and transformation.
Ebony Golden, artistic director says, “Freebirth is an example of how performance can be a tool for individual and community transformation. It is a way for Body Ecology Performance Ensemble to use the arts to have a frank and open conversation about Black women’s liberation. We use theatre because we believe it is a powerful way to practice our vision for a bold new world. Our work is out of bounds. It’s in your face, it’s raw and it’s real.” Freebirth is an interactive expression of our hopes, needs and demands for reproductive justice.
Sydette Harry, associate artist says, “We are going to the root of what reproductive justice means for Black Women. We are challenging ourselves and our audiences to reexamine the structures, policies and resources Black women must negotiate to live fully actualized lives. Our work is about vision, healing, transformation and honoring ALL of our possibilities, connections and contradictions.”
About Body Ecology
Body Ecology Performance Ensemble honors the creative, spiritual, scholarly and radical lived experiences of women of the African diaspora. Body Ecology is a project of Betty’s Daughter Arts Collaborative.
Body Ecology’s current associate artists include Taja Lindley, Sydette Harry, Jessica Valoris, Audrey Hailes, Heather Lee, Kelly Thomas (associate artistic director) and Ebony Golden (artistic director).
Associate Artists
Taja Lindley is a young queer woman of color, daughter of a single mother and the eldest of three sisters. She is acutely aware of the challenges facing women today and is excited about transcending these challenges with art, critical thinking, healing and entrepreneurship. As a self-taught mixed-media artist, performer, full-spectrum doula and activist, Taja is inspiring and aspiring wellness, creativity and reproductive justice. She founded Colored Girls Hustle which uses art, writing and activism to honor the creations, adorn the bodies and affirm the strengths of women and girls of color.
Sydette Harry is a writer, singer, blogger, problem, NYC-born by way of the Guyana. Writing as Blackamazon she has started boycotts, wished some @$) would but she is most proud of making her fellow beautiful beautiful girls of every color feel not alone and thankful they have done the same for her by SPEAKing! She continues to blog at Having Read The Fine Print (guyaneseterror.blogspot.com/) theorize heavily, write the first play of Salt&Rice Productions, get a PHD as soon she gets a topic, and try to fall in love a little bit more every day.
Jessica Valoris is a born doodler, poet, and self-experimenting visual and performing artist. Armed with a passion for words, music, and movement, Jessica embraces art as a way to explore our ancestral, cultural, and personal stories. A proud Black woman of Jewish heritage, Jessica is a community activist and educator, who co-founded Roots Rising and Chainless Voices, two organizations that combine youth and community empowerment with performing arts and entrepreneurship. She continues to collaborate with various individuals and organizations to build with others around creative, empowering and healing endeavors. Zebra Wings.
Audrey Hailes is a native of Washington DC and a graduate of NYU's Experimental Theatre Wing. She is a dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and theatre-maker.She is more glad than anyhting to finally be apart of a performance group as deep and necessary as Body Ecology and thanks her friends and family for keeping her on a path of love and righteousness.
Heather Lee has been dancing and performing since she was a little girl. She specializes in Modern, Hip-hop and African Dance with some experiance in salsa and bellydance. Heather has studied modern, contemporary and African Dance at the world renowned American Dance Festival in 2006, 2008 and 2009 and returned as a performer with the African American Dance Ensemble in 2010. Heather has been a principle dancer with Bellan Dance Theatre for 3 years, and was recently chosen for a Mark Dendy site specific piece for the re-opening of the North Carolina Museum of art in Raleigh.
Artistic Director Team
Kelly Thomas
Consistently redefining what it means to be a Jersey Girl, director, educator, performer and writer. Kelly has studied directing and acting at New York Universitys Tisch School of the Arts, and is currently completing her Bachelors degree in Educational Theatre at NYUs Steinhardt School with a minor in Africana Studies. As a citizen*artist and student of the global classroom, Kelly's studies in theatre for liberation, the Black Atlantic, education policy, feminist theory, holistic health and hip-hop have taken her around the US and across the continents to the most nontraditional of settings.
Ebony Noelle Golden
Hailing from Houston, TX, Ebony Noelle Golden is a cultural worker, conceptual performance artist, Cave Canem Fellow, and creative director of Bettys Daughter Arts Collaborative, LLC. Ebony is the founder of Body Ecology and Creative Director of Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative. Betty's Daughter Arts Collaborative is a cultural arts direct action group that inspires, enlivens, and incites justice and transformation of individuals and communities through creativity, cultural arts and radical expressiveness. As creative director, Ebony leads and supports progressive change and artistic projects translocally. Ebony's work spans creative, academic, community organizing spheres and is rooted in a transformative praxis she developed called Cultural Arts Direct Action. Ebony earned degrees in Literature, Performance Studies, Fine Arts-Poetry from Texas A & M University, American University and New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.
Co-Producers
A proud member of WOW Cafe Theater collective, Maria Bauman is the founder of MBDance, creating duets & small group dances from a sense of physical & emotional power, a desire for equity, and a fascination with intimacy & relationship. She is the recipient of the 2009-10 Harlem Stage Fund for New Work and of a 2010-11 DTW Studio Series. In addition to her MBDance choreographic and performance work, Bauman is now Urban Bush Women's Director of Education and Community Engagement. www.mbdance.org.
WOW Café Theater is a women's and transgender folks theater collective in NYC's East Village, which promotes the empowerment of women and transgender folks through the performing arts. Historically, WOW has been a majority lesbian woman's space. WOW welcomes the full participation of all women and transgender folks in solidarity with women. WOW especially welcomes women and transgender folks of color, and women and transgender folks who identify as lesbians, bisexual and queer. We provide a working theater space to our members & the technical support to create and produce works, regardless of economic status. www.wowcafe.org
How You Can Support FREEBIRTH
Donate 200.00 to 20 young women, 16-24 years old, who want t see the show, but can't pay for it.
Tweet, Facebook, Tumbl about the show.
Donate a fabulous gift to our co-producer, Maria Bauman
