Thursday, March 26, 2009

Creative Drag & Gender Performance Workshop with Sheesha Yadil and Prince Deep

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Saturday, April 5, 2009
1 - 5pm
Rm 2011, Sherbourne Health Centre
(333 Sherbourne Street)
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THIS WORKSHOP IS FREE AND ONLY OPEN TO INDIGENOUS INDIVIDUALS AND PEOPLE OF COLOUR.

Ever wanted to dress up and perform on stage? Interested in exploring with your gender identity? This workshop will introduce you to the art of drag outside of the more mainstream depictions of drag you may see on your popular TV or at a Club. Workshop artists Prince Deep and Sheesha Yadil will be bringing in a variety of alternative gender performance tools than the typical drag queen lip-sync. The purpose of this workshop is to provide resources to people of colour and Indigenous folks who have been interested in gender performance but may not know where to start. In this queer and trans-positive space, we will go through the technical aspect of preparing and getting ready: from covering the clothes and materials drag artists use for getting dressed to the methods of make-up and facial hair. Participants will also have to opportunity to play with their creative side as we try out different styles of presentation on stage. We will also get a chance to view some video clips on the different genres of gender performance and have a discussion on some issues that can emerge from drag shows, namely, cultural appropriation and passing. At the end of the workshop, we hope participants will feel more comfortable with the style of gender performance they wish to explore and we will end with ideas of spaces and events where that can happen.

Sherbourne Health Centre is a fully accessible location.

Registration is required. Interested participants are asked to email their name to ywc@riseup.net to register.

Any questions, inquiries and/or concerns please contact Cristina at 416 736 2100 ex. 33484 or at ywc@riseup.net.

TTC tokens will be available for participants, and refreshments and a light lunch will be provided.

This workshop is brought to you by Centre for Women and Trans People at York and OPIRG York
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About the Facilitators:/

Prince Deep is a budding young artist and uses gender art on stage to express and share emotions, identity, creativity and personal stories. Prince Deep often teams up with other drag artists to do group numbers on stage using dance, acting, and culture.

Sheesha has been performing since childhood and has years of experience on a number of stages in Toronto, Halifax and Peterborough. Realizing her style is different from other types of drag and gender performers, she expresses even more variety in her art, inspired by a lifetime of music, dance and Bollywood.


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Amardeep Kaur
Volunteer Coordinator
OPIRG York

Rm. 449, The Student Centre
4700 Keele St. York University

Phone: 416-736-5724
amardeep@opirgyork.ca
www.opirgyork.ca

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

TUNA ANNUAL TRADITIONAL POW WOW

EVERYONE WELCOME!
GIVE AWAY CEREMONY HONOURING RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL SURVIVORS!!!

Saturday, March 28, 2009 at 11:00
Sunday, March 29, 2009 at 9:00
Peterborough Armoury
220 Murray St.

Admission: $5.00 adults
$3.00 elders 50+ & youth under 12

Vending $30.00 a booth or $20.00 plus donation for give away

TWO CONTEST SPECIALS!!
WOMENS JINGLE AND MENS GRASS!!
WINNER TAKES ALL!!

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Beats 4 Justice!

Decolonization and Anti-Racism Coalition (DARC) presents:
Beats 4 Justice!
Sadleir House Dinning Hall
9:00pm-2:00am
$5 unwaged, $10 waged, or PWYC

Join us for great music and performances. All proceeds go to DARC and an No Olympics on Stolen Native Land organizing. Amazing door prizes available!

This event is in conjunction with "Bridging Communities of Resistance: Solidarity in Anti-Racist, Anti-Colonial Struggles" forum.

Performers include: LAL, Sean Conway, Dakus of Disco Duniya, Stolen from Africa and more...

B4J! History:
Beats 4 Justice! started in 2005 by a Trent professor and a local spoken word artist, Beats for Justice! seeks to raise awareness around issues related to borders, immigration, and Indigenous rights. Each event has raised over $1000 to support organizations who work toward human rights in these areas.

Bridging Communities of Resistance: Solidarity in Anti-Racist, Anti-Colonial Struggles

Peterborough Public Library - Auditorium
10am - 6pm

A day-long forum that aims to address issues of Indigenous people and people of colour in political organizing, both within academia and within grassroots movements. The forum will feature a plenary session around the racialization of poverty, and several workshops ranging from a DARC Resistance workshop on solidarity between Indigenous peoples and people of colour to women of colour involved in punk scenes. We hope this forum will provide a space (physical and discursive) for Indigenous people and people of colour to explore strategies for challenging white normativity/supremacy within organizing as well as to foster new activist communities built on similar experiences with racism.

This forum is being co-organized by the Decolonizing Anti-Racism Coalition (DARC) and the Peterborough Coalition Against Poverty (PCAP).

Schedule Date: Saturday March 21, 2009 (International Day for the Elimination of Racism)

10:00 am: Welcome and Introductions (coffee and tea will be provided)11:00-12:00 pm: Presentation of TCCBE project: "Canadian Municipalities Against Racism and Discrimination (CMARD)" and "Spaces of Racism II"
Discussion on racism in Peterborough and the CMARD initiative.
Speakers: Andres Salazar, Muna Ali and Manal Elawar

12:00-1:00 pm: Workshop"Challenging Invisibilized Whiteness: Organizing within Predominantly White Settings" (closed; hosted by DARC)
This workshop will be a space to address the experience of organizing within predominantly white settings (specifically at Trent and within Peterborough) and to come up with strategies for dealing with invisibilized whiteness in these setting. As a group, we will discuss our experiences with activism and academia as Indigenous people and people of colour working within spaces where we might be a minority. How can we ensure accountability on the part of groups we organize with to address issues of invisibilized whiteness and racism? How can we offer substantial and productive challenges to invisibilized whiteness? How can we approach these issues without exhausting ourselves or bearing the burden of responsibility?
This will be a closed workshop for Indigenous people and people of colour.
Facilitators: Teresa Cheng and Kam Husbands

12:00 – 1:00 pm: Workshop: “Challenging Invisibilized Whiteness: Organizing within Predominantly White Settings”
(open; hosted by the Trent Women’s Centre)
This will be an open workshop for participants to discuss similar issues of accountability, invisibilized whiteness, and racism within organizing. The Trent Women’s Centre will share some past and present experiences of dealing with these issues within their organization and potential strategies for ensuring a truly anti-racist, anti-oppressive framework.
Facilitators: Meghan Ritchie and Zahra Murad

1:00 - 1:45pm: Lunch
Lunch will be catered by organizers from DARC and PCAP as well as by donations from local organizations. We will also have snacks throughout the day, catered by local businesses.

1:45 – 2:45: Workshop'Cultural Appropriation/Cultural Theft"
In this workshop the group will arrive at working definitions for 'Cultural appropriation"/ 'cultural theft' generated from discussion, the participants own experiences and the critical race theory I will present as a facilitator. We will watch videos, listen to songs and look at visual art and fashion examples to build on our understanding of these two terms. We will dicuss what cultural appropriation means in the context of colonization, slavery, global racism, power and privilege. We will discuss the importance of self representation as marginalized people who generally have less power to represent ourselves in ways that we decide upon ourselves or as communities. We will discuss the damage that can be done through cultural theft, stereotyping. We will then look at cultural theft through looking at histories of American Pop music and the appropriation of queer, trans and Black music and dance. We will look at appropriation in the context of European racism and how appropriation relates to privilege, money, fame and power. Finally we will look at the notion of appropriation and how it informs our practices as community organizers - what does appropriations of tactics, movements and voices look like? What are the differences between appropriation and solidarity? What are differences between appropriation and reclamation? Emphasis will be put on how cultural theft impacts LGBTTT2IQQ people and racialized people and how to use these concepts to shape responsible art and organizing practices. We will interrogate our own practices as community organizers and activists and learn tactics for how to become anti racist ally.
Speaker: Leah Newbold

2:45-3:00 Break

3:00-5:00: Panel Discussion"(e)RACEing Poverty: Developing Anti-Racist Actions and Strategies to Eliminate Poverty"
The goal of this panel is to bring together activists and community based organizations to discuss racialized poverty. Presenters will be from a broad base and will include members from the New Canadians Centre, PCAP, DARC, OCAP, and No One Is Illegal. The panel will also serve as an action-oriented event to develop strategies and actions to eliminate poverty with an emphasis on issues of racialization, colonization and imperialism.

5:00-6:00 pm: Workshop"DARC Resistance: Bridging Anti-Racist and Anti-Colonial Struggles" (closed)
This informal workshop is for people of colour and Indigenous peoples who want to learn more about the ongoing colonization of Turtle Island and how to support each other in Anti-Racist and Anti-Colonial organizing. Through this workshop, people of colour and Indigenous peoples will unmap their complex relationships by sharing experiences and thinking through the following topics: How can people of colour be effective allies and work in solidarity with Indigenous peoples and movements without reproducing colonialism? What is the relationship between Indigenous peoples and people of colour as colonized peoples?
Facilitators: DARC members

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9:30 pm-2:00 am: Beats 4 Justice!
A Fundraiser for DARC and No Olympics on Stolen Native Land Organizing
We will be having a music/performance/spoken word night at the Sadleir House Dinning Hall to raise money for DARC and an No Olympics on Stolen Native Land organizing.

Performers: LAL, Sean Conway, Dakus of Disco Duniya and Stolen from Africa

Check out: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=57501774627#/event.php?eid=57312373219&ref=mf

For more information, contact: darcpeterborough@riseup.net or pcap@riseup.net