Insight Arts

Arts & Crafts Sale! - Saturday, March 20

Insight Arts — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 18:06:00 GMT

Women OutLoud is BACK!!! - Friday, February 26

Insight Arts — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 05:22:00 GMT

Insight Arts' Women OutLoud! has moved. Join us on Friday, February 26 at 7 PM for Women OutLoud!, an open mic for women and women-identified writers / poets / performers, at Deta's Café (7555 North Ridge Blvd, parking on Ridge Ave.) featuring sarwat rumi.

Women OutLoud! is a venue where women can spit fiery words in a nurturing space, and men are welcome to applaud and cheer.

sarwat rumi is a Bengali American Muslim who works toward social justice as a vigilante poet and teaching artist. sarwat is a member of Mango Tribe, the vocalist for Serpent Feline, and a co-founder of akabaka productions, which strives to create safe space and build community for queer and questioning muslims and people of color. sarwat is a recipient of Community Renewal Society's 2009 35 Under 35 award for innovative leadership in the social justice movement. sarwat's poetry can be found in the anthology Voices of Resistance: Muslim Women on War, Faith, and Sexuality (Seal Press, 2006), and her two chapbooks: the inverted sun and WAR.

Come and share your words, and / or just take a break from the week's work woes and listen to fabulous women writers. Open mic starts at 7 PM and will be followed by the featured writer (sarwat rumi). $5 suggested donation, $3 for open-mic performers.

Tara Betts (Interview by Aislinn Pulley)

Insight Arts — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:41:00 GMT

Interview by Aislinn Pulley
02-08-2010

World renown poet, author, and educator, Tara Betts, released her first collection of poems, "Arc & Hue" by the Willow Books imprint of Aquarius Press, September of 2009. Tara's debut collection of poetry explores themes of love,gender, identity, the body, culture and joy. While exploring issues of domestic violence, memory, Jena 6, music and birth, Tara leads the reader on a journey absorbing imagery of literary lyricism replete with wit, reflection, sensation and rhythm.

I first met Tara while a member of the youth performance ensemble Edges, when she was interviewing the group for a college radio show. In the tradition of serendipitous happenstance, I now my find myself holding a literary microphone interviewing her.

I first would like to ask you to talk about your relationship/history with Insight Arts.
I started volunteering with IA in the mid-1990s, maybe ’94-96, somewhere in that time-frame when I was still in undergrad at Loyola University, I helped outwith a few events and recorded and edited footage for a radio show pilot featuring Rogers Park youth, especially from IA. This is how I met Craig, Anita Alcantara, Kim, Anita Dacanay, Nicole Garneau, and you, Aislinn Pulley! I also got to know karen g. williams and Davida Ingram better by working with these bold, intelligent women.

In addition to Insight Arts, I was very active in writing for The Loyola Phoenix. I was at my part-time library job, where I was reading random books and The Chronicle of Higher Education, an academic journal directed more toward faculty and staff than undergraduates. I was very intrigued with what we could do as tuition-paying students and community-minded young adults to shape university and public policy around a number of issues. One of the items that I noticed in The Chronicle mentioned that 501c3 organizations were eligible to hire college students who received work-study as part of their financial aid.IA is a 501c3 organization, so I wrote an editorial to urge students and the university to take advantage of this policy, and many students did. A few ended up at IA.

Craig and other people at Insight Arts were very encouraging, and I got to collaborate with events such as the Annual Women’s Performance Jam. I should have some flyers still from these various events. When I still lived in Chicago, I felt honored to share in the running and curating an all-women’s open mic and performance space called Women Out Loud at various venues in Wicker Park. The series ended in 2004. In 2008, Lani Montreal, one of the former Women Out Loud features who is on staff at IA, wrote to me and asked me and the other founders of the series if they could reprise the concept of the show, which was to offer a consistent paid feature in the Chicago area for women writers and performers.In 2009, I featured at Women Out Loud where I read from my book Arc &Hue.

How did you first discover your passion for writing?
I think my passion is derived from me feeling like writing is the one thing I feel I’m supposed to do, but the spark that started it was reading and wanting to find a place for the story of people that I knew or that I felt were missing from the stories that I was taught and the stories that are forced upon me and lots of other people. I started writing around the age of 12 because of this.

Please explain what you believe are the things necessary to sustain one's creative process.
To sustain one’s creative process, you have to keep feeding your mind. Not just by being healthy through nutrition and physical exercise, but by reading, looking at art, and gathering information. You have to learn about the craft, devices, and history of your art form to learn what’s been done before and what you want to do differently. I’ve often told people, how can you write a sentence when you haven't read one? How can you play saxophone if you don’t listen to Coltrane? How can you paint if you haven’t studied Van Gogh or Georgia O’Keefe?

What are some key elements essential to encourage young people's literary creativity?
I’ve tried to be a good listener and understand where my students are or have been. I tap a variety of influences and share parts of my own process. Sometimes, I have them sketch out their ideas, listen to music, or exchange stories in our sessions together. I share writing that offer models of their experiences or qualities that they’d like to use in their own writing, but I do try to get them to see writing as a practice and a discipline, even if you learn to love it, like playing basketball, playing piano, or rhyming in cipher. Practice and learning will make you better at any art. Pedagogy-wise, I’ve drawn a lot of inspiration from Paolo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed and June Jordan’s Poetry For the People: A Revolutionary Blueprint. In short, what you teach doesn’t mean much if people cannot talk about their experiences and their needs. If they can use a metaphor or ethos, logos, and pathos to make their argument,then it helps them make better writing and address whatever is urgent or pertinent in their lives.

What barriers exist that you find challenge some of the youth you have worked with in developing their creative voice?
I’ve found often that I find myself “unteaching” what other people have taught as the way to learn. Part of this is a result of standardized testing that limits strategies that deviate from test preparation. I’ve been in classrooms where college students don’t even know how to speak to each other because they are trying to find the “right answer” for a creative writing assignment. On the other hand, there is a lot of self-criticism and self-censoring. People say, “I can’t write.” or I can’t write poetry.” Inevitably, these kinds of statement unravel into “My teacher said” or “My mom said” or someone else telling them it wasn’t important or just something they couldn’t do. I try to “unteach” that censoring, offer encouragement and constructive criticism, and point out the victories, even if they’re small ones. So many people rarely get that.

How important is study in your creative process?
I am always reading and looking at other writers. I try to different methods of writing, read about all kinds of topics, talk to different circles of people, watching movies, listening to music, travel. All of this activity feeds the writing. I’m also trying to do things that have nothing to do with writing, like experiment with cooking, going back to yoga. I think if you keep learning throughout your entire life, you can keep doing other things. You have to keep your mind active. Study is extremely important,whether you earn a degree for it or not. I went to college and graduate school,but those were not the only places where I learned important lessons.

What is your relationship with social justice?
I’ve been engaged with a number of issues that relate directly to issues of social justice,including reproductive rights, countering violence against women, literacy, the prison industrial complex, and cases of political prisoners like Mumia AbuJamal, Fred Hampton Jr. and Sundiata Acoli. When I lived in Chicago, I was involved with the campaign for increasing the number of jobs for youth in summer job programs. At that point, young people made up the majority of the population in Chicago. For me, I’ve felt that it’s important that people aren’t mistreated and they have ways to get their basic needs met. There’s so much wealth here, and it is benefiting an increasingly smaller number of people. I think I’ve always had an issue with bullies, in one form or another.

With the publication of your first book, and subsequent tour, what are some of the most impressive experiences and lessons you have had thus far?
Since Arc &Hue was released in September 2009, I have done about 35 readings in 10 cities. The most important lesson I’ve learned from this whole experience was not expecting my publisher to put the book in people’s hands. Although I am happy with my press, and I’m proud that my work is on a press that’s giving writers of color another outlet, I knew that they didn’t know my audience the way I did, so I have been very hands-on in terms of cover design, event organizing, promotion pieces like postcards, radio spots,and other details that get the book out into the world. It has been a lot of work to coordinate the travel and still teach, but it is doable, especially if it’s planned out in phases, like “This is the month I focus on contacting people and updating my website. Next month, I focus on updating the mailing list, until you complete your tasks before the deadline of your book being printed and available for sale. It’s not romantic, but I do really believe in being self-sufficient when artists still don’t earn a truly livable wage from their art.

What artists/theorists/revolutionaries/writers have influenced you and why?
Toni Cade Bambara has been a big influence on my thinking in recent years. I keep going back to her book of essays Deep Sightings and Rescue Missions for motivation, insight, and clarity. Her fiction is excellent too. Most people who know me know I’ve drawn a lot of inspiration from Patricia Smith, Lucille Clifton, Pablo Neruda, Marilyn Nelson, Anne Waldman and many others. Assata Shakur, Angela Davis, Yuri Kochiyama, the entire INCITE movement, all of this activity has inspired me in terms of pairing art with critical thinking and direct action. Just because I know what the word “hegemony” means does not mean that I don’t know people need to be able keep their lights on, how to read a bill, or stay safe and healthy. In terms of theorists and literary criticism, I’ve been meaning to read Gayatri Spivak, Edward Said, Michel Foucault, Henry Louis Gates, Houston Baker, Hazel Carby, Patricia Hill-Collins, and Paul Gilroy. I’ve read bell hooks, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Augusto Boal, Paulo Friere, and Helene Cixous. These are all vague names to most people. I find myself having a longer list of things to read than those that I have read. I want to keep reading and finding new influences, not just for enjoyment or knowledge or teaching material, but to connect these thinkers and creators in an expanding web of history, literature and politics.

Please create a quick poem with the following words: youth, insight, praxis, class, liberation.

A Sense of Purpose
for Insight Arts

Gauge the mint of youth
free from price tags. Reach
into experience stacking
tablets of history,ancient
and electronic. Find books

that have been burned
muddied by crushing boot
or left in neglected corners.
Unearth the insight to build
undiffused light linking new

solutions that shun puzzles
of well-placed greed. Class
could be the place where
the choruses of plants rise,
where numbers and words

translate into food and air,
unlike the red F,detention,
suspension, just enough
to avoid buzzing cell doors,
or enough to be behind them.

When crushed coils of ringing
epithets spiked with thorns
are still too faraway, praxis
will begin in people’s hands
with no fumes from dreams.

Patch against holes seeping
cold into shoulders. There is
a need for firm ribs unfolding
a new umbrella, a dry shelter
arching to spell out liberation

To discovermore about Tara Betts, please visit her website. You may purchase a copy of "Arc & Hue" by visiting Amazon as well as Willow Books.

Every Drop Counts - Saturday, January 31

Insight Arts — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 03:02:00 GMT

Every Drop Counts is a grassroots organization assembled recently in response to the devastating earthquake in Haiti. Please forward, print and distribute or post the attached flyer. The concert will be held at Reggie's Rock Club, Sunday, January 31, 2010 we will be looking to partner with water companies who are willing to match us barrel for barrel, and successfully deliver water to Haiti.

Every Drop Counts Benefit Concert, will include performances by:

Fred Hampton Jr., Jean Grae, Dead Prez, Rhyme Fest, BBU, FM Supreme, Mic Terror, Mikkey Halsted, He Say She Say, The Cool Kids and surprise guest.

All proceeds from ticket and merchandise sales will go directly towards supplying the people of Haiti with bottled water.

Every Drop Counts Benefit Concert was spearheaded by Aja Monet [poet, performer, and youth activist] and directly involved with online magazines and websites, such as StopBeingFamous.com, Fake Shore DR, Ruby Hornet, not to mention the non for profit organization, Insight Arts. Media outlets promoting and covering the event include: WGN Radio, Red Eye Chicago, and Metro Mix.

Words, Dreams, Inspirations - Thursday, January 21

Insight Arts — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 00:22:00 GMT

Insight Arts invites the Chicago community to a specialexhibition party for “Words, Dreams, Inspirations” on Thursday, January 21 atthe Center for New Possibilities at 6 PM. This is a free event.

“Words, Dreams, Inspirations” will include artwork createdby participants in the Adult Senior Program. Artists from Trilogy and Interfaith Refugee ImmigrationMinistries will be included in the exhibition. The Center for New Possibilities, a storefront gallery spacecoordinated by Insight Arts, is located on 1505 West Morse Avenue, one blockwest of the Morse Red Line in Rogers Park.

Trilogy is a private, not-for-profit community behavioralhealth agency whose mission is to serve people with serious mentalillnesses. Trilogy has providedservices in the Rogers Park and Evanston communities since 1971. Interfaith Refugee and ImmigrationMinistries creates opportunities for refugees fleeing war, terror andpersecution to build new lives of safety, dignity, and self-reliance.

The Insight Arts’ Adult Senior Program offers art classesopen to artists of all levels. Artworkshops are offered Thursdays and Saturdays.

Thursdays, 1 to 4 PM (Art Class)
Thursdays, 6 to 8 PM (Evening Art Class) **NEW!**
Saturdays, 1 to 4 PM (Beading Group)

Materials are provided; however,participants are encouraged to bring old jewelry, unused or from thrift stores,for the beading class. Recycledmaterials are used to expand on what the Adult Senior Art Program is able topurchase, or get donated.

Come out and learn more about the work that Insight Arts isdoing and meet the artists! As always, donations are appreciated.

Third Annual WinterFest - Saturday, December 12

Insight Arts — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 20:05:00 GMT

Insight Arts invites the community to its Third Annual WinterFest on Saturday, December 12 from 12 to 6 PM at the CENTER FOR NEW POSSIBILITIES. This is a FREE family event featuring performances, childrens' activities, live music, raffles and a panel discussion. All ages welcomed.

The Living Newspaper will present a special youth-produced performance. The show will be accomplished by participating Insight Arts youth Fisayo Adepegba, Kitanya Robertson, Romollo Miller, Brianna Redding, Kyle Thomas, Tyrone Moore, Mahogany Murphy, Yasmine Murphy, and Angelike Sauveur.

WinterFest 2008, Children prepare to present their Puppet Performance

Other performances will include Lani T. Montreal, Gospel Recovery Jubilee, Burundian Choir, and Callum Plew.

Childrens' Activities will begin at 1:30 PM and will go on throughout the day. Raffle items include Insight Arts merchandise, original artwork, and original jewelry.

WinterFest 2008, Social Justice Snowflake Activity

TheCENTER FOR NEW POSSIBILITIES, located at 1505 W Morse Avenue, is aspace coordinated by Insight Arts , a contemporary arts organizationdedicated to increasing access to cultural work that supportsprogressive social change. With a unique organizational model InsightArt's is able to engage in community based, regional and nationalwork. Donations are appreciated.

For more information call (773) 338 5933.

Insight Arts Needs Your Financial Support - TODAY!

Insight Arts — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:16:00 GMT

Dear Friends,

2009 marks the eighteenth year that Insight Arts has been incorporated as a non-profit organization in the state of Illinois. Perhaps it is fitting that Insight Arts is moving “out of the house” during the fall of this anniversary year. As many of you know Insight Arts was formed primarily by young people aged 15-22 in 1991. Our organization was only able to begin and survive because of the generous support of The United Church or Rogers Park; a progressive Methodist church located on the north side of Chicago. We have laughed, cried, worked and struggled with this congregation for eighteen years. We will always be grateful for the support this congregation gave to Insight Arts. We know that many former and current members of the congregation continue to embrace our values and support our important work. As, I sit here writing this letter with moving boxes stacked around a now bare office, I think of all the love and support that has made Insight Arts into such a vibrant and culturally diverse organization. However, and here I break the “cardinal rule” of ask letter writing by honestly telling you that, I am very afraid. Insight Arts does not have the financial resources to cover the costs of this sudden forced move. We must now pay for the transfer of our communication systems and make changes in all our printed and online materials. Fortunately, we have a nice office space in the neighborhood that we have been using as an archive that we were able to convert into our new administrative office. This, however, has forced us to temporarily displace our archives into commercial storage. We are currently negotiating with a number of spaces throughout the city to find an appropriate and accessible space for our archives. We need your financial support to help us recover from this forced move. Please give as generously as possible this year to Insight Arts.

CLICK HERE TO MAKE YOUR DONATION NOW!

Many of our supporters in Chicago may be a bit baffled by the idea that Insight Arts could have a “space problem”. Haven’t we opened up two new spaces in the past sixteen months? Don’t we have this wonderful space called the Center for New Possibilities at 1505 West Morse? Don’t we now have a year round visual art gallery at 1503 West Morse located within the Common Cup Café? Well, the answer is yes we do! However, we have need for much more space. These are wonderful spaces; but they are not large enough to accommodate some of the work that we are called upon to do. We need to raise enough money to find enough physical space to be able to once again offer free/low cost rehearsal space to artistic projects committed to social justice. We receive at least twelve calls a week requesting space. We also need to provide more space for our resident ensembles, our arts education projects, and our community art spaces.

THEATRE OF THE OPPRESSED YOUTH PARTICIPANTS, Summer 2008

During the past two years we have begun many exciting new programs and developed a set of wonderful relationships. For example, we began offering weekly arts workshops for Jornaleros (Day Laborers) in collaboration with the Latino Union at The Albany Park Workers’ Center. This resulted in the creation of a visual arts exhibition and a short video documentary produced by a coalition of Jornaleros. We have also added two new resident ensembles to the Insight Arts family; Segundas Productions, an multi-media ensemble composed of Latino men dedicated to combating stereotypes about Latino culture, and re[public]in/decency, an inter-arts activist initiative and experiential think tank that explores the intra-national intersections between performance art, social justice activism and arts-informed education. We have worked with many partner organizations such as Akabaka Productions, Beyond Media Education, The Chicago Freedom School, Links Hall, Mess Hall, Still Point Theater, the TAMMS Poetry Committee and the Young Women’s Empowerment Project.

DANCE DISCOVERY PARTICIPANTS, Summer 2008

Insight Arts has so many exciting accomplishments over the past year that I would like to focus on. I’ll highlight just three:

1. Insight Arts Adult Arts Programs – Under the guidance of Anita Alcantara our Adult Arts Education Programs have expanded from weekly workshops for Senior Citizens to include weekly workshops for the African Refugee Community and weekly workshops for mentally ill adults. Adult participants work on both individual and group projects. All programs are offered free of charge to the community. This year programs expanded beyond the weekly visual arts workshops to include special workshops in writing, dance,computer art and theater.

INSIGHT ARTS ADULT ARTS PROGRAMS' PARTICIPANTS

2. Creatively Engaging in Social Movements: Critical and Meaningful Lenses on Im/migration – This forum, held in collaboration with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, brought together the dynamic work of Mexican filmmaker Marcela Morán, the Latino Union of Chicago and Chicago-based activists and artists in a discussion about how artists relate to struggles for immigration reform and global economic justice.

FLIER FOR "CREATIVELY ENGAGING IN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS"

3. Fromthe Chocolate to the Chi: DC Poets in Chicago – Insight Arts worked in collaboration with the Association of Writers and Writing Programs to host a special evening of poetic exchange between writers based in Washington, DC and Chicago. Poets from the AWP also conducted free community based writing workshops for adults and you that Insight Arts.

POSTER FOR "FROM CHOCOLATE TO CHI"

Of course, there is never a dull moment at Insight Arts Center for New Possibilities. During the last year we hosted more then 100 special events,workshops and community meetings. These included monthly series such as Queering the Night (a celebration of LGBTI creativity), Women Out Loud (a celebration of the creativity of women), Gospel Recovery Jubilee (a celebration of the creative process and its role in enabling recovery from addiction to drugs and alcohol), International Artists Group (a monthly community meeting space for artists from around the world) and Imagining a Healthy Global Economy (a monthly community dialogue exploring issues related to the current global economic situation).

Finally, we are very excited to be once again engaging in ongoing arts education programs for teens and children. We most recently began, The Living Newspaper Project,a socially engaged performance-based, service-learning project with public high school students. Students are researching contemporary events and creating “performance editorials” about these issues. They will be performing at our upcoming 3rd Annual Insight Arts Winter Festival on December 12, 2009.

InsightArts is a 501(c)3 organization. Please make your tax-deductible donation as soon as possible by going to our website at www.insightartsliberation.org and clicking on the “Donate Now” button. You can also send your check in the self-addressed envelope provided in this letter to:

Insight Arts
6934N. Glenwood Ave. #2-C
Chicago,IL 60626

Sincerely,
Craig Harshaw, Executive Director
Insight Arts

CLICK HERE TO MAKE YOUR DONATION NOW!

Alan Emerson Hicks - November 13, 2009

Insight Arts — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:55:00 GMT

Now on exhibit at the Common Cup Community Gallery, a gallery space coordinated by Insight Arts, is the artwork by ALAN EMERSON HICKS.

Join us on Friday, November 13 at 7 PM to inaugurate the exhibition.
Common Cup Cafe, 1505 W Morse Ave.

Women Out Loud! - Friday, November 6

Insight Arts — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:25:00 GMT

FEATURING TARA BETTS!

Friday, November 6
7 to 9 PM

We hope you can make this Friday to Women Out Loud at the Center for New Possibilities, 1505 W. Morse.

Tara Betts is the author of the upcoming book ARC AND HUE, herdebut collection on the Willow Books imprint of Aquarius Press inSeptember 2009. Tara is a lecturer in creative writing at RutgersUniversity in New Brunswick, NJ. She is also a Cave Canem fellow.

Tara’s work has appeared in Essence, the Steppenwolf Theater production“Words on Fire,” Obsidian III, Callaloo, PMS, Drum Voices Revue, WSQ,Columbia Poetry Review, Ninth Letter, Hanging Loose, Drunken Boat andWombPoetry. Her work has been anthologized in Gathering Ground(University of Michigan Press), Bum Rush the Page (Three Rivers Press),The Spoken Word Revolution (Sourcebooks), Power Lines (Tia ChuchaPress), Poetry Slam (Manic D Press), Black Writing from Chicago(Southern Illinois University Press), ROLE CALL (Third World Press),These Hands I Know (Sarabande), Best Black Women’s Erotica 2 (CleisPress), Hurricane Blues (Southeast Missouri University Press), HomeGirls Make Some Noise: Hip Hop Feminism (Parker Publishing),Fingernails Across a Chalkboard (Third World Press) and Letters to theWorld (Red Hen Press). Her work will appear in Mythium, Reverie,Meridians, TUESDAY: An Art Journal, and Thomas Sayers Ellis’ Breakfastand Blackfist: Notes for Black Poets (University of Michigan Press).Tara has also been a freelance writer for publications such as XXL, TheSource, BIBR, Mosaic magazine and Black Radio Exclusive.

Tara Betts encourages literacy and works with arts programs such asUrban Word NYC. In Chicago, she was an influential educator throughYoung Chicago Authors and the internationally-acclaimed Gallery 37.Tara co-founded GirlSpeak, a weekly writing/leadership workshop foryoung women. She has also conducted short-term workshops in schools,community centers, Ms. Foundation, City Girls (a substance abuserehabilitation center for teen girls), Cook County Jail and Cook CountyJuvenile Detention Center, Louder Arts Project, Cooper Union, DodgeFoundation’s Poets-In-The-Schools program and London’s Roundhouse.

Tara Betts appeared on HBO’s “Def Poetry Jam” She also appeared in theBlack Family Channel series “SPOKEN” with Jessica Care Moore-Poole. Shehas also been one of the writers/performers in girlstory-anintergenerational, multicultural women’s performance collective. Tarahas also performed in plays, including two SouthWest V-Day productionsof Eve Ensler’s “Vagina Monologues” at Chicago’s DuSable Museum. Afterwinning Guild Complex’s Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Award, sherepresented Chicago twice at the National Poetry Slam. She hasperformed her work in Cuba, London, New York, the West Coast andthroughout the Midwest at venues such as Arie Crown Theater, The Museumof Contemporary Art, Studio Museum of Harlem, Lincoln Center for thePerforming Arts, Bar 13, Cornelia Street Café, Bowery Poetry Club,Yerba Buena Cultural Center, The Metro, The Hip Hop Theater Festival,Ladyfest Midwest, the Field Museum of Natural History, HarvardUniversity, poetry slams, conferences, several colleges, universitiesand numerous public, private and alternative schools. She has sharedthe stage with Patricia Smith, Rosellen Brown, Afaa Michael Weaver,Kwame Dawes, Luis Rodriguez, MC Lyte and Grammy-winner Jill Scott. Shealso coached and mentored countless young writers and performers thathave participated in the Brave New Voices and Louder Than a Bomb teenpoetry slams.

Día de los Muertos / Day of the Dead - Sunday, November 1

Insight Arts — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 05:05:00 GMT

Women Out Loud! - Friday, October 23

Insight Arts — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:46:00 GMT

Women Out Loud! is a venue where women can spit fiery words in anurturing space, and men are welcome to applaud and cheer.

On Friday, October 23,Women Out Loud! features poets Cristina Correa and Keli Stewart!

The Center for New Possibilities
1505 W Morse Ave.
7 to 9 PM

CristinaCorrea is working artist in the city of Chicago. Most recently, she hasbeen published in Latina Voices, Say What Magazine, Ghost FactoryMagazine and participated in a poetic and visual exhibition entitledConvergence. She graduated from the Columbia College Fiction WritingDepartment as an Alexandroff Community Scholar. She has taught creativewriting and advocated for the empowerment of young people in theChicago Public Schools and various community organizations since 2004.Her chapbook entitled this is the year. was published by Watch theSteps Press.

Keli Stewart is a west side of Chicago native whosestories and poems have appeared in numerous publications including,Meridians, Warpland Journal, Letters to Fathers from Daughters,Hairtrigger, Torch Poetry, and Calyx. Keeping Hands Busy and Making Do,an essay about single-motherhood, poverty and creativity is forthcomingin Hip Mama Magazine Issue #44. She has also self-published a chapbook,Womanish. Her debut play, House of Forks and Knives, explores identityand abuse in an African-American mother-daughter relationship. It isthe recipient of the Douglas Turner Ward/Alice Childress ScriptwritingPrize and also received the James Baldwin Award from the WORD!Multicultural Theater Festival. She is a double recipient of the ArchieD. and Bertha H. Walker Foundation Scholarship from the Fine Arts WorkCenter as well as a Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation and CallalooSummer Writing Workshop alum. Keli was arts resident with the AugustaSavage Gallery’s Arts International Residency Program where she spenttime in New Mexico writing and living on a mesa.

Keli hasworked as Artistic Director of the Women of Color Leadership Network atUMass-Amherst, where she facilitated writing and theater workshops forwomen of color, culminating in Body Politics, an annual performanceabout issues facing women of color. She received her BA in FictionWriting from Columbia College in 2002 and is currently an MFA CreativeWriting Student at Chicago State University. Keli writes on thesteering wheel in between teaching writing part-time and raising twowonderful sons. She is currently at work on a collection of poems.

Comeand share your words, and/or just take a break from the week’s workwoes and listen to these fabulous women writers read. Open mic startsat 7 pm and is followed by the featured writer. $5 suggested donation,$3 for open mic participants.

The CENTER FOR NEW POSSIBILITIESlocated at 1505 W Morse Avenue, is a space coordinated by Insight Arts,a contemporary arts organization dedicated to increasing access tocultural work that supports progressive social change. Our uniqueorganizational model allows us to engage in community based, regionaland national work.

Imagining a Healthy Economy - Thursday, October 22

Insight Arts — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:44:00 GMT

INSIGHT ARTS INVITES YOU TO COME SHARE YOUR IDEAS IN AN ONGOING DISCUSSION OF THE CURRENT ECONOMIC CRISIS

IMAGINING A HEALTHY ECONOMY

Please come and help us imagine a healthier global economy.

Thursday, October 22, 2009 from 7:30 to 8:30 PM
Join us for a discussion of the global political scene

This is a FREE event!

Center for New Possibilities
1505 W Morse Ave
Chicago, IL 60626

Imagining a Healthy Economy will take place every fourth Thursday of the month. For more information send an email to info@insightartsliberation.org.

Gospel Recovery Jubilee - Wednesday October 21

Insight Arts — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:41:00 GMT

A lIttle Bit of so Much Truth - Thursday, October 15

Insight Arts — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:04:00 GMT

Don't Miss It!

On Thursday, October 15 at 7 PM, as part of the weekly film series "Movies of Rebellion: Towards 2010" at the Lichen Autonomous Library (1921 S Blue Island), don't miss the screening of A Little Bit of So Much Truth / Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad.

A Little Bit of So Much Truth / Un Poquito de Tanta Verdad
Directed by Jill Freidberg and Mal de Ojo TV
Spanish with English subtitles
Mexico, 90 minutes

Synopsis: In the summer of 2006, an insurrection exploded in Oaxaca. This film captures the media phenomenon that emerged when tens of thousands of school teachers, housewives, indigenous folk, health workers, farmers, and students took 14 radio stations and one TV station into their own hands,
using them to organize, mobilize, and defend their struggle.

En el verano del 2006, un levantamiento popular exploto en Oaxaca. Esta pelicula capta el fenomeno los medios de communicacion que sergio cuando diez miles de maestros, amas de casa, gente indigena, trabajadores de salud, campesinos y estudientes tomaron 14 estaciones de radio y una
estacion de television en sus manos, usandos las para organizar, movilizar, y defender su lucha.

Thursday, October 15 at 7 PM
Lichen Autonomous Library (1921 S Blue Island)

The Living Newspaper - Begins Friday, October 9

Insight Arts — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 05:39:00 GMT

CLICK HERE for a .pdf version flier

Do Justice, Do Right Entertainment Festival - Saturday, October 10

Insight Arts — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 16:03:00 GMT

Through music, dance, drama and poetry readings we hope to expand our understanding of struggles that people in our midst experience.

DO JUSTICE, DO RIGHT
Entertainment Festival

United Church of Rogers Park
1545 W Morse Ave

Saturday, October 10
10 AM to 4 PM

Featuring Live Performances by
United Church of Rogers Park Choir
Vernetta Rogers and Tom Jones
Gospel Recovery Jubilee Choir
BAGWIS Collective
Yvonne Taylor Trio
Lani T. Montreal
Kahphira Palmer
Burundian Choir
Circle of Friends
CIRCA-Pintig
Carol Gloor
sarwat rumi

DON'T MISS IT!

Queering the Night - Friday, October 9

Insight Arts — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 15:56:00 GMT

FEATURING TWO FILMS
Homecoming & A Girl Named Kai

Friday, October 9, 2009
7 to 9 PM

The Center for New Possibilities
1505 W Morse Ave

Homecoming (Youth Documentary, 5:30 mins)
Directed by Brian Schirber and Kirstin Nelson. Produced by Listen Up! and Perpich Center for Arts Education. Winner of the Peter Yarrow Peace in Our Classrooms Award. Sponsored by Frank Marshall

Synopsis: Homecoming evolved over four months beginning with the concept of hatecrimes against youth in rural Minnesota. Six seniors from the Arts HighSchool at the Perpich Center for Arts Education interviewed severalyouth in small towns that had been discriminated against at theirschools for their sexual orientation and lifestyle. As the projectprogressed, one individual’s story stood out from the rest specificallybecause this student attended the Arts High School, which is in itselfa unique environment conducive to creativity and learning.

Although four students dropped the project, Kirstin Nelson and BrianSchirber where determined to see the project completed and to see thatRon Everson’s story was told. Half the film was shot in Lakeville,Minnesota where the discrimination took place. This was juxtaposed withfootage from Perpich where Ron flourished. Ron, a Creative Writingmajor, graduated in 2004 and is currently living in Chicago. His storyconfirms how essential a school20environment is to the well-being ofyoung adults and how this setting should be supportive of students ofall backgrounds and orientations.

A Girl Named Kai (Experimental, 8:00 mins)
Directed and Produced by Kai Ling Xue. Winner of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Rights Award

Synopsis: Three years in the making, shot in four countries, A Girl Named Kai isa brave and honest autobiographical vignette in three chapters aboutKai Ling’s relationships, self discoveries, passions, secrets anddreams.

Using digitally-edited Super 8 and 16mm, this experimental short willtake you through a true life journey from the highs of love to the lowsof loss, delicately threaded together with original music. A Girl NamedKai sets out to challenge our society’s preconceptions of people whoare considered “outsiders” while empowering the audience to continue toexamine contemporary notions of internal and external social identities.

Featured films will follow open mic. At the open mic, artists/writers/performers may share work that deals with race, class, gender, immigration, and other serious issues that contextualize a queer identity, but may also talk about family, love, relationships, sex, and other experiences that make for a full and exciting existence in a terribly homophobic world.

CENTERFOR NEW POSSIBILITIES at 1505 W Morse Avenue, ia a safe andqueer-friendly space coordinated by Insight Arts, a contemporary artsorganization dedicated to increasing access to cultural work thatsupports progressive social change. Our unique organizational modelallows us to engage in community based, regional and national work.

Women Out Loud! - Friday, September 25

Insight Arts — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 17:00:00 GMT

FEATURING VALERIE PELL!

Friday, September 25
7 to 9 PM

Insight Arts presents Women Out Loud! an open mic for women and women-identified writers/poets/performers that happens every fourth Friday of the month, 7-9 pm at the Center for New Possibilities on 1545 W. Morse. Women Out Loud! is a venue where women can spit fiery words in a nurturing space, and men are welcome to applaud and cheer.

On September 25, Women Out Loud features Valerie Pell. Valerie grew up in Sacramento, California despising her syrupy dance teacher but loving her inimical cat. Since then, she has changed all allegiances, becoming a dog person, a writer, and a Chicagoan. From her cluttered home office in Albany Park, Pell prepares for the classes she teaches at Malcolm X College, writes various odds and ends that she publishes here and there, and procrastinates on finishing the second draft of her first novel, Salem's Truth. In her spare time, she grows a hodgepodge of vegetables in a minuscule garden and cooks them in a suitable kitchen.

Come and share your words, and/or just take a break from the week’s work woes and listen to fabulous women writers/performers read/do spoken word/sing. Open mic starts at 7 pm and is followed by the featured writer. $5 suggested donation, $3 for open mic participants.

The CENTER FOR NEW POSSIBILITIES located at 1505 W Morse Avenue, is a space coordinated by Insight Arts, a contemporary arts organization dedicated to increasing access to cultural work that supports progressive social change. Our unique organizational model allows us to engage in community based, regional and national work.

Imagining a Healthy Economy - Thursday, September 24

Insight Arts — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 16:56:00 GMT

INSIGHT ARTS INVITES YOU TO COME SHARE YOUR IDEAS IN AN ONGOING DISCUSSION OF THE CURRENT ECONOMIC CRISIS

IMAGINING A HEALTHY ECONOMY

Please come and help us imagine a healthier global economy.

Democracy and the Economy: Imagining a Healthy Global Economy
Thursday, September 24, 2009 from 7 to 9 PM; FREE
How is the global economic crisis affecting democracy?
Join us for a discussion of the global political scene

This is a FREE event!

Thursday, September 24
7:30 to 8:30 PM

Center for New Possibilities
1505 W Morse Ave
Chicago, IL 60626

Imagining a Healthy Economy will take place every fourth Thursday of the month. For more information send an email to info@insightartsliberation.org.

Queering the Night - Friday, September 11

Insight Arts — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 21:48:00 GMT

Queering the Night a monthly LGBTQI open mic invites writers and performers to rant about what it's like to be LGBTQI in a time of war and socio-economic crisis in the U.S. The event, happening at the Center for New Possibilities, 1505 W. Morse, starts off at 7 p.m.

On Friday, September 11, we are having a short writing workshop to urge reluctant poets to share their writing. We have also invited the cast of Sister OutLaw to share excerpts from the show that just concluded its run and is gearing for its upcoming tour.

At the open mic, artists may share work that deal with race, class, gender, immigration, and other serious issues that contextualize a queer identity, but may also talk about family, love, relationships, sex, and other experiences that make for a full and exciting existence in a terribly homophobic world. Lani T. Montreal and Joey Flores host.

CENTER FOR NEW POSSIBILITIES at 1505 W Morse Avenue, ia a safe and queer-friendly space coordinated by Insight Arts, a contemporary arts organization dedicated to increasing access to cultural work that supports progressive social change. Our unique organizational model allows us to engage in community based, regional and national work.