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Women's Rights = Human Rights?

JACK continues its spring season with the three-night series Women's Rights = Human Rights?, curated by cultural workers Norah Yahya and Jamil Smith, and addressing a different theme each night, employing art as a vehicle for discourse on some of the most pressing women's issues.

Each night will begin with a performance followed by a panel discussion with the featured artists, community members and leaders, and filmmakers and activists using the performance as a jumping-off point for dialogue.

SCHEDULE

Thursday, April 30: The first evening will unpack Gender Norms and dissect why certain gender roles are considered feminine or masculine within our society and assess within those norms what expectations are assumed. This evening will be a combination of dance performances by Johari Mayfield. In addition the evening will allow students from Playwright/director Barbara Cassidy and Anthropologist/Linguist Shonna Trinch's class called "Seeing Rape" at John Jay College of Criminal Justice perform their final projects. This class explores depictions of rape in theater, literature and film, as well as uses of rape in war and our world at large. Some of their students' (Brandon Ariezaga, Steven Beauduy, Bradley Davis, Majed Elmoneim, Anna Giannicchi, Shaneek Houslin, Muhammad Khan, Izabela Qafa and Brittany Washington) final projects, which are short plays and monologues using rape as a theme, will be presented in a staged reading by actors.

Friday, May 1: Featured artists include Tigist Salem and Delphine Fawunda, both well-known mixed media artists, and Catherine Cabeen who will perform Ready, Aim, a solo comedic performance of dance theatre. The focus of the evening is on the conscious and subconscious treatment of women and the impact it has on the daily lives of women and men. Within this analysis, the artists will propose new ways of thinking and forces us to question our beliefs and assess how modern society's backbone has been based on religious narratives of womanhood.

Saturday, May 2: The featured artists for this evening include Kasara E. Davidson, Kat Mustatea, Nikki Jusu and Shauntee Henry, who will be concentrating on the impediments to the Women's Rights Movement, and the ways in which women's rights have been superseded by greater political agendas. This evening will dig into prior women's movements and question why leaders like Susan B. Anthony caved to political pressures by distinguishing between the rights of Caucasian and African women, shaping the experience of African-American Women's Rights in the country.

Produced by Candace Feldman.

Promotional image by Julia Noni
www.julianoni.com