EL GRITO POR THAWRA الثورة presents: 

CO​MMUNITY CARE
​IN A TIME OF GENOCIDE

Leading up to the festival this November, FLACC is hosting Community Care discussions and workshops by local BIPOC dance makers, scholars and activists.

​SEPTIEMBRE-NOVIEMBRE 2024

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photo credit: Robbie Sweeny

amara tabor-smith (she/they)

amara tabor-smith (she/they) is a 2024 Guggenheim Fellow born in Unceded Ramaytush Ohlone territory AKA San Francisco, and currently living in unceded Huichin Ohlone territory AKA Oakland, CA. She is a choreographer, performance maker, cultural worker, and the artistic director of Deep Waters Dance Theater. Her interdisciplinary site-responsive and community specific performance making practice utilizes Yoruba Lukumí spiritual technologies to address issues of social and environmental justice, race, gender identity, and belonging. amara’s work is rooted in Black, queer, feminist principles that insist on liberation, joy, home fullness and well-being. Grants and awards include Rainin Arts Fellowship (2021), Dance/USA Fellowship (2019), United States Artists Fellowship (2018), Urban Bush Women Choreographic Center Fellowship (2017.), Creative Capital, MAP Fund and A Blade of Grass. amara received her MFA in Dance from Hollins University and is currently a teaching artist in residence at Stanford University.

How We Get Over [ and Through]: Movement For This Moment

A guided movement ritual/meditation/divination/writing/storytelling practice for our collective liberation
​~stewarded by amara tabor-smith
Sunday, Nov. 10
12-3pm
Dance Mission Theater
3316 24th St., San Francisco, Ca. 94110
($25 /NOTALOF no one turned away for lack of funds)

There will be dancing/We will move our bodies; there will be moments of restful pause; we will talk with each other and share strategies for survival and thrivance; our ancestors might visit;
there might be laughter, tears, joy, rage, grief, emotional or spiritual discomfort or ease; there will most certainly be breath. It might feel too long, it might feel too short, we will run out of time, it will only be a beginning. 
Bring a journal, a pillow, blanket or mat, water, any small objects that are comforting or grounding for you.
 
Note #1: there will be scented cleansing water present in the space. Please indicate when you sign up if you have any environmental sensitivities or any needs that we should know about. We may not be able to meet all needs but we will do our best and let you know.
​
Note #2: Conversations regarding race, privilege, oppression and identity will likely occur. We will also be inviting spirit energies into the space. If this is not your thing, if it feels too vulnerable or uncomfortable, please consider whether this is the right space for you at this time. 
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photo credit: Jean Melesaine
Picturephoto by Conte
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Mylo Cardona (THEY/THEM)

Mylo is a queer, egyptian/puertorican American producer, actor, community leader, and Theatre of the Oppressed facilitator in the Bay Area. They graduated from The University of California, Berkeley with a BA in Theater & Performance Studies, where they were awarded the Mark Goodson Prize for Distinguished Theatrical Talent. Some recent production credits include Yerma (Shotgun Players), Displaced (Crowded Fire Theater), Break my Heart (BlueFilm Production Co.) and The Crucible (Oakland Theater Project). They have written, directed and produced 3 original works with the performance troupe they co-founded: The F*ggs n Friends (short for The Faggots and their Friends Between Revolutions) whose mission is to use art as a tool for revolution.

Dance and Theater of the Oppressed:
A Movement-Based, Theater of the Oppressed Workshop
for everybody. No experience necessary.

Facilitated by Mylo Cardona
​September 29, 1-4pm (WORKSHOP HAS PASSED)
Bandaloop Studios, 1601 18th St, Oakland, CA 94607
(free/suggested donation $25 /NOTALOF)
If you are an activist, artist, educator, cultural worker or student of life who is passionate about ending oppression, join us for an afternoon of movement, education and play where we hope to explore themes of power, privilege, and positionality through Augusto Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed pedagogy as it pertains to dance making, theater arts and community building. This embodied workshop uses theater games and movement scores to create a safe and fun space to explore how we apply our creative theories to liberatory practices and how to be better community members.  As we build a revolution for positive change, we will begin to answer the question: where do we go from here? ​

El GRITO 2024 podcast ! 

...4 years later, por Thawra الثورة

FLACC is revisiting the EL Grito podcast which began during a global pandemic and a global uprising for brown and black lives in 2020. Also an election year, the festival used its platform to encourage voting.

This year, is also an election season in the weeks leading up to the performances in November, FLACC's El Grito por Thawra Podcast includes revolutionary artists from Palestine as well as our Latinx diaspora raising their voices against genocide while the U.S. engages in another U.S. election year. FLACC's co-resistant artists and scholars are coming together in solidarity to educate, speak out and lead converstations for our communities. 
Join our Youtube Channel.
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[Session #1] is live!

From Resistance to Co-optation: Dance in the Context of Palestine

Leila Mire in an interview by Leyya Mona Tawil

"From Resistance to Co-optation: Dance in the Context of Palestine”  explores the dual nature of dance as both a powerful tool for resistance and, in other contexts, an imperialist tactic used to advance the settler colonial agenda. this discussion will touch on the role of Zionism in modern dance, indigenous dances of resistance, and the obfuscation of the arts’ radical capacity to render them impotent in political moments or urgency. FLACC thanks Arab.AMP for their generous support for this conversation.

Leila Mire (SHE/HER)

Leila is a researcher, performer, choreographer, community organizer, and educator. She is a current PhD candidate at UC Berkeley in the Theatre, Dance, Performance Studies Program and is an alumni of New York University and George Mason University. Her research looks at how dance is co-opted, appropriated, and performed for state and anti-imperial interests, particularly as it pertains to Palestine and its occupation. Mire writes for ThINKingDance and is part of the Decolonizing Dance Writing Project. She continues to perform as a freelancer and is a member of Al-Juthoor dabke troupe. 

LEYYA Mona Tawil (she/her)

Leyya Mona Tawil is an artist, curator, and cultural activist. She works in sound, dance, and hybrid performance. Tawil is a Syrian, Palestinian, American engaged in the world as such. She is the director of Arab.AMP - a platform for experimental music, live art, and ideas from the SWANA diaspora and their allied communities. Tawil is on the curatorial team of the Arab American National Museum (in Dearborn MI), Southern Exposure (in SF), and is the director of TAC Temescal Art Center (in Oakland).
​

[Session #2] 

ART AS RESISTANCE: FROM PALESTINE TO MEXICO (October 7)

A CONVERSATION WITH STEPHANIE GARCIA (MX) AND RIHAM ISAAC (PALESTINE)

Multidisciplinary artists Riham Isaac (Palestine) and Stephanie García (Mexico-USA) engage in a warm conversation about their creative process, their work, and how their art-making serves as a medium for reflecting on the challenges of the current state of the world. This discussion dives into how performance practice is part of resistance, resilience, and liberation processes leading to survival strategies to preserve cultures, knowledges, and existences and as a way to find hope in the darkest, most revolting, and crisis-ridden times.

RIHAM ISSAC

Riham Isaac is a multidisciplinary artist from Palestine weaving acting, singing, dancing, and video to explore new mediums of live performance. In 2017, she co-directed "The Alternativity" in Bethlehem alongside Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle and Banksy, a highly political yet playful show that was spotlighted in a BBC2 documentary. In 2023, her solo performance "Another Lover's Discourse," commissioned by the Belfast International Arts Festival, captivated UK audiences and earned a nomination as the VAULT Festival show of the week. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Performance Practice at the University of Exeter, focusing on the intersection of performance, land liberation, resistance, and environmental and cultural activism. Riham is deeply invested in how performance practices can deepen our understanding of land injustices and bridge activism with the transformative power of art.

STEPHANIE GARCIA

​Stephanie García is a multi-awarded Mexican artist, arts administrator, curator, and arts advocate. She is co-founder and co-director of Punto de Inflexión Dance Company and PROArtes México. She has worked with important Mexican and international choreographers, performed in relevant dance festivals and venues in Mexico, and 11 countries in America, Europe, and Africa, and created more than 30 original interdisciplinary pieces presented in the USA, Mexico, Cyprus, Ireland, Peru, Panama, Spain, and Cuba. Her work has received grants and funds from Mexican, USA, Spain, Netherlands, and Canadian institutions.


She is a RED U40 México, Latinx Hispanic Dancers United, The Latin American Interdisciplinary Gender Network (CIEG/Yale) Member, and the International Network for Contemporary Performing Arts (IETM).