Women Musicians Shine a Light on New Orleans

March 2-6, four women arts activists (Cris Williamson, Vicki Randle, Alix Olson and Pamela Means) will travel to New Orleans to collaborate with four local women musicians (Asia Rainey, GaBrilla Ballard, Sunni Patterson, and Charmaine Neville). The trip is being organized by the Artistic Director of Women Center Stage, Olivia Greer, who I interviewed last year, as part of Culture Project's EMANCIPATE program. During the trip, the eight women will travel together throughout the area to meet with activists and community-based organizations.

On April 27 the eight musicians will meet again in New York City to perform new songs inspired by their trip as part of the Women Center Stage Festival. In June, their songs will be recorded, and the CD sales will benefit a community organization in New Orleans.

Jacqueline Lee, a Women's eNews correspondent went to the first EMANCIPATE event this summer during the Women Center Stage Festival. In her post, Center Stage Struck, she wrote about the experience:

"I felt more confident about myself and my own thoughts just being in a roomful of women who could speak their minds so strongly and have it be OK, and to hear how they think and what they have to say."

Melissa Silverstein also reported from the Festival for the Huffington Post in her piece, Women Center Stage -- Women Artists and Activists for Social Change:

"Emancipate brings together activist women songwriters using art to raise consciousness in their communities. Singer Taini Asili, who is committed to the movement to free Mumia Abu Jamal, used her set to sing about breaking out of our own mental prisons, and Alix Olsen a self defined radical lesbian feminist railed against the political establishment."

You can follow news from the eight women's travels on the EMANCIPATE web site and leave a comment in their Guestbook.

Photo Credit: Cris Williamson and Vicki Randle by Shoshana Rothaizer.

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