June 18, 2004 @ 1:40 pm

Sisterfire NYC - Free Concert To End Violence

On Saturday, June 19 from 3-7 p.m. – at Riverbank State Park – Sisterfire NYC will host a day of free music, performances, dance, comedy, arts

Saturday's arts festival at Riverbank Park will include performances from Ya Ya (an all-female Puerto Rican and Dominican percussion collective), Queen Godis ( a performance artist who fuses elements of Hip Hop, music, dance, theater and poetry), DJ Sabine ( spinning Afrobeat, Haitian Roots music and other African diasporic tunes.), Sista II Sista (a Bushwick-based collective of working-class young and adult Black and Latina women) and ACB, who will paint a mural the audience will participate in the development of. ACB -- a Chilean muralist and graffiti artist who has been facilitating visual arts workshops for youth since she was 17 (1998) told us she wanted to be a part of Sisterfire NYC because she "thinks it's important it's to be part of an event that's pro-women and to have a space to deal with violence against women in the home. This isn't something that gets talked about in the open a lot." Rokafella, a veteran female breaker/choreographer who will grace Saturday's arts festival with a dance performance's told us that she "feels like females breaking is about them taking control for themselves and sisterfire is about taking control as well." Sisterfire NYC is a collaboration of women of color artists and organizers from different communities. We are part of a national coalition reaching women of color of all ages and backgrounds with the message that we're tired of the violence we endure as women of color, violence is not normal, violence against women of color destroys our entire communities, and we ain't gonna stay quiet about it. Sisterfire sets out to nurture grassroots organizing and activism against violence against women of color through cultural arts grassroots organizing, political theater and performance. We are a project of INCITE: Women of Color Against Violence and we seek to build a movement to end violence against women of color in all its forms. We promote linking existing struggles against the violence of poverty, incarceration, police brutality, colonization, interpersonal (domestic and sexual) violence. Some of the organizations sponsoring Sisterfire NYC's weekend of arts and resistance are Casa Atabex Ache, Center for Immigrant Families, Critical Resistance, Dominican Women's Development Center, Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees, Incite NYC, Ladies on the Mic, Mayfirst Collective, Sistas On the Rise, and Sista II Sista. These organizations are also participating in Friday's workshops and Saturday's arts festival. Sisterfire NYC seeks to highlight and pay homage to the work they do - day in and day out - to end state sanctioned and domestic violence against women of color. Riverbank State Park is located at 679 Riverside Drive at 145th Street. Take the 1, 9 train to 145th. EBC High School is located at 1155 Dekalb Avenue in Bushwick, Brooklyn Take the J train to Kosciouzko. For more information go to SisterfireNYC.org.

Article tags: Sisterfire, NYC, Free, Concert, End, Violence 

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