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Leonard Peltier could not be present at the exhibition of his artwork at the second Indigenous Fine Arts Market (IFAM) in Santa Fe, NM, held on August 20-22, because he's been incarcerated in the U.S. federal penitentiary system for the last 40 years. He's currently in Coleman (Florida), a known “gang prison,” a brutal and violent place subject to frequent lockdowns lasting not uncommonly for as long as a month.
Maybe next year?
Read moreAmong the more strikingly radical figures invoked by #BlackLivesMatter has been exiled Black revolutionary Assata Shakur. The former Black Panther, dubiously convicted “cop killer,” and wanted “terrorist” fugitive has become a recognized emblem in the movement, even though Assata herself, underground in Cuba, remains publicly quiet regarding the recent upsurge. Nonetheless, at demonstrations across the US, lines from Shakur’s autobiography have been turned into a kind of movement mantra.
Read moreWho cares about who gets caught jumping
over someone else’s fence?
Mutts will bark.
Porch lights will sweep small critters
into another darkness.
Big deal.
Nothing will be stolen.
Oracle Productions' version of Bertolt Brecht's The Mother
One could be easily forgiven for believing that theater is indeed “dead.” Every medium of culture and creativity struggles with issues of relevance and vitality, but the common conception of theater in particular seems to be one that has been most flagrantly geared merely toward parting tourists with their money. Of course, it’s not entirely true; the reality is far more complex. But the fact remains that there appears to be a gap between what we learn the live performing arts once were (or could be) and their present anodyne state. How is a play supposed to be relevant to working people? How can it be when it costs an arm and a leg just to go to one?
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Scene from the video for Kendrick Lamar's "Alright"
It’s been a year since the death of Michael Brown, a year since the rebellion in Ferguson, a year since the Black Lives Matter movement began to shift the conversation in just about every avenue of American life. That shift can be seen in politics (from #BowDownBernie to Donald Trump’s threats to beat up protesters) and economics (the Black Youth Project’s embrace of the Fight for 15). It can also be seen, perhaps most obviously, in our culture — and in music, in particular.
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Image by Hope Asya
Music and memory have always been inseparable. After all, Memory is the name of the Goddess who was Mother of the Muses. The Muses, according to the poet Hesiod, "were nine like-minded daughters, whose one thought is singing, and whose hearts are free from care...who delight with song... telling of things that are, that will be and that were with voices joined in harmony." They called on Hesiod to sing their praises but they did so with a challenge: "You rustic shepherd, shame: bellies you are, not men! We know enough to make up lies which are convincing, but we also have the skill, when we've a mind, to speak the truth."
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Nosotros quienes no somos patriotas
Nacimiento vaginal una razón por amar a madre
pero no fronteras jurídicas
Cantamos “La Bamba Rebelde”
We will cross, we will cross, we will cross
"Flawless" is a dance performance piece about gender and sexuality choreographed for pre-professional dancers ranging in age from 13-17. We asked some of them to describe the piece and its development in their own words.
Choreography by Jenny Espino
Video editing by Aaron Garcia
In late May 2015 Red Wedge editors Alexander Billet and Adam Turl spoke at the Left Forum in a workshop on "Neoliberalism and the Importance of the Radical Imagination." The above audio includes the presentations by Billet and Turl as well as the discussion that followed — touching on how neoliberalism has narrowed the radical imagination, the relationship of labor to culture, as well as possible practical and aesthetic strategies for contemporary art and culture.
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Alexandra Kollontai: communist, feminist, fiction writer (drawing by Sarah Levy)
She was one of the many who came to me in those difficult days for advice and spiritual guidance.
I had seen her at a number of delegate conferences, and remembered having been struck by her pretty, rather intense face with its pensive but intelligent eyes.
Today her face was pale, the eyes even larger and sadder than usual.
"I came to you because there is no one else to whom I can go. I have been homeless for the past three weeks – I have no money. I must have work! If I don't get: some means of earning a living soon, there is only one thing left for me – the street."
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