The inaugural 2022 Washington Heights Womanist Arts Festival is a performing arts festival inspired Birthed by the Radical Black imagination. Loves music.
/When you’re ready to look north of downtown for the arts, WaHi will greet you with art as experience, as gathering, as loving, as wailing, as daring, as healing./
A space needed that has yet to be created. An answer to a longing that requires time and care to hold. This is a call to recognize our desire to connect with ourselves and each other while sharing the collective responsibility of heali
ng in community without solely placing the responsibility on the Black woman. In the spirit of the Womanist movement we seek to exist in the liminal space outside of patriarchy and white supremacy that has often co-opted our liberatory work. This 2-day performing arts festival is harnessing the dopeness of our local artists as a site for shared healing through song, movement, truth telling and the act of breaking bread over the weekend of September 10-11, 2022. Anchored by a pre-event salon discussion hosted by Carol Jenkins at WordUp Bookshop and a *100+ seated community potluck dinner, block party and Jam session hosted by community organizer and chef, Sarah Grosman and The Soapbox Presents. This FREE event is open to all while centering our WaHi community. If you would like to support our efforts around the creation of this festival event, please consider donating on our crowdfunding page linked here: https://fundraising.fracturedatlas.org/washington-heights-womanist-arts-festival/campaigns/4841
Womanist (n.): "3. Loves dance. Loves the moon. Loves the Spirit. Loves love and food and roundness. Loves struggle. Loves the Folk. Loves herself. Regardless."
- Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens
Here's the full lineup and times of our artists! The Soapbox Presents will now be closing out the festival at a new time, 4pm, in collaboration with La Bruja herself, Caridad De La Luz to deliver a spoken word jam session!
We look forward to seeing you there and gathering in community!
Design by
A love letter to all our artists and move makers! Thank you for being with us!
Join us in community Saturday, September 10th on the corner of 181st Street and Fort Washington Ave at the FWCC gardens! Your presence is welcome and needed!
"No hay forma de reprimir el placer y también tener expectativas de liberación, satisfacción o alegría."
-Adrienne Maree Brown
¡RESERVA! ¡Estamos acercando a la fecha de lanzamiento del festival el día 10 de septiembre y no podemos esperar! Hay espacio para el placer en el centro de nuestros esfuerzos activistas.
¡El Festival Mujerista De Artes En Washington Heights es GRATIS para toda la familia! Ven y únete a nosotros más tarde este verano; ¡Esperamos verte ahí!
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"There is no way to repress pleasure and expect liberation, satisfaction, or joy."
-Adrienne Maree Brown
SAVE THE DATE! We're getting close to our September 10th festival launch date and we can't wait! There is space for pleasure at the center of our activist work.
The Washington Heights Womanist Arts Festival is FREE for the entire family! Come join us later this summer; we hope to see you there!
Our festival directors, Tanya Birl & Tanya Bishai attended the 20th anniversary of Uptown Arts Stroll closing reception at the stunning where they caught up with New York City Council member, Carmen De La Rosa on the importance of featuring local artists. So much artistic talent in the Heights!
HAPPENING TOMORROW!!! Don't miss this virtual womanist-centered discussion on reproductive justice in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade! Hear from womanist scholars on the negative impact of this decision on Black communities and methods of strategizing moving forward.
The fight goes on!
The overturning of Roe V. Wade is a devastating blow to Black women's rights. Our bodies along with our Spirit matter. On Monday, June 27, 2022, at 7:00 pm CST, JOIN me for a conversation of seminal black womanist scholar-activists to discuss how black church women and thinking women of faith can organize at this moment to reclaim reproductive justice as the law of the land. Register HERE: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEuc-mgrDkjH9N1SEGdFxrj-3IS9oNa__o_
Introducing the final artist in our festival lineup, the absolute juggernaut Annette A. Aguilar and her ten-piece ensemble, String Beans!
The band is not new to the scene, having accomplished 30 years of performances and solidifying themselves as an NYC powerhouse. Their leader, Annette--a percussionist, producer, and educator--is also principal timpanist for the Bronx Symphony, a repeatedly appointed U.S. State Department Latin Jazz Ambassador, founder of the Women in Latin Jazz Festival and label-owner of Eagle Seeks Salmon. Breaking the glass ceiling on the male-dominated arena of Latin drumming, Annette Aguilar leads by example in creating spaces and opportunities for other Latin women drummers to be witnessed and celebrated.
For a while, Aguilar was a percussionist for The Grateful Dead and has played alongside artists such as Tito Puente, Stevie Wonder, Sheila E, Cal Tjader, Darlene Love, Jose Areas (formerly Santana) as well as Grammy-awarded Broadway shows and symphony orchestras. She currently teaches percussion at the Celia Cruz Bronx High School of Music and the Third Street Music School Settlement in the East Village, guiding the next wave of artists.
Annette A. Aguilar and String Beans have previously toured the United States, Madagascar, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Kenya and this summer will make a stop at Washington Heights for the inaugural WaHi Womanist Arts Festival!
We hope to see you there!
For more festival details, visit our crowdfunding page: https://fundraising.fracturedatlas.org/was.../campaigns/4841
Please consider supporting our campaign towards celebrating all the performing arts that Washington Heights has to offer!
¡Invitamos a todos al inaugural Festival Mujerista de Arte de Los Altos de Washington! Este evento gratuito es hecho en consideración especial a la comunidad de Los Altos de Washington, con el deseo de celebrar las artistas únicas de la área y de las zonas altas de la ciudad de Nueva York. Este festival también fue inspirado por las escrituras de autor Afroamericana, Alice Walker que describió al "mujerista" como alguien que se preocupa por la seguridad y el bienestar de todas las personas. Igual al feminismo, Alice Walker creyo el termino "mujerista" para adaptar el movimiento feminista para incluir fundamentalmente las personas negras y demas personas de color quienes frequetemente son excluido del feminismo convencional.
El tema este año es: artista como sanador. Queremos reunir a nuestras comunidades para sanación colectiva en espíritu, mente, cuerpo y alma. También habrá una cena gratuita para cien personas sentadas. Este evento es para ti; todos son bienvenidos y esperamos verlos este verano!
Para más información y si quieres soportar nuestro misión, por favor visites a nuestro campaña para donar aquí: https://fundraising.fracturedatlas.org/washington-heights-womanist-arts-festival/campaigns/4841
We're delighted to introduce famed outdoor performance group, The Soapbox Presents as part of our artist lineup for our Summer 2022 inaugural festival! Similarly to The Overlook Quartet, founder Marija Abney formed The SoapBox Presents during lockdown of 2020 in response to the devastating ongoing murders of unarmed Black people at the hands of law enforcement, and out of a desire to help heal a community.
Since then, the group has featured over seventy emerging and seasoned Black talent ranging from Broadway performers to Julliard trained artists. Their outdoor musical concerts or "Stoop Sessions," which found its origins as the group would come to gather on the stoops of Harlem's brownstones, are catered to the neighborhood they are in. Intentional in its site-specific programming, for each stopping ground across the boroughs of NYC, The Soapbox Presets will feature artists of that area to hone in on the culture, personality, and flavor of that place. Stoop Sessions have spanned Lenox Ave, Bedstuy, and one Bronx activation featured The Bombazo Dance Company, which showcases traditional Afro-Puerto Rican Bomba and Afro-Caribbean folkloric sounds and percussion.
The Soapbox Presents has also partnered with The Community Cookout in the past to share 100 meals to folx during performances. In many ways, the mission of The Soapbox Presents and ours here at the WaHi Womanist Arts Festival overlap in our commitment to community and exhibiting art as both a social justice tool and survival method. We're ecstatic to be able to invite Newyorkers to Washington Heights to experience their own Stoop Session as well!
For more festival details, visit our crowdfunding page: https://fundraising.fracturedatlas.org/was.../campaigns/4841
Please consider supporting our campaign towards celebrating all the performing arts that Washington Heights has to offer!
See you summer 2022!
Next, we are delighted to introduce the award-winning fusion group, Yasser Tejeda & Palotré whose music are a meditation on Afro-Latinx identity. Centering the local soundscapes of Hispaniola that feature the salve, palo and sarandunga, Yasser and his band aim to attract visibility to the folkloric presence in the Dominican Republic. From composing a song that tells a love story across the Haitian-Dominican border to performing at vigils honoring the migrant lives lost attempting to cross the Southern border, Yasser is soulfully invested in the lives and struggle of all peoples.
Stepping into the role of teacher, Yasser has also held lectures and workshops on Dominican music at schools across the country, including Fordham University, Bronx Community College, Colorado State University, Columbia University, Lehman College and others.
The festival is honored to have Yasser share his gifts with us this coming September and invite everyone to join in connective spirit!
For more festival details, visit our crowdfunding page: https://fundraising.fracturedatlas.org/washington-heights-womanist-arts-festival/campaigns/4841
Please consider supporting our campaign towards celebrating all the performing arts that Washington Heights has to offer!
See you summer 2022!
Continuing our introduction to our artist lineup, we have Bronxite living legend: Caridad De La Luz a.k.a. La Bruja!
Caridad is a multi-disciplinary teaching artist who got her start at the famed Nuyorican Poets Café in 1996. More than 20 years later, Caridad serves as one of its Board of Directors where she hosts weekly Open Mic sessions for the next generation of smash poets.
La Bruja's original works which include musicals and poetry have passed through institutions such as the Pepatián, a Bronx-based arts organization and The Puerto Rican Traveling Theater. She's also performed at spaces including The Apollo Theater, Lincoln Center, Gracie Mansion as well as in New York City's nightclubs, cabarets and other international venues. Much of her work is concerned with the sociopolitical and explores the Nuyorican experience.
Part of Caridad's activist work--when she isn't advocating for the end of domestic violence or working as a community organizer in Hunts Point or producing writing workshops for Bronx youth in foster care, and unhoused adults in shelters and correctional facilities--has furthermore been cultivating creative spirit in the Bronx. She is currently birthing a new kind of arts space named El Garaje, and passing down knowledge to aspiring youth and rising luminaries. Keep a lookout also for Caridad's debut performance of From Poor to Rico at the Hostos Center for the Arts & Culture in June of this year!
We're so excited to have this absolute juggernaut featured at The Washington Heights Womanist Arts Festival to continue her work, and that of many others, of highlighting the artistic production of Uptown, NYC!
The theme for our inaugural festival is: ARTIST AS HEALER.
Introducing our artist lineup, The Overlook Quartet understands this well. The Uptown group formed in June of 2020 in response to the police murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Manuel Ellis and countless others that saw mass demonstrations across the country around Black Liberation and the Black Lives Matter Movement.
Gathering at outdoor locations in Upper Manhattan for live rehearsals and pop-up concerts, the group aimed to cast a light on Black composers of the past as well as those of our present moment, including Florence Price, Jessie Montgomery, Trevor Weston, and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor to name a few. Since then, The Overlook Quartet have become recognizable faces to neighbors and members of their community who congregate under the trance of their music.
The Washington Heights Womanist Arts Festival is tremendously overjoyed to share as a site to bear witness the artistry and magic of The Overlook Quartet! Join us on the weekend of September 10th-11th!
Artist Highlight:
Monica Davis (violinist) has participated across various Broadway Orchestras for productions such as, Hamilton, Beetlejuice, Mean Girls, and more. Laura Metcalf (cellist) and Angela Pickett (violist) are also members of Sybarite5, an award-winning string-quintet with their own commitment to community engagement and educational exchange. Ravenna Lipchik (violinist) has toured the Mid-west as part of the Shattered Glass ensemble, performed beside the New Zealand String Quartet and Philharmonia de Jalisco in Guadalajara, Mexico.
In the words of our Artistic Director, Tanya Birl-Torres, we are "Back in the womb space. Creating a labor of love. Something sacred and sovereign with community."
The Washington Heights Womanist Arts Festival is the reflection of a community back at itself. Recognizing the healing power of the performing arts, music, movement and banquet, we call on every person living in our urban jungle to gather in connective spirit, song, reflection, and jubilation!
Our goal is to ensure this festival remains free (yes, including food!) for those wishing to partake. If you'd like to help us keep this event as open and accessible to all, or simply believe in our mission, please consider donating to our crowdfunding page here: https://fundraising.fracturedatlas.org/washington-heights-womanist-arts-festival/campaigns/4841
We Look Forward To Seeing you in Summer 2022!
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A love letter to all our artists and move makers! Thank you for being with us! Join us in community Saturday, September 10th on the corner of 181st Street and Fort Washington Ave at the FWCC gardens! Your presence is welcome and needed!
In the words of our Artistic Director, Tanya Birl-Torres, we are "Back in the womb space. Creating a labor of love. Something sacred and sovereign with community." The Washington Heights Womanist Arts Festival is the reflection of a community back at itself. Recognizing the healing power of the performing arts, music, movement and banquet, we call on every person living in our urban jungle to gather in connective spirit, song, reflection, and jubilation! Our goal is to ensure this festival remains free (yes, including food!) for those wishing to partake. If you'd like to help us keep this event as open and accessible to all, or simply believe in our mission, please consider donating to our crowdfunding page here: https://fundraising.fracturedatlas.org/washington-heights-womanist-arts-festival/campaigns/4841 We Look Forward To Seeing you in Summer 2022!
Purelements An Evolution in Dance
Fulton Street
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