ROOTS Week 2018: RE/NEW! by Alternate ROOTS

ROOTS Week 2018

RE/NEW! August 7-12, 2018 Arden, NC

Table of Contents WELCOME & GROUNDING Land Acknowledgement.........................................................................5 Welcome: Michelle Ramos, Executive Director...............................6 Welcome: ExComm Officers...................................................................7 Artist Statement: Liana Ambrose Murray............................................8 PROGRAMMING ROOTS Week Themes.............................................................................10 UpROOTing Trainings.............................................................................11 Eliminating All Forms of Oppression...........................................12-13 Workshops......................................................................................14-18 Performances, Films, & Visual Art................................................19-25 Self Organized Space & Late Night....................................................26 Bios ..........................................................................................................27-31 HELPFUL INFO Meeting Agreements...............................................................................33 2017-18 Organizational Snapshot.............................................34-37 Frequently Asked Questions................................................................38 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Funders, Sponsors, & Special Thanks.........................................40-41 Giving to ROOTS.................................................................................42-43

#AlternateROOTS

#ROOTSWeek2018

Alternate ROOTS

Alternate_ROOTS

AlternateROOTS

Welcome & Grounding

Land Acknowledgement As we gather together at ROOTS Week, we acknowledge that we are on the homelands of the Cherokee people who have stewarded and continue to steward this land for generations. We pay our respects to the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, the descendants of those who resisted removal by the US government to remain in their rightful place. We honor the elders of this land, both past and present, near and far.

Welcome to ROOTS Week! RENEW – it is a word that breathes opportunity and challenges us to rethink, reimagine, and recommit to the work we do in a world that has pushed us to the edge this year. Renewal requires us to be brave and fearless, yet compassionate and resilient. We hope that this week will offer you a space to decompress, be inspired, and to invigorate each other, for all that is ahead in 2019. I am humbled and inspired to be sharing in my first ROOTS Week with you as your new Executive Director. As part of my twelve city Road Trip in early 2018, I have broken bread in your homes, stepped on the land in your communities, and witnessed the passion in your work. I am so grateful for the love offered, support given, and ways you have already pushed and stretched me as a leader and refined my lens of what is possible and what can be imagined in our world. The flame in my heart and soul has been ignited and illuminates so vibrantly as I move in the world and share and lift up the work y’all have been doing for decades. I wake up each and every morning, wanting to do more, working harder than I ever have before, because I know the world needs what ROOTS has cultivated over the past 42 years. We can be the change the world is so hungry for. We hold the vision, traditions, culture, community, and the most important resource of all, the art and artists! I look forward to dancing with you all this week … long time ROOTers and first time ROOTers. Be vulnerable, be challenged, be fearless, but most of all RE/NEW! with this one of a kind community of folks ... and be loved. Michelle Ramos Executive Director, Alternate ROOTS

Welcome: ExComm Officers Dear ROOTers, It’s our 42nd ROOTS Week, and we could not be more thrilled to welcome you to the hills of North Carolina to break bread, bust a move, and imagine a better world for us all. As artists, cultural workers, healers, organizers, neighbors, lovers, and everything in between you have been called here for a reason. Maybe that reason is still unknown to you – maybe you know exactly why you are here, what you bring, and what you hope to receive. Regardless of where you sit on that continuum, we are happy you are here. Calling upon us all to RENEW our spirits in the journey toward a just and equitable society and learn something NEW about ourselves and our communities along the way, we invite us all to ground in the ways our collective movement satisfies and challenges. Engage in a meaningful conversation with someone you don’t know. Self-reflect while walking the labyrinth (it’s behind Efird Hall!). Attend an extra business meeting. Push yourself to choose the workshop that challenges you. Take the time for self care that you’ve been telling yourself you would take. Finally, let us all give our new Executive Director Dr. Michelle Ramos a big welcome. As an Executive Committee we are excited for you all to get to know Michelle like we have over the past six months. She has taken the reigns with ease, grace, and a fierce commitment to our mission. In the spirit of RE/NEW, we look forward to moving through this week with you! Sincerely, Your Executive Committee Officers Monique, Trey, Nicole, and Kim

ExComm Officers Artwork: Monique Davis

Artist Statement: Liana Ambrose Murray This year’s ROOTS Week artwork is a tribute to the Southern sculptor, artist, and educator Augusta Savage born in 1892 in Green Cove Springs near Jacksonville, Florida. Although I’ve grown up in Asheville, NC, I was born in Jacksonville, FL too. Savage began sculpting as a young girl with the red clay she found in the riverbanks and beneath the soil of her homeplace in Clay County. As a child, her art making was punished by her father, a minister who strongly believed that her sculpted images were ungodly. Despite this, she graduated from Cooper Union in New York and grew into a masterful sculptor and arts educator. The composition of this work is inspired by Savage’s piece titled, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” referencing Jacksonville native James Weldon Johnson’s famous poem turned national anthem. The piece is most often known as “The Harp” since she was forced to change its name for the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. I created this image in honor of the ROOTS theme, RE/NEW, and in remembrance of Augusta Savage.

As her work has done for me, I hope that we may feel the visions of our ancestors on the back of our heads and necks, lifting us up in their warmth, allowing us to continue forward with more insight and clarity. Her legacy as a black woman artist during the Harlem Renaissance must be remembered, like Zora Neale Hurston’s has, as we continue to do the work to recuperate the many artists and cultural wizards whose memory we’ve lost to the past. Liana Rhapsody Ambrose Murray is a visual artist raised in Asheville, NC with roots in Northern/Central Florida. She is the daughter of Tamiko Ambrose and the granddaughter of Pamela DeNeuve and Sherry Lagergren Murray. She graduated from Yale University this year as an African-American Studies Major and is the first artist-in-residence at the Mississippi Center for Cultural Production in Utica, MS. She is a member of the YOOTS team working to bring more young people to ROOTS.

Programming

ROOTS Week Themes Our theme of RE/NEW! inspires us to both RENEW ourselves and our community, while also moving towards the NEW. In this political climate we need to RENEW: to pull the wisdom from the past forward with us, to make it – and ourselves – new again. And, we know that we have our individual and collective growing edges – places where we need to call in the NEW. Some of these were named at ROOTS Week 2017, and, in addition to the overall theme of RE/NEW!, this week’s performances, art exhibitions, and workshops have been curated in response: Decolonizing ROOTS: How do we decolonize ROOTS? We’re seeking to lift up Indigenous histories, ways of knowing/being, and experiences to envision a path toward decolonization and sovereignty. Gender/queer Liberation: What does it take to create a gender liberated self/community/world? How are queer and trans* communities using art and culture to rise up against regressive, anti-trans policies in the South? Intersectionality & Interculturality: We’re thinking about how intersectionality and interculturality join forces to help us exercise the muscle of holding the fullness of complex identities, cultures, and histories – both our own and one another’s. YOOTS!: The youth at ROOTS (self-defined as anyone 30 and younger) are getting organized – building on ROOTS’ founding as a network of young artists, as well as the legacies of youth-led social movements. Safer Spaces Move Us Towards Liberation: How do we create a culture where everybody is affirmed and respected in their dignity, boundaries, agency, sexuality, and self-possession? We’re working to collectively create safer spaces in support of our individual and collective liberation.

We envision a ROOTS Week that celebrates and courageously nurtures new people, new ideas, and new ways of building our beloved community, as we draw strength, wisdom, and inspiration from the past. 10

UpROOTing Trainings For several years now, ROOTS has been committed to offering anti-racism trainings at ROOTS Week. ROOTS members as well as facilitators from the field have developed and supported these trainings. In 2017 (after years of encouragement from our membership!), we returned to ROOTS memberfacilitators and brought together a team of ROOTers to develop our own sessions, created specifically for the unique collection of folks who gather together at ROOTS Week. We learned a lot last year, and overwhelmingly heard that we should keep it up. So we’re back, with UpROOTing! Here’s what you can expect: ROOTS Week participants will be arranged into three cohorts who will travel together through the entire UpROOTing arc, guided by your own facilitators: Magnolia Group meets in Mission Chapel, guided by Joanna Russo, Samuel Valdez, and Sage Crump Spruce Group meets in Efird Hall, guided by Michelle Ramos and Kaiden Roberts Pine Group meets in the Faith Center, guided by Lisa Mount and Edyka Chilomé There will be three trainings offered through the week and each cohort will participate in each training on different days. So stick with your cohort and you’ll move through the full arc of this year’s UpROOTing trainings: UpROOTing Racism led by Keryl McCord, Kathie DeNobriga, MK Wegmann, and Hasan Davis First Peoples, a Multiplicity of Stories led by Kim Pevia and Quita Sullivan Gender Liberation as Movement Work led by Nicole Garneau, Andrea Assaf, Harold Steward, and indee mitchell

Eliminating All Forms of Oppression By Keryl McCord & MK Wegmann Racism doubles or triples every other oppression. Racial classifications were invented by early naturalists and anthropologists in the 1700s and refined in the 1800s in the years leading up to the Civil War. Race was created as a means of political and social control to, in the words of the Governor of Virginia in a letter to the King of England, divide and conquer poor whites from people of color so that they would never again take up arms against the crown. Today, science has proven what many have always known: that racial classifications are biological fiction with no scientific basis. No one characteristic, trait, or gene distinguishes us racially. There is and has only ever been one race... the human race. It is racism that enforces the lie that there are separate races. Through rule of law, custom, and culture, policies and practices, successive generations over the centuries have come to believe a massive delusion. A delusion and illusion that has afforded some the means to amass wealth on an enormous unprecedented scale. Wealth built atop genocide and theft of Indigenous land, and forced labor through slavery and Jim Crow segregation. Coupled with social, political, and cultural norms centered in patriarchy, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, and ableism, when compounded by racism, women, LGBTQ communities, and people with disabilities experience multiple systems of oppression daily. It was Kimberlé Crenshaw, a black feminist scholar, who introduced the theory of intersectionality to feminist theory, identifying how interlocking systems of power impact those who are most marginalized. Systems of oppression don’t live in our society nor in our lives separate and distinct from one another. As someone said, “Don’t ask me to divide myself among my oppressions.”

Keryl McCord & MK Wegmann

Understanding the magnifying, compounding power of race and racism is fundamental to any analysis of systemic structural oppression for those who live at the intersections of or who have been elbowed to the margins of American society. ROOTS Week 2018 artists/activists will teach and learn together working side-by-side in our understanding of how the various systems live in us. Alternate ROOTS’ commitment to cultural equity and social justice began in 1976 at its inception. This commitment was further activated when its current mission statement was adopted in the mid-1980s: “As a coalition of cultural workers we strive to be allies in the elimination of all forms of oppression.” Throughout the following three decades we have consistently worked to design our operations and programs and to equip our members to meet the challenges of “UpROOTing Racism and Other Oppressions.” There have been successes and failures along the way, but the commitment has remained constant, influencing every facet of the organization – from membership recruitment to the design of re-granting programs, to our consensus driven decision-making process, to the content of ROOTS Week. Over the years during ROOTS Week, we have hosted training sessions from leading anti-oppression entities, external to ROOTS, who have offered us valuable skills and an understanding of concepts and approaches. Over time we have become more and more intentional and explicit in examining our own structures and actions, to make the road by walking it. As ROOTS’ visibility and leadership role in the national community increased, we came to understand that there is expertise within ROOTS to do this training work. As we have long sung in ROOTS, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for...” At the 2017 ROOTS Week, a cohort of ROOTS members undertook the design and facilitation of UpROOTing Oppression sessions for ourselves and are doing so again for 2018. Over the course of the last year we have re-designed the sessions for this year, incorporating feedback from 2017 and expanding the cohort of facilitators. We are using a process of working in smaller groups to expand our ability to discuss how the content we offer is landing, and to share strategies for taking the work beyond the week. ROOTS’ 40+ year history is short in the context of 566 years of structural oppression, but we are on the journey together. We hearken to John O’Neal’s lifelong signature, “Yours in the Struggle.”

Workshops

Afrofuturism Marcella Camara In this workshop, creative writing and traditional healing techniques come together to explore and imagine Afrofuturism as a praxis for wellness and public health. Afrofuturism is an imagining of the vastness and profundity of blackness – black technology, black history, black art, black science fiction, and black existence. To put it simply, it is the belief that black people can and will exist in the future. How can we center blackness in tech, sci-fi, art, and public wellness to advance our desire to not just exist, but thrive in the future?

Renewal/ Reconception/ Redefinition: No more “Sunken Places.” doris davenport Focus: a renewed vision and vocabulary, an alternative way to see and to be. An infrastructure of revolutionary positive, healing change. A needed paradigm shift; to understand and feel how deeply (mind, body, spirit) toxins and poisons run. Then, we heal, change, (re)create! At the center of this workshop: an analysis of the loaded and inaccurate terms “privilege,” “minority” (and “people of color”) and alleged “Black history.” Activities: interactive writing, sharing, thinking, talking (maybe some easy stretching). A beginning, a possible portal for change.

Queer + Trans Storycircle

Self-Care for the Resistance

Nathalie Nia Faulk + indee mitchell

Christine Gautreaux

Nathalie Nia Faulk and indee mitchell lead a sharing circle for queer and trans people of all ages with the aim of building an intergenrational space dedicated to building both individual and communal work, dialogue around healing, identity, and resilience to the world around us.

There is a physicality to the emotions that can get triggered and stored in our bodies as activists and artists. Using the tools of InterPlay, Christine provides artful ways to help people share personal stories, access their body wisdom, witness, affirm, and identify ways to access selfcare during these chaotic times. InterPlayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s expressive art-based tools will offer participants an effective container to transform and release difficult emotions, find and access joy, and create connections that foster self-care. Join us for some powerful play!

Art and Autism Learning Exchange Jeff Mather + Gerard Stropnicky An exploration of ways of working in the arts in and around issues of ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). Jerry and Jeff share their experiences working with people with autism, followed by a facilitated Learning Exchange dialogue. Together, we’ll look at what “exclusion” means when communities intersect, leading to an examination of ROOTS culture as it contends with issues of inclusion regarding people with disabilities. We’ll use ASD as a sample subculture that can open up consideration of others.

You’re Never Too Young (or Old!) To Be An Activist Vicki Meek + Pedro Estrada You’re Never Too Young (or Old!) To Be An Activist is an intergenerational space which will explore strategies for organizing for political power. Using the experience gained from Vicki’s 2016 Project Development Grant where she provided political education to Dallas millennials and young adults, workshop participants will work on strategies tailored to specific communities. Co-facilitated by one of the youngest participants of the Taking Back Our City training, Pedro Estrada, the 16-year-old son of an undocumented immigrant. Participants will leave with a roadmap for organizing for political power in their communities.

The Re-Mothering Salon Kim Pevia + Monique Davis + Christine Gautreaux “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child.” Sometimes I just need to lay my head in a woman’s lap, have her stroke my head and tell me I am worthy. Sometimes I want to climb in a woman’s lap and have her tell me it will be ok. The Re-Mothering Salon offers a space to do just that. It is a free flowing in and out pop up experience with women willing to hold sacred space for others who need or want the space to be held. We are never too old to need mothering. For some there comes a time when mother is no longer around. For others she never was. The Re-Mothering Salon can help fill that space. Offering music, aromatherapy, and love.

Movement, Art, & Change Andrea Romero + Mika Gainer Movement, Art, & Change is a workshop for womyn* of color. It is an intentional intercultural space that promotes healing and nurtures our collective imagination. Our resilience is the building block for building a more just, whole, and healed world. Using Audre Lorde’s essay The Master’s Tools, participants look at the stories that keep us from being the Goddesses that we are. NO NEED TO BE AN ARTIST! Come ready to move and create together! * We use the term womyn as a inclusive term for all those who self identify as being female, women, or femme.

YOU ARE ON

#HonorNativeLand Gabrielle Uballez + Emily Johnson U.S. Department of Arts & Culture

Community Sing & Song Leading Workshop

LAND

The #HonorNativeLand workElise Witt shop supports individuals and For all the work that we do as artorganizations in opening Artwork pubUSDAC.us/nativeland by Keith BraveHeart one of the most pow#HonorNativeLand Sakowin: Oglalaist/activists, Lakota lic events and gatherings Oceti with erful ways to gather and make acknowledgment of the tracommunity is through Singing. ditional Native inhabitants of For this workshop, singers of all the land. The workshop offers abilities, styles, and experience context about the practice of are welcome! If you are interestacknowledgment, provides steped in honing your Song Leadby-step instructions and strateing skills, please be in touch gies for spreading the practice with Elise and come prepared to of acknowledgement in their teach a song/musical piece. You communities, and tips for movwill have the opportunity to lead ing beyond acknowledgment fellow ROOTers in song, and get toward action and change. feedback and encouragement to Released in 2017, the USDACâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s further your skills as a communiHonor Native Land: A Guide and ty song leader. Lots of opportuCall to Acknowledgment was crenity for all to sing and follow the ated in partnership with Native muse!! allies and organizations. More than 7,000 people have downloaded the guide and hundreds have pledged to put acknowledgment into practice.

Performances, Films, & Visual Art

Pop Up Cinema Dan Brawley Cucalorus hosts Pop Up Cinema at ROOTS Week 2018, an informal showcase of new media made by artists attending ROOTS intended to generate dialogue, feedback, and collaboration. Over the past three years, Pop Up Cinema has showcased more than 40 documentaries covering a wide range of stories about people fighting for social justice. Alumni of the program include Bailey Barash, Rodrigo Dorfman, Maurice Martinez, Jackie Olive, Jordan Flaherty, and many more.

HOWL: Melusine in Portrait Justin Day HOWL: Melusine in Portrait examines love, betrayal, and trans identity through the lens of an ancient French fairytale turned modern myth. Melusina was a nymph, a mermaid, a dragon, a queen, a witch, and a banshee; all rolled up into one. However, her story is only told through the eyes of her husband, and she is painted only as a wife and a mother. HOWL: Melusine in Portrait is a study in femininity and the male gaze in its relation to trans identity.

Ecos (Echoes): Resonances of South Carolina Latino Stories

Attala County SelfHelp Cooperative

Diana FarfĂĄn

Farming for African Americans emerged through systems of oppression and exploitation. Many left farming, migrating in large numbers to northern cities; those that stayed continued to face hardships, discrimination, and violence. The Attala County Self-Help Cooperative is changing this story. This film follows five members of the cooperative as they tour their land and tell the histories of their families. These members are drawing inspiration from the familiesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; pasts, both their struggles and their strength, to rebuild farming as an emancipatory practice, and reclaim the South as a cultural home. This film shows the potency of place and the power of collective efforts to transform the landscape.

This art exhibition showcases the work of nineteen artists, residents of South Carolina who self-identify as Latino. These nineteen artworks are the result of a creative interpretation based on a collection of oral history interviews that document the experiences of Latino immigrants to South Carolina. The show montage pairs each work with the original audio from the oral history interviews. Through Ecos (Echoes), we aspire to enhance the publicâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s understanding of the rich history and culture of South Carolina and beyond, with an exhibition that welcomes diversity and embraces differences, manifested by a variety of medium and deep content linked by common bicultural experiences.

Sarah Franzen

Pink Ribbon

Music

Samantha Galarza

Lydia Violet Harutoonian

Pink Ribbon is a direct confrontation of misogyny, the replication of patriarchy in queer relationships, and the ways in which the racialized feminine body is devalued and targeted. It connects personal experiences with gender-based violence (and that of other cis/trans women) to mainstream norms that are commonly overlooked. It also honors the lives that have been lost, in a ceremony in which the symbolic bones of the deceased are washed and buried. Prose, ritual, images, and song work together to honor the memories that our bodies can never forget.

Lydiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s music performance combines Iranian folk music with American roots music, weaving together 3-part harmonies, fiddle, and banjo for a soul-folk revival experience. Singing in a council of friends is one of the most healthful, encouraging, invigorating, and nourishing things that we know. Hearts opened by grief and celebration want to sing their songs of longing, despair, belonging, reckoning, valiant warrior-ship, and gentle loving kindness. It is our birthright to engage in this culture-creation together, joining long lineages of communities who weave song in order to come back to life.

Touched by Fire Amanda Hughes + Kassi Dephinia Amanda & Kassi perform using various implements like fire staff, fire poi, and fire hoop to a medley of song, expressing through dance their contrasting and overlapping experiences of reclaiming and celebrating their power, femininity, and bodies living with mental illness, disability, poverty, misogyny, queerness and unconventional sexuality, discrimination, estrangement from family and friends, and lifelong survivorship of abuse and sexual assault â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and celebrating their friendship.

Ezell: Ballad of a Land Man Robert (Bobby B) Martin Ezell: Ballad of a Land Man is a developing solo work that explores rural, white working class men in Appalachia, domination behavior, and land-based trauma. It is an environmental parable of how men participate in forms of domination behavior with the promise of power that results in spiritual destruction. It also explores the complex legacy of the extractive resource industry in post-coal Kentucky through the lens of one man reconnecting with the people and land of his raising. Created, Designed, and Performed by Bob Martin, Directed by Nick Slie, Produced by Carrie Brunk and Clear Creek Creative.

Writeous Reflections

Teens With a Purpose

The Writeous Poets

Teens With a Purpose, artist will share original Spoken Word poetry and music lifting up “Racial Justice”. Featuring: Youth Spoken Word Artist Devin Carter “Imagine”, Shana Smith Coleman, Poet & Creative Program Coordinator, Quinton Sherman “Q5”, Rapper & Creative Community Liaison plus Alisha Burke TWP Youth Leader.

Young poets speak their truth through the medium of poetry and spoken word.

This Little Light

Our Word

Wendi Moore-O’Neal + Ada McMahon

Chris Revelle

This Little Light tells the story of Wendi Moore-O’Neal, a Black Feminist organizer and freedom singer from New Orleans, Louisiana. The documentary recounts how Wendi was fired from her community organizing job after marrying her wife, Mandisa, due to a homophobic celibacy policy at her non-profit employer. This Little Light is a self-determined portrait about the power of love, community, and the living legacy of the Black Southern Freedom movement. The film makes a forceful and inspiring call to rethink work, build beloved community, and take risks in service to being free, in the Era of Trump and disaster capitalism. Co-directed by Wendi Moore-O’Neal and Ada McMahon. Also featuring Wendi’s father, John O’Neal, a founding member of Alternate ROOTS.

Our Word is the history of America told through the word “nigger.” Our Word is a sound piece utilizing both sides of the same vinyl record played simultaneously. On one side, the work looks at the creation of the euphemism and its ability to sanitize the discussion of race. On the other side, the work examines the word throughout America’s history and the debate over its use within black vocabulary. When the two sides are played together, they create a dialogue through spoken word, piano, and drums, addressing the brutality of racism and the nation’s inability to confront it.

Music

CRY YOU ONE

Deep Seedz Art Collective

Mondo Bizarro

Deep Seedz Art Collective performs songs from their recent EP Rooted that highlights issues in the South from a youth perspective.

CRY YOU ONE is a project of ArtSpot Productions and Mondo Bizarro, in direct partnership with the Another Gulf is Possible, that utilizes site-responsive performance, live music, visual installation, digital storytelling, food sharing, and cultural organizing salons to celebrate the people and cultures of Southeast Louisiana while turning clear eyes on the crisis of our vanishing coast. This fifteen minute documentary details the manner by which CRY YOU ONE has utilized art to engage issues of ecology and equality in Louisiana and across the United States for the last six years. The film is made possible with funding from StoryShift.

Self Organized Space & Late Night We’ve got A LOT of wonderful workshops, performances, films, and more on the schedule AND we invite you to convene your own Self-Organized Spaces! To create a Self-Organized Space you: 1) Decide the what, where, and when (look for breaks in between sessions and during meals). 2) Post this info on the Self-Organized Space bulletin board. 3) Do some grassroots word of mouth organizing. 4) Show up and kick off the exchange. Easy! Late Night is ROOTS’ legendary after-hours open mic/cabaret! Any ROOTS Week participant can get up and share — poetry, dance, music, scenes, experimental performance art — whatever you want to show is welcome! Each evening has a different MC that you can talk to about getting on the list.

Bios Dan Brawley is the Chief Instigating Officer of the Cucalorus Festival, an international celebration of filmmaking, performance, and technology in Wilmington, North Carolina. Cucalorus screens more than 300 films (50% directed by women) and has a reputation as a spirited showcase of emerging technologists, activists, and media makers. Brawley is President of the Film Festival Alliance, an independent non-profit organization supporting mission-driven film festivals around the world. Marcella D. Camara is a Liberian-American multimedia creative, curator, health educator, cultural alchemist, and story teller, among other things. With a background in cultural organizing and public health, her work centers using art, culture, and afro-futurism as a praxis for social justice and community wellness. She is a tribe member of Spirithouse, where she uses cultural arts and public health to center reproductive justice, anti-racism, and healing work. Currently, she works as a creative director and curator, as well as coordinates youth programming and various community initiatives throughout North Carolina. She launched Young, Gifted, & Broke in 2017 to create unique art spaces that center people of color and combat the erasure of creatives of color in a rapidly gentrifying Durham. doris davenport - Visionary poet-educator from Northeast GA. Workshop leader- participant since 1980’s in California wimmin’s communities. Degrees from Paine College and the University of Southern California (Ph.D. Literature). Working against all “isms” for justice, truth, beauty, my daily life is social activism. Published ten books of poetry, and an essay in “This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color.” Recent books: 65/poems (2014) and performance pieces (2016). Forthcoming: “rectify my soul: poems.” Monique Davis currently serves on the Board of the Jackson Convention and Visitors Bureau, and is deeply committed to creating a vibrant, diverse Jackson that is centered in human rights and dignity. In the spring of 2018, Monique had her first Gallery Show: Harlem Renaissance Meets Afro Punk: Honoring the Past Imagining the Future. Monique is the wife of Melvin Davis (for 23 blissful years), and the mother of six magnificent human beings, Melvin Jr, James, Charles, Ava, Benjamin, and Daniel. You can view her work at Luvmagic.com. Justin Day is a recent graduate from UNC Asheville with a degree in Theatre. They are a director, writer, actor, drag performer, and performance artist. As a transfeminine nonbinary person, they hope to use performance art as a way to share their experience and voice.

Deep Seedz - The mission of Deep Seedz is to enhance artistic skill through civic engagement, leadership development, and cultural enrichment for youth and young artists in Jackson, MS. Our objectives seek to enhance members seeking artistic development in graphic art, poetry & creative writing, dance, and all forms of creative arts. Diana Farfán is a visual artist, culture agent, art coach, and advocator for Latino Artists. She received a BFA at Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá and obtained a MFA in Ceramic Sculpture at University of South Carolina, Columbia. Diana studied at the University of Anchorage, Alaska and Tainan National University of the Arts, Taiwan as an exchange student. Her artwork focuses on political and social issues coated with a fine layer of humor. Sarah Franzen is filmmaker, scholar, and professor dedicated to understanding and contributing to a just agricultural system. She is currently faculty at Spelman College and a Research Advisor at Emory University. Her interdisciplinary research integrates theories of visual anthropology, rural development, and critical race studies with multi-modal ethnographic methods. She has worked extensively with African American farm cooperatives for the past five years as a researcher, filmmaker, and participant in numerous activities across the South. Her publications address the fields of visual research and rural development, and her films have been screened at film festivals, universities, and agricultural workshops. Samantha Galarza is a queer, mixed-race, Puerto Rican, SAG-AFTRA actress/ writer/singer/performance artist/director. As an art-ivist, her work explores queer identity politics, gender, systemic/internalized racism, love, substance abuse, migration, the U.S. prison industrial complex and policy that disproportionately affects ethnic minorities. Ultimately a storyteller, her dream is to bridge the gap between mainstream media and progressive “de-colonial” political art. She is an alum of the Hemi EmergeNYC program and co-founder of the queer performance collective A Beautiful Desperation. Christine Gautreaux - Dedicated to the pursuit of play, joy, art & social justice, Christine’s superpowers include connecting people, helping folks manifest their dreams, standing up against injustice, and using art to make a difference in the world. Currently using performance art, poetry, storytelling, and InterPlay to address issues of oppression in marginalized populations. Christine works with activists & artists to maintain self-care during these intense times we find ourselves living. Author of Stillpoint: A Self Care Playbook for Caregivers to Find Ease and a Time to Breathe, and Reclaim Joy. Lydia Violet Harutoonian is an accomplished Iranian-American multi-instrumentalist, weaving together American roots and Iranian folk music traditions. In her live band she combines fiddle, banjo, and luscious 3-part harmonies

to offer a soul-folk revival experience creating a new wave of protest music. Her weaving of West African percussion, clawhammer banjo, and gospel-inspired vocal parts take her audiences deep into the cave of roots music wonders. In the past year she has collaborated with Rising Appalachia, Climbing PoeTree, Rev. Sekou, and many others. Amanda Hughes & Kassi Dephinia are independent artists in Raleigh, NC whose disciplines include performing, visual art, music, and writing. Amanda works as a tattoo artist and piercer at the Glenwood Avenue Rock & Roll Tattoo. Kassi is disabled; she was chronicling her fight for Social Security Disability Income until it became too taxing and she refocused on merely surviving. Emily Johnson is a Bessie Award winning choreographer, Guggenheim Fellow, and recipient of the Doris Duke Artist Award based in NYC. Originally from Alaska, she is of Yup’ik descent and creates work that considers the experience of sensing and seeing performance. Emily is a lead collaborator in the Indigenous-artist led Healing Place Collaborative (Minneapolis, MN) and is developing a Global First Nations Performance Network with colleagues in the USA, Australia, and Canada. Robert (Bobby B) Martin is a theater/film artist, cultural organizer, facilitator, teaching artist, and co-founder of Clear Creek Creative in Rockcastle County, KY. He is passionate about using story, theatre, and media to create spaces where audience and artists merge to transform the human condition and the world we live in. Bob has co-written and directed dozens of community performance projects throughout the region and co-hosts the Hurricane Gap Community Theater Institute. He is a proud ROOTS member. Jeff Mather, a member of Alternate ROOTS since 1992, is a community-based public artist & environmental sculptor. He works with a full inclusion arts program that serves students with disabilities. Jeff is a co-founder of the Atlanta Partnership for Arts in Learning. He has been a Learning Exchange facilitator for Alternate ROOTS’ Resources for Social Change. Ada McMahon is a nonfiction filmmaker. Originally from Massachusetts, Ada lived on the Gulf Coast from 2010-2015, where she made collaborative media that supports grassroots community organizing for justice. She is now studying filmmaking at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. Vicki Meek is an artist activist and has been involved in community arts development initiatives in several states, the longest tenure being in Dallas, Texas where she managed South Dallas Cultural Center for 20 years. She’s former Chair of the Board of NPN/VAN and is COO for Usekra: Center for Creative Investigation in Costa Rica, whose founder & Artistic Director is Elia Arce. She was a Fellow in the first cohort of Intercultural Leadership Institute.

Mondo Bizarro is a New Orleans-based company that has been creating daring, interdisciplinary art and fostering creative partnerships in local, national, and international communities for the last fourteen years. We are an ensemble that creates, presents, and produces a wide array of imaginative projects aimed at utilizing art as a tool for understanding what makes us commonly human and individually unique. Wendi Moore-Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Neal is a Black Feminist butch dyke from New Orleans, Louisiana. She uses story circles and song sharing, learned from her family of movement veterans, as tools for growing inspiration and building democratic process. Wendi has worked in local, regional, and national organizations, and currently runs Jaliyah Consulting. Kim Pevia is an experienced life strategist, an engaging keynote speaker, and a uniquely skilled experiential style transformational workshop facilitator. Her company, K.A.P., Inner Prizes, specializes in identifying and addressing the issues that can keep us stuck by continually developing a personalized toolbox to help us hurdle over them. Born and educated in Baltimore, MD she currently lives in Robeson County, NC where her roots run deep as a member of the Lumbee Tribe. She serves on many local, state, and national boards that support community activism and local economy through arts, food, culture, and tourism. She is a writer and the founder of Artist Market-Pembroke, providing retail opportunities for local and regional artists in southeast North Carolina. Chris Revelle is a multi-disciplined contemporary artist based in Atlanta. Through a diverse body of work, Revelle focuses on social issues by examining history, language, and visual culture. Revelle has exhibited in the United States, Hong Kong, South Korea, and India. He was the recipient of the 2018 Idea Capital Grant and a finalist for the 2017 Hong Kong Human Rights Art Prize. He earned his MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. Andrea Romero and Mika Gainer - Two women of color, Art & Activism partnership- Andrea combines her Colombian roots, art, music and yoga with her passion for social justice, she focuses on bringing art into activism. Andrea promotes spaces where people can experience deeper connections, conversations and healing. As an afro-feminist entrepreneur, writer, and artist, Mika provides transformative meditation experiences for people to manifest as the hero of their own journey through deep thinking, playful engagement, and compassionate expression. Gerard Stropnicky is a Temple Grandin Award winner for service to the autism community. Inspired by their son, he and his wife Kathy founded CampEmerge, a camp for families touched by autism, now in itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 20th summer. Jerryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s also a writer, community organizer, and director of Community Story Plays, among other Peacebuilding projects.

Teens With a Purpose (TWP) is a peer-led environment where all young people are seen, heard, valued, and empowered to make safe and healthy lifestyle choices in an evolving and creative space for themselves and others to bring about positive change. TWP offers youth hands-on, high-level arts and youth development programming, year-round including creative writing, spoken word performance poetry, music production, visual art, horticulture, and peer leadership training that also provides crucial opportunity for social and behavioral support through cultural grounding, open expression of ideas, critical thinking, and creative problem-solving, where youth learn to connect directly and deeply with one another developing mutual respect and empathy as they develop life skills. www.TWPTheMovement.org Gabrielle Uballez, Minister of Collaboration & Activation with the USDAC. Uballez’s passion for the arts and cultural organizing is rooted in 20-years of participation in community arts and platforms supporting artists of color. She was formerly the executive director of Working Classroom, a youth arts organization, and has been associated with: Studio Museum in Harlem; National Association of Latino Arts and Culture Leadership Institute; National Endowment for the Arts grant panelist; and several community boards. The U.S. Department of Arts and Culture is a people-powered, grassroots action network inciting creativity and social imagination to shape a culture of empathy, equity, and belonging. The USDAC connects people in a creative learning community by supporting local cultural organizing, generating inspiring national actions, and devising cultural policies to catalyze culture shift to social and environmental justice. Together, we’re creating narratives of power and possibility and scaling up strategies for equity and belonging. Elise Witt’s Impromptu Glorious Chorus™ workshops and her concerts of Global, Local & Homemade Songs™ create and connect singing communities around the globe. Elise serves as Artist-in-Residence at the Global Village Project, a school for teenage refugee girls. A lifelong learner and 40-year member of ROOTS, Elise honors the work of her many teachers including Rhiannon (Bobby McFerrin’s Voicestra) and Dr. Ysaye Barnwell (Sweet Honey in the Rock) to create her own powerful facilitation of Community Singing. The Writeous Poets have been in existence since 2000 under the umbrella of Backyard Enterprises. A periodical that featured writers from around the nation has since been transformed into a youth-oriented literacy, creative writing, and performance troupe. This initiative has assisted young writers in finding their voice and confidence as individuals, performers, and activists. Armed with the most powerful weapons around (their thoughts and tongues) they defy stereotypes, speak their truths, and combat social injustices.

Helpful Info

Meeting Agreements As part of ROOTS’ community-building practice, we are intentional about the ways in which we gather together and share space. These meeting agreements are an evolving practice we use to cultivate equity, community, and wellness when we convene as a group. As you participate in discussions/ workshops/meetings throughout the week, please use these agreements as a starting point and add/edit/transform them as needed! We use “I” statements and speak from our own experiences and feelings. We take care and responsibility for ourselves and our own physical, emotional, mental, spiritual needs. We seek first to understand and assume good intent while also acknowledging impact — if something we say or do causes harm we commit to working through it. We give each other grace, knowing that the work of undoing oppressions is hard and we will all mess up at some point. We write pronouns on our name tags, include our pronouns in group introductions/check ins; we are mindful of using folks’ correct pronouns as part of growing our practice of gender liberation. We share time and space equitably: if we’re prone to participating a lot, we are intentional about moving back, if we’re prone to not participating much, we challenge ourselves to move forward. We ask before we hug — we acknowledge everyone has different physical boundaries, and seek to create a space where everyone feels safe and empowered in their own bodies. As time and group size allows, we check in and out at the beginning and end of meetings; we invite folks to share what’s going on in their neck of the woods or in what physical/spiritual/emotional state they’re entering or leaving the meeting. We share the labor of meeting roles including (but not limited to): facilitator(s), note taker, public scribe, emotions monitor, timekeeper, doorkeeper. (And sometimes meeting DJ and food maven.) We avoid alphabet soup and coded language by unpacking acronyms or buzzwords. We take stretch/dance/movement breaks whenever possible!

Organizational Snapshot: August 2017-July 2018 Grant & Partnership Programs This year we awarded 29 Artistic Assistance grants and began our journey with a new Partners in Action cohort in July. Between both programs, we have supported projects in 11 of the 14 states in our region (plus Washington D.C.!) with a total of $170,795. Congratulations to all our partners and grantees! Partners in Action: 2018-19 Cohort Art2Action, Tampa, FL Cattywampus Puppet Council, Knoxville, TN The Sanctuaries, Washington, DC Women Healing Empowering Women, Houston, TX Word on the Street, Asheville, NC Total Direct Funds Distributed: $68,000 + $12,000 of technical assistance Artistic Assistance Winter 2017: Project Development Liana Ambrose-Murray, Asheville, NC Dora Arreola, Tampa, FL Arielle Brown, Conley, GA Julius Brown, Conley, GA Rhea Carmon, Knoxville, TN Adrienne Clancy, Silver Spring, MD Jennifer Denning, Decatur, GA Lauren Hind, New Orleans, LA Rashida James-Saadiya, Durham, NC

Julie B Johnson, Atlanta, GA Chris Kaminstein, New Orleans, LA Alison Kibbe, Carrboro, NC Robert Martin, Clear Creek, KY Mat Schwarzman, New Orleans, LA Arianna Ross, Germantown, MD Carlos Sirah, Charleston, MS Jeannie Fowler Rodriguez Stone, Russellville, AR Anu Yadav, Washington, DC

Total Distributed: $69,795 Summer 2018: Professional Development Esmeralda Baltazar, San Antonio, TX Ching-in Chen, Houston, TX Jessica Clark, Fairmont, NC Shannon Ivey, Columbia, SC Ashley Minner, Baltimore, MD Yudith Nieto, Houston, TX Total Distributed: $21,000

Rhonda Oliver, New Orleans, LA Taria Person, Nashville, TN Thandiwe Shiphrah, Nashville, TN Shantell Turner, New Orleans, LA Jessica Valoris, Washington DC

ROOTS Weekends ROOTS Weekend Atlanta – September 28-October 1, 2017 – was the culminating event in our pilot series of six regional gatherings that we convened throughout the South from 2015-2017. Through the theme of Creating Place: The Art of Equitable Community Building, this ROOTS Weekend dug into the practice of creative placemaking within the context of Atlanta’s fast changing landscape, paying special attention to how art drives and resists gentrification. Big thanks to our partners: The Arts Exchange, Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, C4 Atlanta, and WonderRoot. # in Attendance: 280 # of Presenting Artists: 76 # of Travel Subsidies: 12/$2,270 Save the date! The next ROOTS Weekend will be held in Jackson, MS, November 8-11, 2018.

Intercultural Leadership Institute (ILI)

This spring wrapped up the first-ever cohort of the Intercultural Leadership Institute (ILI). A collaborative program of Alternate ROOTS, First Peoples Fund, National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures, and PA’I Foundation, ILI is a year-long rigorous personal and leadership development program for artists, culture bearers, and other arts professionals. The second cohort of 28 ILI fellows were selected from nearly 300 applicants. Congratulations to the ROOTS members who were selected: Amy Brooks, Edyka Chilomé, Gwylene Gallimard, Joe Tolbert, Lauren Fitzgerald, Liza Garza, Maria Cherry Rangel, and muthi reed! #ROOTSRoadTrip One of Michelle Ramos’ first moves as ROOTS’ new executive director was to announce the #ROOTSRoadTrip – that she’d be packing her bags and hitting the road to meet ROOTers in their communities. Responses came rushing in, and from April-June Michelle made visits to: Atlanta, GA; Washington, DC; Philadelphia, PA; New Orleans, LA; Jacksonville, FL; Hot Springs, NC; Charleston, SC; Wilmington, NC; and San Diego, CA. You can read all about the #ROOTSRoadTrip in a three-part Travelogue on the ROOTS blog. Financial Health Alternate ROOTS’ financial health continues to be strong. In addition to the grants listed below, we received an anonymous donation of $190,000 in January and raised $1,363 through our Seeds to ROOTS giving program, which was established in honor of Carlton’s service to ROOTS, to benefit rural artists throughout the South. The grants received since last August include: Doris Duke Charitable Foundation: $350,000 over 2 years Ford Foundation: $400,000 over 2 years The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation: $600,000 over 3 years SonEdna Foundation: $10,000

Staff Structure We’ve seen some big changes to the staff structure this past year! In January we welcomed our new Executive Director, Michelle Ramos, as Carlton Turner transitioned out of the role after nine years and fourteen years on staff. With a directive from our current strategic plan to continue to build capacity within the organization, Michelle led a staff inventory during her first 90 days, adjusting the team structure to better execute the mission and day-to-day work of ROOTS. This led to the hiring of Clarissa Crawford (Programs Associate) and Mark Kidd (Development Associate) in June. We also welcomed to the team Jasi Lampkin (Fundraising Digital Media Intern) and Ben Weber (Program and Policy Associate via the American Council of Learned Societies Public Fellows program). In June, Kerry Lee transitioned from staff to a consultant role, working to coordinate our social media and develop a data research initiative. Please join us in thanking Carlton and Kerry for their service to ROOTS and welcoming the new team members on board! Creating Place

In April, we launched Creating Place, our multimedia collection of explorations, reflections, challenges, and offerings to the national dialogue around creative placemaking, created by 30 ROOTS members and supported by the NEA Our Town program. As your ROOTS Week gift, you’ve received a thumb drive with the Creating Place digital book, which you can also find at www.alternateroots. org/creating-place. In it, you’ll find an excerpt or overview of each Creating Place article, film, and podcast, as well as links to where you can read, watch, or listen to them in their fullness on our website. You can help us grow the conversation by sharing Creating Place with your networks, and using #CreatingPlaceROOTS when posting to social media!

Frequently Asked Questions What do I do in case of medical emergency? Call 911, please! Parkridge Hospital is the closest: 100 Hospital Dr, Hendersonville, NC 28792 / 828-684-8501. Mission Health System is also nearby: 509 Biltmore Ave, Asheville, NC 28801 / 828-213-1111. Pardee UNC Health Care is also nearby: 2695 Hendersonville Rd, Arden NC 28704 / 828-651-6300. How do I contact Lutheridge and ROOTS Staff? Lutheridge Guest Services can be reached, day or night at: 828-606-5684. (The number is on your room key chain!) ROOTS Staff can be reached by calling the office number, which will be re-routed to our various cell phones. To reach ROOTS Staff, call 404-5771079 and dial the extension of the person you need to speak with: Wendy Shenefelt, Programs Director: x306 Paige Heurtin, Operations Manager: x305 Nicole Gurgel-Seefeldt, Communications Manager (Strategy): x303 Joseph Thomas, Communications Manager (Technology): x302 Is there wireless access? How will I check my e-mail?!?!? Wireless access at Lutheridge is extremely spotty. We encourage you to unplug as much as possible this week, and really soak in all ROOTS Week has to offer. If you absolutely need WiFi, going to a local coffee shop will be your best bet. Can I drink at ROOTS Week? Sure – we like to let loose around here. But, please keep in mind that not everyone drinks or feels comfortable around drinking. We ask that you don’t push it on others or serve to someone who’s underage. When’s the pool open? Weather permitting, the pool is open everyday from 1 0 am-12pm and 1-5pm. The pool is a bit of a hike (you can find it on the map on your schedule) but the waterslide makes it totally worth it!

Acknowledgements

2018 Institutional Funders THE

NATHAN

CUMMINGS FOUNDATION

SonEdna Foundation

Special Thanks Angie Yates & Lori Bode The Lutheridge Staff UpROOTing Oppressions Team ROOTS Week Staff YOOTS Advisory Team ROOTS Road Trip Host Cities

Alternate ROOTS Staff Michelle Ramos, Executive Director Ashley Walden Davis, Managing Director Wendy Shenefelt, Programs Director Paige Heurtin, Operations Manager Nicole Gurgel-Seefeldt, Communications Manager (Strategy) Joseph Thomas, Communications Manager (Technology) Clarissa Crawford, Programs Associate Mark Kidd, Development Associate Ben Weber, Programs & Policy Associate

Alternate ROOTS 2017-18 ExComm Officers Monique Davis, Chair Trey Hartt, President Nicole Garneau, Secretary Kim Pevia, Treasurer At Large Members Rasha Abdulhadi Tamiko Ambrose Murray Esme Balthazar Hasan Davis

Don Harrell Sabrina Jeffcoat Charmaine Minniefield Samuel Valdez

ROOTS Week Staff Melisa Cardona, Photographer Lily Keber and Ted MorĂŠe, Videographers Aimee McCoy, Registration Assistant Taria Person, Stage Manager Chanel Braswell, Assistant Stage Manager George Michael Parker & Joanna Nazro, Technical Directors Travis Snyder-Eaton, Late Night Technical Director Teens With a Purpose, Daytime AV Coordinators Kathleen Klein, Accessibility Coordinator Sara Green & Christine Gautreaux, Health & Wellness Coordinators Camille Shafer, Visual Arts Coordinator Yasmin Tamar, Artistic Programs Coordinator Eli Lakes, YOOTS Programs Coordinator Shannon Turner, Late Night Coordinator Marquetta Dupree, ROOTS 101 Coordinator DeontĂŠ Griffin-Quick, Social Media Team Coordinator Patton White, Hospitality Coordinator Shannon Willow, Green Team Coordinator Busi Peters-Maughn, Youth Village Coordinator

When you give to Alternate ROOTS you support Cultural Organizing, Artistic Expression, and Social Justice! Alternate ROOTS artists have answered the call to challenge oppression; we are engaged in a long-term liberatory struggle that is rich in its understanding of the intersections of race, gender, ability, sexual orientation, religion, and class oppression. Your gift helps ROOTSâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; artists impact the culture and fabric of our country and beyond!

WHAT CAN I GIVE? Cash Money: Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll have opportunities to give at evening performances and can always make a donation in the registration office! Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re also accepting In-kind Lodging (retreat spaces, hotels, rental housing, etc.), Transportation (travel vouchers or points for airfare, bus, trains, carpooling services, etc.), or Professional Development/Artistic Supplies (leadership development programs, supplies, computers and other technology, professional services for our members like website development, etc.).

HOW DO I GIVE? You can give right now, in the registration office! Or talk with Ashley Walden Davis, Managing Director about Planned Giving (donations for a future date, in perpetuity, or even many years beyond life passing), Tribute Giving (in honor or memory of a loved one), Gifts of Stocks and Securities (stock, mutual funds, IRA contributions, and donor advised funds), and Sponsorship (organizations and businesses giving via monetary donations or in-kind gifts).

Thank you for supporting the mission and vision of Alternate ROOTS! 43

Programming