Social Change

Walking, Releasing, Flowing

Walking, Releasing, Flowing

THERE IS A LAUNCH DATE ON THE HORIZON!
The work is turning into a beautiful internally immersive piece of digital storytelling. Join us.

2019 Begins Again

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\Back


& /Forth

I’m expecting this turn around the wheel to be completely new and utterly familiar. As I move forward, I draw from my rich well of experience in theater and storytelling for social change!

What are you expecting in 2019?

Photos by Aidan Un, Presented by Intercultural Journeys, 2018.
Directed by: Rania Lee Khalil, Video Art: Gazelle Samizay, Musician/Composer: Alex Shaw

There is a Portal is growing. Thank you to all the partners who helped develop the work and to audiences who engaged with the interactive dialogue.
Now that folks have said “WE WANT THIS” I am building up the foundation so we can offer it to educational and community spaces that serve immigrant/refugee/diaspora youth. We want this to be a vehicle for youth to create and share their own stories and build spaces of belonging.
Contact me to support this effort.

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"There Is A Portal is so profound in its vulnerability, its honesty, its way of opening up and out into the community of witnesses." - Audience Member

"Thank you for a wonderful and inspiring performance. It means a lot to me as someone with American/diaspora stories I hold in my body." - Audience Member

"I hope you have the opportunity to share this with the world. I love how the audience is invited to be so present and inside the experience." - Audience Member



Upcoming Events


February 23-24
Two-day Forum Theater Workshop:
Explore the technique of Forum Theater.

Participants will learn the basic skills needed to create, perform and lead the Forum Theater format for use in their respective communities. We will explore our bodies as a tool of representing feelings, ideas, and relationships and explore collective solutions to everyday problems.


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5th Annual Women’s Conference

March 4, 2019
11:00am, Panel discussion: Teaching As Activism
BMCC Main Campus

The Time is Now

The Time is Now

We have one week left for you to support the healing and transformational work that telling our stories can accomplish.

The Muslim Women’s Story Lab is working to keep all of us human and to have our humanity recognized through storytelling, community engagement, and the arts.

As media personalities and political candidates spread divisive messages of fear and misinformation, this is an important time to reflect on how we choose to recognize and uphold the humanity within ourselves and each other.

With one week left in our fundraising campaign we need you more than ever.

The Force is With You

The Force is With You

In today's climate, story and art are more necessary than ever. We need these important tools. The Muslim Women's Story Lab is a unique and hopeful approach to mobilizing Muslim women around issues that they face using storytelling, theater and art-making.

I’m asking if you will direct some of your power to back this project which has brought tremendous hope and light to me in these troubled times.

It is winter for the forces of oppression … the spring belongs to us!

Join me to sow seeds of peace, unity, women’s power, and creativity!

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/muslim-women-s-story-lab#/

Launching the Muslim Women's Story Lab

Launching the Muslim Women's Story Lab

I am so pleased to announce the launch of the The Muslim Women’s Story LabThe Lab builds women’s capacity to lead creative, culturally resonant community engagement projects within the Muslim community using strategies that harness and reclaim Islam's empowerment of women.

Making It

Hello Everyone:
3 exciting things below! My writing, an event at the NYC Municipal Archives, and the Muslim Women's Story Lab moves forward!

A short piece I wrote on making art, diversity, and compromise, was just published in Montrealserai -- a lovely online webzine focused on arts, culture and politics! 

Here's a little excerpt to get you interested:

"So I look down at my feet. My sandals are touching ground where Diego Rivera once stood, or sat, or walked by. I’m pulled into a world which, when he was creating it, was all but banned subject matter. Poor people’s lives, indigenous lives, didn’t matter. He made space, literally, by painting giant public murals that projected the sound and color, history and memory of poor and working class people in Mexico. And he showed not only what he knew to be true, and beautiful, but what he knew had power to change the world."     Read on ...
 

And here in New York, I'm making the final preparations for a discussion at the NYC Municipal Archives on the history of sterilization abuse in NYC and the struggle for change.
Thursday, July 9, 2015
5:30 pm - 7:30 pm

Please RSVP to: visitorcenter@records.nyc.gov
31 Chambers Street, New York, NY 10007

We have a terrific panel and will be displaying archival materials from the women's own collections.  Here is one example of what you'll see:
 

Courtesy of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party Archives.

Courtesy of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party Archives.

 

Last but not least, I got great news that the Muslim Women's Story Lab is going to move forward this fall! Stay tuned for updates.

Have a wonderful Independence Day. It's time to get free!