My friend and choreographer Katie Mattar creating movement in response to one of my life's most tragic events. Usually, I post cute quips about what I'm up to or what I'm working on, but tonight's post will be quite different. I recently got into (and did not finish, as my beautifully articulate colleague and friend Adam Schumaker took over) an argument on Facebook about the programming of women's music at high-level (aka donor level) events. (This conversation was eventually expanded to include POC and other minority groups, and also included conversation on identity and culture.) As someone who considers herself fully aware of her trauma history and also artistic value at the same time, I stepped back from this conversation and felt the need to start to design a course about presenting trauma through art, community conversation, and psychological rape via academia and other masculine systems. As I've been putting together my ideas, I've also been putting together my resources, some of which were books I've read in the past few years. From these books I've created short essays about my experiences as a composer, entertainer, and woman existing in the current political and cultural climate. (I'm an expert in that last one, for sure.) After re-reading several of my essays, I think my recent feeling of hopelessness and frustration boiled down to two. I will link the two essays below. The first was written in 2017, the latter in 2018. I don't want to say much more, but would appreciate a healthy and respectful dialogue about the topics I've addressed. I would also 100% recommend W. Cheng's book! Thank you, as always, for reading, and may we all keep getting smarter and more empathetic to our fellow humans.
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