Cultural Organizing for Community Recovery
This weekend-long workshop at the Ashe Cultural Center New Orleans provided a space where artists and organizers learned effective ways to deepen their work and strengthen their capacity to use creativity, imagination and organizing in community building.
Session leaders included visual artist Ricardo Levins Morales (RLM Arts), Tufara Muhammad Waller (Highlander Center), Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Maria Bauman and Bennalldra Williams (Urban Bush Women), Stephanie McKee (Moving Stories), and Arts & Democracy Project team members Javiera Benavente and Kathie deNobriga.
AGENDA
Friday, February 3, 2012
6:00-6:45 Dinner: Chef Bruce Rollins
6:45 -8:45 Welcome: The Arts & Democracy Project, Moving Stories and Urban Bush Women: Review our purpose together, open the space for learning and justice, meet each other, hear one another's stories and offer a working definition of cultural organizing.
Saturday, February 4
9:30 Coffee & continental breakfast
10:00 Welcome, introduce new arrivals, review agenda & make group agreements
10:30 Cultural Organizing in the Gulf Coast
Examples of community organizing with culture at the core: Trapp Bonner, Moving Forward Gulf Coast; Reverend Tyrone and the Zion Travelers Cooperative from Plaquemine's Parish; Stephanie McKee, Junebug Production's Homecoming Project.
11:15 “Physio-expresso"
11:20 Values and Principles of Cultural Organizing: an interactive discussion
noon lunch on site
1:00 The How of It: tools, techniques, discipline approaches to cultural organizing, and how they connect to values: brainstorming & discussion
1:40 Tool Time: explore more depth HOW we do this work. Short presentations by facilitators, followed by specific breakouts around disciplines: Embodying the Work, Visual Arts, Theatre, Movement, Group Facilitation Methods, and Music.
3:15 break
3:30-4:45 Telling Our Stories, Finding New Solutions - Focusing on specific stories, dig deeper into organizing struggles in small group discussions
Sunday, February 5
9:30 Coffee and breakfast
10:00 Mind-Blazing Conversations
11:00 Making Larger Connections: using stories and case studies for broader learning
12:30 lunch on site
1:15 Closing: Evaluation, Intentions, Closing the Space
2:15 Farewells