8pm
FREE and open to the public
Followed by Q&A

Annie May Swift Hall
Alvina Krause Studio Theater
(Enter in the back of the building, facing library)
1920 Campus Drive
Evanston, IL 60208
For more information: (847) 491-7315

Using a combination of spoken word, movement, and an original soundtrack, The Ladies Ring Shout journeys through contemporary women of color’s experiences. The multimedia work meditates on four frames integrated into our lived realities – the statistics and sociological condition of women of color, our mundane everyday acts, the codes and rules we are disciplined into, and the myths we conjure to imagine our future possibilities.

http://honeypotperformance.com/

Four Shows!
Thursday November 10 @7:30pm
Friday November 11 @ 7:30pm
Sunday November 13, 3pm & 7:30pm

BUY TICKETS

$12 online
$15 at the door

Meida McNeal, Artistic Director
In collaboration with Abra Johnson, Boogie McClarin and Ni’Ja Whitson

Design Collaborators:
Jeanne Medina, Set & Costume
Garvin Jellison, Lighting
Jo de Presser, DJ
David Weathersby, Video

A production of of Honey Pot Performance

Thursday November 10 @7:30pm
Friday November 11 @ 7:30pm
Sunday November 13, 3pm & 7:30pm

$12 online
$15 at the door

BUY TICKETS

Find us on Facebook!

Parking is available on 61st Street, Dorchester Avenue, and in the University of Chicago Press parking lot. Please enter the Experimental Station on Blackstone. The event is wheelchair accessible.

*****
The Sweet Goddess Project is a multimedia dance theater work exploring women’s experiences in Chicago house music and dance culture. While women have long been essential to the sounds and scenes of house as vocalists, dancers and DJs, this urban performance tradition is often narrated as a male-dominated practice and cultural space.

Sweet Goddess examines ideas of femininity, community, sensuality, pleasure and empowerment to imagine the woman-centered energies of house culture. The work is part of an ongoing journey to identify core characteristics of house culture illustrating its power as a way of knowing the world through music and movement.

Meida McNeal, Artistic Director
In collaboration with Abra Johnson, Boogie McClarin and Ni’Ja Whitson

Design Collaborators:
Jeanne Medina, Set & Costume
Garvin Jellison, Lighting
Jo de Presser, DJ
David Weathersby, Video

This work is supported through grants from the Chicago Dancemakers Forum, the Puffin Foundation, the Community Arts Assistance Program and the generosity of individuals supporting Honey Pot Performance’s artistic endeavors.

Registration is required. Reserve here— http://bit.ly/nI5ElW

From The Color Purple to Precious to The Help, what’s missing in representations of Black women in popular culture today? In Ladies Ring Shout–a performance using a combination of spoken word, movement and original soundtrack–Felicia Holman, Abra Johnson and Meida McNeal explore portrayals of women of color in popular culture and offer their own poignant and personal stories of resistance in this three-woman show. “There’s potency within this range,” says TimeOut Magazine. “It’s as if the trio’s work is fundamentally a tug-of-war between emotional and intellectual investigation.” Join us for this special multi-media performance and conversation.

Sponsored by The Public Square, a program of the Illinois Humanities Council, this event is free and open to the public. Co-sponsored by Chicago Foundation for Women’s African American Leadership Council and U Chicago’s Center for the Study of Race, Culture and Politics.

Pre-sale tickets available online!
The Ladies Ring Shout
August 4-6 2011 / 8p at Defibrillator, 1136 N. Milwaukee
$10 online | $15 at the door

Though it’s been almost a full month since I’ve written a journal entry, we are now 2 weeks away from the world premiere of The Ladies Ring Shout (Aug 4-6, 2011) and I am moved to write about my reflections of this collaborative process.

As a co-founder of both ThickRoutes Performance Collage (TRPC) & Ladies Ring Shout (LRS), I have had the privilege to collaborate/create/perform with amazingly talented women. Over the last 10 years, Abra Johnson & Meida McNeal have been my “stage sisters” as fellow co-founders of both TRPC & LRS. Together, we have conceived & staged several evocative and acclaimed performances of varying lengths; the best way I can describe our creative process is ‘organic systemization’. However with Ladies Ring Shout, we not only crafted a feature-length performance from a quilt of workshop-generated material, we have fostered a community!

For LRS, we’ve been blessed to enlist the design talents of Lindsay Obermeyer, Jeanne Medina and Chris Nightengale. The costume/set/environmental designs of these three artists contribute enormously to the look & feel of The Ladies Ring Shout. The seeds of this design collaboration were planted (appropriately enough) at Jeanne Medina’s New Year’s Eve 2010 dinner party. While catching each other up on our respective goings-on, I told Jeanne about LRS & our Oct 2010 residency at U of NC. In turn, she shared the impetus of her then-newly completed student project at the School of The Art Institute (SAIC). Until that dinner, we hadn’t really known much about each other’s art but we were both energized by the works’ respective parallels and vowed to find an entry point for collaboration. Fast forward a few months to early Spring 2011….

Jeanne attends one of our weekend rehearsals to see a dry run of the show (all 3 acts) & spur set design ideas. Unbeknownst to me at the time, Meida had also consulted with a designer whom she worked with at Chicago Artist Resource (CAR)— enter Lindsay Obermeyer as LRS costume designer. Then during a subsequent rehearsal where both Jeanne & Lindsay were present, we were treated to reunion—-Lindsay had been Jeanne’s first fiber/textile instructor at SAIC & a huge influence in Jeanne’s approach to the medium! Shortly thereafter, Jeanne’s LRS design vision required further collaboration— enter graphic/video artist Chris Nightengale, who’d done previous work with Jeanne.  By incorporating found/re-purposed materials in both the costumes & sets, our LRS design team has beautifully aligned their vision with the show’s DIY/’make a way out of no way’ ethos. I am so proud of all of us, coming together how we have, and anxiously await opening night!

—Felicia Holman

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Check out our project website for The Ladies Ring Shout. We’ll be posting updates in July as we prepare to debut this labor of love. We are excited to share this work with you!