October 2010-Thank YOU for making Peoplehood a success

Spiral Q’s Peoplehood Parade and Pageant Makes for Good Community

The Giant Puppet Extravaganza Brings Neighbors Together,
Highlights Power Of Spiral Q’s Mission

This summer, Spiral Q board and staff members reworked the organization’s mission, shifting from “Illuminating the victories, frustrations and concerns of communities…” to its more participatory and active, “Spiral Q Puppet Theater builds strong and equitable communities characterized by creativity, joy, can-do attitudes, and the courage to act on their convictions.” Peoplehood is one of the events and mechanisms through which Spiral Q pursues its mission.

This Saturday, for the 11th consecutive year, Spiral Q’s Peoplehood Parade and Pageant helped bring neighbors together to celebrate and learn from one another while participating in the pursuit of Spiral Q’s mission. 30 diverse community groups participated in the story-telling, art making, parading and performing process that Peoplehood creates. It’s the range and depth of community supported by Peoplehood that has made it such a cherished event by neighbors. When a group of 17 senior citizens joined the culminating giant puppet parade in wheel chairs decorated with glittery hearts, scores of teens spontaneously and continuously chanted, “L-O-V-E! That’s the way it ought to be!” down the streets of West Philadelphia. Neighbors and participants were equally touched.

Lena Buford, whose group from Mariposa Food Co-Op marched in the parade said, “About 6 years ago back in 2004 I was wandering through West Philly on an October day deciding if I wanted to live there. It just so happened that it was the day of the Peoplehood parade, and I thought – if this is West Philly, then West Philly is for me. I have lived here ever since. Spiral Q’s work and the Peoplehood Parade in particular are huge assets to the community and really reflect some of the things I love about kooky, creative, grassroots, caring West Philly.”

Anne Margrethe, who leads the Art Therapy Unit at Girard Medical Center, a residential, substance abuse and recovery center, said, “It’s one of the most fantastic experiences that our clients have. It’s a powerful day. The beauty of it, the sheer colors and creativity that we all experience is profound. Everyone is so welcoming here. It makes people feel really valued and important in society. It’s certainly one of the highlights of our year.”

West Philadelphia Cultural Alliance president and Paul Robeson House CEO, Fran Aulston, had this to say about Spiral Q and Peoplehood: “It’s like a family reunion and people from all over the city come here. It helps us support our mission; To create community and create arts and opportunity for those from West Philadelphia and beyond. We get to share experiences and we all become advocates for one another and the arts. Thank you, Spiral Q, for your energy and passion and integrity in serving your mission! I love you.”

The following groups participated in this year’s Peoplehood: The Paul Robeson House, The Peoplehood Band, Build On, Girard Medical Center, The Factorye, W. Philly Cooperative Preschool, Park Pleasant Nursing Home, Walnut Hill Comm. Assoc., Promethius Radio, ACT-UP Philadelphia, New Life Consumer Center, Neighborhood Bike Works, New Freedom Theater, The Harris Steppers, Youth Build Philadelphia, The Enterprise Center CDC Street Team, United Block Captains Association, Mariposa Food Cooperative, Philly BDS, Philadelphia Outward Bound, Project Home, Broad Street Ministries, Tasker Elite, Village of Arts and Humanities, Montessori Genesis 2 School, Teens 4 Good, Jane Addams Place, and Friends of Clark Park. This program would not have been possible without the generous support from PNC Arts Alive.

PEOPLEHOOD is Spiral Q's annual artistic response to the times. It is our joyful, festive demonstration that we as people can come together, grapple with the issues of the day, and respond meaningfully in the streets. Through a giant puppet parade and pageant we offer a magical, relevant and participatory process for Philadelphians to create a new vision for our world…

October 2010-Spiral Q Collaborates with Michelangelo Pistoletto and the PMA

In 1967, the artist Michelangelo Pistoletto rolled a ball of pressed newspapers through the streets of Turin, Italy. Bringing this artistic vision to life in a city's streets was truly groundbreaking 43 years ago. Pistoletto was one of the founders of the Arte Povera Movement, which sprung from the idea of making revolutionary art that was completely free of conventional practice. Pistoletto is also widely considered to be a major contributor to the minimalist, conceptionalist and pop-art movements. When the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) decided to kick-off this major retrospective of the artist's works with a reenactment of his 1967 Turin walk, who better to invite to fabricate the famous ball and help lead the walk through Philadelphia's streets and other public places than Spiral Q? Join us on Saturday at 1:30pm at the PMA's West Entrance when Pistoletto and Spiral Q depart to reenact this historic event. FREE and open to the public. Rain or shine.

October 2010-11th Annual Peoplehood Parade and Pageant

Spiral Q’s Peoplehood Parade and Pageant is Saturday, October 23rd

The Giant Puppet Extravaganza Brings Neighbors Together,
Celebrates Our Stories and Creativity

PEOPLEHOOD is Spiral Q's annual artistic response to the times. It is our joyful, festive demonstration that we as people can come together, grapple with the issues of the day, and respond meaningfully in the streets. Through a giant puppet parade and pageant we offer a magical, relevant and participatory process for Philadelphians to create a new vision for our world…

This year, Spiral Q has been engaging with groups to discuss how we creatively respond to discrimination. See how heartfelt concerns that lay deep in the fabric of our community are conveyed through the loving and creative process of giant puppet pageantry. See your neighbors carrying personal symbols of identity and transcendence through the streets of West Philadelphia. See young and old perform together in Clark Park. See Philadelphians of every shape, size and hue work things out through play and creativity.

Peoplehood is much more than the spectacle of a giant puppet parade and performance that annually brightens the streets of West Philadelphia on a fun October, Saturday. Peoplehood is a community-building process that brings neighbors together to think about issues and topics that are important to us. Then, in working with Spiral Q artists, these ideas are transformed into huge puppet art, and finally worked into meaningful parade and pageant performances that EVERYONE gets to perform. It’s a fantastic way to get to know your neighbors and community.

Come out to Peoplehood. Walk in the parade or wait for it to arrive at Clark Park and then watch the giant puppet pageant tell a true community story. Peoplehood is like no other Philadelphia tradition. Help us bring this year’s Peoplehood parade and pageant to life! This year’s Peoplehood is made possible through the generous support of PNC ArtsAlive, letting everyone “be part of art.”

PARADE: 1pm at The Paul Robeson House, 50th and Walnut Streets
12pm if you want to join in!

PAGEANT: Watch the pageant around 2pm at Chester and 45th streets. Pack a picnic!
Bring friends and family!

September 2010-Pulse of the People Meeting

SHARE YOUR STORIES
Tuesday, September 14th,
6pm to 8pm
@ Spiral Q
3114 Spring Garden Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104

You can feel it in today's air. Opposition. Conflict. Fear. Battles over immigration. Battles in foreign wars. Right versus left. High school students menacing one another. Pastors wanting to burn holy books. Cheesesteak shop owners in the news. Outrage over mosques. Passion about Ground Zero. Spiral Q invites you to look around at today's moment and join us in conversation. We want to SHARE STORIES about ENCOUNTERS WITH DISCRIMINATION. Come to Spiral Q and be part of the conversation. We can't wait to hear and learn from each other. We're taking the pulse of the people.

July 2010- Silkscreen Resistance and Dissent: Teens Revolt

Spiral Q Presents:
Teens Revolt: What's On Our Minds and Culture and Resistance:
South Africa, Then and Now
Opening Reception
NEXUS/foundation for today's art
Thursday July 8, 2010
6 PM
1400 North American Street
Philadelphia, PA 19122

Join Spiral Q for the opening of two exhibits that explore the role of printmaking in the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and in current struggles for justice in Philadelphia.

Teens Revolt: What's On Our Minds is an exhibition of original silkscreen posters created by Parkway Northwest High School students through Spiral Q’s Education Initiatives. Inspired by the use of posters in the South African anti-apartheid movement, students designed and printed posters that make bold statments about "what's on their minds."

This March, Spiral Q traveled to South Africa to meet with artists who were at the center of the anti-apartheid poster movement. Culture and Resistance: South Africa, Then and Now displays images, interviews, and anecdotes from Spiral Q’s trip, and tells the story of the courageous artists who dedicated their lives and work to the struggle for freedom. The exhibit highlights the role of the Medu Art Ensemble and Community Arts Project, two South African collectives of artists and cultural workers.

This program is part of Art in Resistance, Spiral Q's study and celebration of art's historic and ongoing role as a liberating force in justice movements throughout the world.

July 2010-Spiral Q Receives 2010 George Bartol Arts Education Award

STOCKTON RUSH BARTOL FOUNDATION SELECTS
SPIRAL Q PUPPET THEATER TO RECEIVE
2010 GEORGE BARTOL ARTS EDUCATION AWARD

Award Honors Artistic Excellence and Commitment to Community

Spiral Q Leads Grass-Roots Artmaking as a Vehicle for Social Change


Philadelphia, PA—The Stockton Rush Bartol Foundation announced that it has selected Spiral Q Puppet Theater as the 2010 recipient of the George Bartol Arts Education Award. As part of its annual grant review process, the Foundation designates one grantee to receive this additional award of $5,000 to further support its arts education programs. More information on the award and the Bartol Foundation is available at www.bartol.org

The George Bartol Arts Education Award was established in 2001 to recognize outstanding arts education programs by a non-profit cultural organization. Each year, a grant of $5,000 is made in memory of George Bartol, founder of the Stockton Rush Bartol Foundation, who believed that the key to a thriving arts community was an investment in arts education for its children. This year’s award is made possible through a gift from Mr. Bartol’s children.

The Award is given to an organization that provides sustained, meaningful exposure and participation in the arts; that demonstrates an active engagement in the lives of its students and community; and that maintains high artistic standards for its faculty and students.

Spiral Q is a community-based arts organization that mobilizes and empowers low-income communities to promote social change and justice. Through extended work in communities, Spiral Q brings together intergenerational and multicultural groups to articulate their most compelling stories and to animate these stories with large-scale puppets, parades, printmaking and pageants. Programs like Spiral Q’s annual Peoplehood event brings together these communities, culminating in a citywide parade and performance highlighting pressing neighborhood concerns.

“This $5,000 award is made to Spiral Q for its commitment to arts excellence and to the diverse communities it serves,” said Beth Feldman Brandt, Executive Director of the Stockton Rush Bartol Foundation. “Through its extended and rigorous educational programs, people learn the value of their story, uncover the assets of their community, and experience the power that comes from being an engaged citizen.”

“There is a long history of the arts being used as a tool to promote issues of social justice,” explained Tracy Broyles, Executive Director of Spiral Q. “This award recognizes not only Spiral Q but the power of the arts to galvanize people toward making social change a reality.”

The Stockton Rush Bartol Foundation, as the only local Foundation devoted solely to supporting local arts organizations, seeks to foster an environment where arts and culture can flourish. Created in 1984, the Foundation provides financial and technical support to non-profit arts and cultural organizations in Philadelphia. Through its grantmaking, the Foundation works to ensure a vibrant cultural life for all of its citizens through programs that use art as a catalyst for meaningful communication and connections, strengthening the social fabric of Philadelphia’s neighborhoods.

June 2010-Struggle to Freedom:Remembering the Medu Art Ensemble

Spiral Q Puppet Theater Presents:
Struggle to Freedom: Remembering the Medu Art Ensemble
Spiral Q invites you to join us in rememberance of the Medu Art Ensemble with Medu Survivor Judy Seidman and South African multiinstrumentalist Mogauwane Mahloele.

Monday, June 14, 6:30 – 8:30 PM
Church of the Advocate
1801 West Diamond Street
Philadelphia, 19121

Free

On June 14, 1985 the South African Defense Force raided a small community in Gaborone, Botswana assassinating twelve Medu Art Ensemble artists and community members whose community influence and political involvement posed a tremendous threat to the brutally inhuman and oppressive system of apartheid.

The Medu Art Ensemble was an exiled arts and culture organization that brandished songs, poems, photos, and performance art to unite South Africans and international allies against one of the most oppressive and inhuman regimes of our times. In 1982, Medu organized the Culture and Resistance Festival which brought together artists throughout South Africa and catalyzed many of them to commit their work to the anti-apartheid struggle. After the assassinations in 1985, Medu's work as a collective ceased.

Twenty-five years later, Spiral Q remembers the Medu Art Ensemble with a multimedia performance and special presentation from Judy Seidman- printmaker, cultural worker, educator and Medu survivor- who comes from South Africa for the occasion. Also joining the conversation is Philadelphia based Mogauwane Mahloele, a South African musician, artist, and activist who remembers Medu well and attended the Culture and Resistance Festival. Spiral Q invites all of Philadelphia to join us as we remember the Medu Art Ensemble and reflect on the role of art in shaping our communities. A small reception will follow the event.

June 2010-Norris Square Parade and Celebration

Norris Square Parade & Celebration
Norris Square Park Diamond and Hancock Streets Friday, June 4th
Children's Pageant at 4:30 PM
Parade at 5:30 PM
Open Mic Performances 6:30 to 8:30 PM

Join the Norris Square community and Spiral Q as we parade together in celebration of neighborhood leaders who helped make Norris Square a safer and more unified place! On Friday, June 4th, residents, students, civic leaders, faith-based groups, politicians, performance ensembles, and recovery groups will come together for a celebratory performance and parade to encourage an increased committment to safety and unity within the neighborhood.
Through song, dance, artwork and other performances, students from Hunter School, McKinley Elementary School, and Kensington CAPA will commemorate community leaders who worked to beautify the neighborhood and bring residents together. Among those honored are Rosemary Cubas, Rafael Feliciano, Tomasita Romero, Pat DeCarlo, Stanley Sautner, Iris Brown, Reverend William Gage and Sister Carol Ceck.

The artwork and symbols created for the parade and celebration were inspired by a series of community dialogues during which residents related that the community is safest when all generations are connected to each other. We hope to see you on Friday at this beautiful multigenerational expression of hope and pride for the Norris Square community!

May 2010 - Feltonville Intermediate "Lifting Our Cultures and Families" Parade

On Friday, May 28th Feltonville students and community members will parade together through the streets of Feltonville, sharing and celebrating the many beautiful cultures in their vibrant community. This parade is a culmination of Feltonville Intermediate's exploration of identity, culture, and relationships within the community. For the past six weeks, Spiral Q led Feltonville third, fourth, and fifth graders, their older siblings, parents, and faculty in dialogues and hands-on activities about their families, their backgrounds, and the diversity of cultures in their community. Students worked together to create giant puppets that represent community members and the relationships between them: mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, and teachers and students. Come see the magnificent giant puppets created by the students and join Feltonville and Spiral Q in appreciation of all the colorful places and cultures we come from!
The parade will step off from Feltonville Intermediate, 238 East Wyoming Avenue, Philadelphia, 19120 at 1:00 PM.
This is a great example of one of the 10-15 partnerships that we lead with Philadelphia schools annually. Our Education Initiatives offer participants creative, engaging and sequential project-based art education and youth development programs that build community within schools while teaching collaboration and communication skills through creative group settings and processes.

My heart is full

It is morning and April and I sit in autumn at table outside my hotel room.

Cape Town disappears behind us, behind cliffs that peer to the sea, holiday sandy coves full of beach umbrellas and boogie boards, windy mountain passes, ostrich farms, and the wide open Karoo Desert. Cape Town disappears behind us, a string of interviews and meetings that pulled legend and history out from its dusty corners and made clear the details and realities of the Grassroots Newspaper and the Community Arts Project. We met fabulous people. From a fancy art studio situated in an old warehouse converted to spaces for artists to the ahrd one living room of a Cape Town township fought for by women who refused to be relinquished to shacks. Cape Town breaths fire, dancing around mountain ranges and spilling to beaches that were once for whites only.

We did an superb job in Cape Town. We sniffed and scrambled getting appointments with people who were essential to both the Grassroots Newspaper and the Community Arts Project. We met people who referred us to others. People were extremely gracious and agreed to meet us often with little notice. I am proud of the breadth of people we spoke with and the range of perspectives we collected. Our days were long. Sometimes we were interviewing for six or seven hours a day. My understanding of how these two amazing resources were organized, worked together, and built a fierce network has definitely sharpened in its focus.

It is living here, staying in homes that are grand and quiet full of art and books and tiled bathrooms, driving past corragated metal shack towns, dense and bustling, wash lines bright and blowing, lines of people along the highways looking for a ride. I feel the breath of those who have come before me, and I see how truly complex and conversely simple the task of pushing for a justice and equality becomes.

It is holiday and big cars stuffed with suitcases and families pile into rest stops, ice cream cones drip, drip, dripping. Large families over fed and proud smelling familiar, reminding me of U.S. holiday highways.

The wind blows in this desert resort town. It is Saturday two weeks have passed. Blue sky and birds croo. We saw half a dozen rainbows yesterday in the rain that fell in sheets in the distance. I think before coming here I had a somewhat simplified understanding of the struggle. The ANC was good, everyone involved in the struggle was united and clarity of purpose dissolved the small dramas that seem to invade human life. All these myths have been dispelled, initially this was disheartening, but as we have listened and talked with organizers and artists, i glean a different truth. The tasks before us, the task of social and economic revolution seems less daunting. Listening, it has been reaffirming to hear personal narratives about how believing in self determination, collective organizing, media and media training, strategic commitment to purpose and tasks, willingness to work within the complexities of various view point, and compassion people were able to end apartheid rule.

Cape Town. I leave this city with a much clearer grasp of the Community Arts Project Media Division how it came to be, what principals drove it, how it organized itself, and how access to those resource affected people. Oh I have met my heroes and soul mates.

We will post pictures upon our return.
With love.

Using Media All the Time

We've been busy...
I am falling in love with Jozi (Joberg)

Today we were welcome in by Khulumani Support Group East Rand in Katlehong- about 45 minutes outside of the city. Khulumani is a nationally organized community defense council, with 55,000 members in South Africa. In Katlehong specifically the community is doing amazing organizing work to address decades of exploitation by IMB, Mercedes Benz, Daimer, and a fourth company I can not presently recall and the South African government. Currently Khulumani has filed a class action law suit in the New York courts USA, against this group of corporations. The South African government has joined the case on the side of the corporations. Recently the New York courts ruled that Khulmani's legal team could open certain South African government files. The group asked that we spread the word about their struggle and their victory. Khulumani is actively demanding reparations for the communities effected by exploitation, state violence, and apartheid.

This amazing sharing of purpose, victories and struggles was arranged by Judy Seidman.
Judy Seidman, it has been one of the greatest honors of my life to meet this remarkable woman.
It is because of the book, Red on Black, which Judy researched, editing and composed that we first gained access to the breath and power of the South African poster movement. We have both poured over this book the past two years. To get to talk in person with Judy about her life, her experiences as an artists and printer during the struggle her, her role with Medu Art Ensemble, her friendship and creative relationship with Thami Mnyele, her current projects and her convictions has been such a pleasure and an honor. To travel half way around the world and find individuals and groups who are thinking about the worlds problems in similar ways and designing responses to these quandries with ideas and solutions that resonate so specifically with the work we do, is humbling, inspiring and mind-blowing.

People here have lived through extreme state repression and the stories we have heard are the extraordinary acts of people who lived their lives with the conviction that apartheid had to end.
Listening and talking with folks, it becomes clear that everyone used media all the time.
And groups who are experiencing successes today are also employing media to accomplish their goals.

Print shops, radio stations, alternative advertising, community events, community art processes, libraries, computer labs, photography, newspapers, all these tools were and still remain essential resources.

Last night I stayed with the Keleketla crew who have gained access to this amazing old Drill Hall in the center of Jozi. They have a book library, programs for youth, an internet cafe, art studios, dj equipment, print shop, and a mission to live in Jozi and build a community center of arts and culture. They are hustling big time to put organizational infrastructures in place, to grow their resources and programs, to make beautiful art and keep shit moving. It was beautiful to be in Jozi at night, the crazy buzz of the day time taxis and street venders melts to quite. The Drill Hall is an impressive old building, the library is beautifully organized. I am so honored to have met these feirce individuals and to spend the night talking talking talking. The artists there are turning out incredible incredible art- stencils, drawing/photographs, silkscreens. I will eventually include photos and video. Wanna give a shout out to Keleketla, keeping it real Jozi.

We leave for Cape Town tomorrow. We have been hustling on the ground to connect with folks who were part of organizing or teaching at the Community Arts Project(CAP) in Capetown. This was one of the major community print shops during the struggle and an impressive collection of posters and tee shirts were produced there. I am excited for the road trip, to see the Cape and the penguins and to keep unpacking personal narrative about how silk screen shops and the art they produced were crucial to the anti-apartheid struggle.

One of the Keleketla crew, Tshepo who is from Soweto was telling me about stories he was told...
To announce meetings, which had to be at churches, that was the only safe place, the posters would get printed and hung at night. The police would have them down by 10 am but by then everyone would know where to go.

Huge love from SA.
Thinking of you all all the time.
This struggle is global- we in this together.

South Africa: Feet Touch Ground

I have been trying to upload photographs for some time.
It is late, I sit in a suburb of Jozi (J-berg).
I want to give you pictures more than words, but for now
words seem to be all this technology will allow.

It has been years of dreaming of this journey.
I remember first talking with Tracy about this project,
waiting for grants that may or may not come, dancing
around work schedules, holding our breath and finally
leaping.

We followed our planes trajectory on a monitor in front of
Tracy's seat. From Atlanta to Johannesburg without refueling.
Through the airplane window the landscape rose to meet us,
South Africa.

I am farther from home than I have ever been, in a
country that twists and turns, that seeps with a pain and
and a strength that is both completely new and yet
somehow familiar. The country heads towards autumn and
we drive through neighborhoods behind walls and gates
and barb wire. We smell eucalyptus trees, drive on the other side
of the road and eat delicious home cooked food.

There are twelve official languages here, words and meaning
slip and sway over and around this amazing pool of sounds and vocabulary.
My mind cannot wander far from the injustice of race and racism, the same
thoughts that ride with me through the streets of Philadelphia. Different
but familiar.

Since landing our countless questions about the struggle, print shops, posters and t-shirts,
the details, and the spelling of names have been received with patience again
and again, at table after table, with a generosity that is humbling and liberating.

Julia Grey is our local connection, providing information and strategic advise,
while also driving us about. An old-school journalist
and a Jozi local her participation and wisdom are invaluable pieces
to this trip, making it possible for us to cover so much of ground.

We have been granted this amazing opportunity to explore together the role that
silk screen posters and t-shirts played in the anti-apartheid movement and to connect
with arts and culture organizations working inside the legacy of post apartheid South Africa.
History books and art books have sprung to life as the authors of South Africa's
anti- apartheid struggle have sat in dinning rooms and cafes sharing the facts of their lives.

Julia's partner and our other gracious hosts, Rehana Rossouw, a brilliant journalist has shared and continues to share her involvement in building a youth movement in Cape Town, her role as a collective member of Grassroots newspaper, and her participation in the ANC. She speaks to the role media played in her organizing work, "What is the point of a protest if no one comes... We all used media all the time."

From Rehana we have heard of giant banners painted through the night, each hour passing bringing them closer morning and to the event. Huge banners draped and tied over mini-buses drying in the wind, arriving to the event on time. We have heard about door to door with petitions, silk screened tee shirts, pamphlets dropped illegally at factories, late nights spinning the linoleum press, late nights, all night, graffiti and painted placards on the side of the highway, waking up each morning, "Freedom or Death" burning in the stomach.

Tomorrow another post- and hopefully pictures.

Two days before departure.

Spiral Q is going to South Africa!

From March 20 until April 7th !