Zayas, Mabel Valdevizio, Cristina Lopez Suarez, Agustina Amiconi and more. F inally, I reached out to Leyya Tawil, a Syrian, Palestinian, American who is an artist, a cura- tor, and a cultural activist working in sound and dance. Leyya has been steeped in the San Francisco and Detroit dance and music scenes since 1997 while touring her work in the U.S., Europe, Russia and the Arab world. Her futurist aesthetic holds a profound sense of resilience in the unimaginable dystopia of our pres- ent world. Check out Leyya’s pub- lic art intervention four years ago, Turku Future Folk Dance. Leyya is the founding director of Arab.AMP, a platform for futurist live art and ideas from the SWANA diaspora and their allied communities. Her cura- torial practices can be seen at South- ern Exposure (SF), Arab American National Museum (Dearborn, MI), and she is also the co-founder of TAC Temescal Art Center (Oakland). LEYYA TAWIL: “There is an ethnic cleansing over 100 years in rollout. Sol- idarity actions and interventions are a crucial part of strengthening our global majority. I am grateful and embold- ened by the “Dancers for Palestine” and related coalitions - they have mobilized throughout the US in order to call artis- tic, cultural, and academic institutions to account for their complicity - and to turn towards justice, and make PACBI and BDS commitments a loud and real priority. In this, we are together.” LIZ DURAN BOUBION is a second generation Chicana and queer interdisciplinary dance artist, educator and presenter bridging several commu- nities through the coalescence of somatics, social justice, performance and contemporary dance practice. She is the founding Artistic Director of the Festival of Latin American Contemporary Cho- reographers (FLACC) and Piñata Dance Collective based in the San Francisco Bay Area since 2000. IG: @pinatadances and @flaccdanza_ palestinian resistance
“I’m reminded of something Chica- go-based filmmaker Merawi Gerima said: ‘In the face of genocide, when civilians are being massacred by the most powerful white supremacists on the planet, the role of the artist is like everybody else. The role is to get involved because genocide is literally a global priority, and it requires the full attention of all of humanity using all of its abilities to the maximum including art.’ It’s such a critical time of collectivizing our efforts and also doing the nec- essary inner work as individuals to examine the parts of ourselves with the most proximity to power. The fact that many Bay Area dance insti- tutions, organizations, companies and artists continue to remain silent and disengaged speaks volumes to the ways in which our art form is
still rooted and dependent on Zionist funding in order to survive.” — TESSA NEBRIDA In solidarity with the BAN 9 artists who now call themselves Bay Area Artists Against Genocide (B.A.A.A.G), the artists and curators of the Fresh Festival also took collective action and canceled their events at YBCA, rather than finding another location to per- form. After they canceled, I reached out to José Navarrete (aka José Ome Mazatl) Mexican-American FLACC contributor, co-director of NAKA Dance Theater and co-curator of the Fresh Festival. In his letter to the art- ists and staff at YBCA he stated: “An artist’s responsibility is to reflect on the political and social conditions in which we live, and it is our respon-
The soft power tactics of "normalization" in the palestinian context is particularly relevant to artists, academics and cultural workers as it refers to any activity that creates the impression of false equivalency that palestinians, the oppressed, and Israel, the oppressor, are both equally responsible for the "conflict".
bring together Palestinians/Arabs and Israelis so they can present their respective narratives or perspec- tives, or to work toward reconcil- iation without addressing the root causes of injustice. However, a joint project is not boycottable if: (a) the Israeli party in the project recognizes the comprehensive Palestinian rights under international law (correspond- ing to the 3 rights in the BDS call); and (b) the project/activity is one of ‘co-resistance’ to oppression rather than ‘co-existence’ under oppression.” The co-resistance teach-in at Ban- daloop was organized by dancer, ally and activist Cookie Harrist, who started the “Dance Action Group” to mobilize dancers from all back- grounds, and strengthen our commu- nity’s presence at protests and direct actions. The group currently has about 50 Bay Area dancers directly involved on signal and is open to vetted artivists interested in staying informed and taking direct action for Palestine now and for other causes in the future. “The Dance Action Group serves to inform dancers of upcoming actions (via signal and in person) so we can use a buddy system for safety, deepen our relationships to each other as we take action together, and strengthen our organizing capacity as a community. While artists making work address- ing the genocide of Palestinians is of course an important tactic in resistance efforts, I am personally investing in the tactic of taking existing commu- nity networks and repurposing them to increase the organizing capacity of a broader collective. But I do believe if we decide art- making is our primary tactic, we must
take our work out of the theater and into the streets, to the doorsteps of complicit representatives, lobbyists, and weapons manufacturers that live right here in the Bay Area.” — COOKIE HARRIST O n February 15, I was invited by dancer Tessa Nebrida to join about 50 other activists and co-resistant organi- zations to help the Bay Area Now 9 artists at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts intervene on their own art- work in their renamed exhibit “Love Letters for Gaza” after being cen- sored by the YBCA program, “Love Letters for SoMa.” We assisted 8 of the artists in altering their work with pro-Palestinian symbolism and messaging as an interventionist response targeting staff, funders and board members of YBCA. Follow- ing the protest, YBCA chose to fur- ther silence the artists by closing the exhibit for four weeks. The action precipitated a public hearing called by Supervisor Hillary Ronan of Dis- trict 9 who strongly supported the BAN 9 artists, all of whom are peo- ple of color. A petition created by 15 YBCA employees rallied for the BAN 9 exhibit to reopen and was finally successful after four weeks of pressure from over 500 artists and community members. I asked Tessa, a Filipina dance artist who engages in decolonial art practices and has supported the Palestinian solidar- ity struggle for years, to lend her thoughts about the role of the artist during this time. bay area now 9 artists at ybca
Normalization
I n a world where the corporate media headlines continue to mislabel the current onslaught a “war” as if there are two equal sides responsible for the indis- criminate carpet bombings, impris- onments and starvation of Gazans, it is important that we understand the colonial settler interest of the west and the history of the asymmetric power dynamic via the state of Israel and the people of Palestine. With the two pro-Israel talking points on repeat: “Israel has a right to defend itself” and “Hamas is a terrorist organization” it is also important as artists that we don’t engage in activi- ties of normalization that emphasize “co-existence” rather than “co-resis- tance,” or worse, conflate more dan- gerous messaging that being against this genocide is equal to being antise- mitic. Whether there is a two state or a one state solution, Palestinians of all faiths must have the right to self determination and sovereignty over their land and lives. I recom- mend watching the documentary “Israelism” to get a clear perspective on the colonial indoctrination of a
sibility as human beings to take action when we see innocent people being exterminated by colo- nialism, western imperi- alism and white suprem- acy. YBCA claims to be ‘a catalyst of creative explo- ration, expression and innovation that empow- ers artists, inspires com- munity and drives lasting social change,’ but unfor- tunately, YBCA’s actions are in direct contradiction to these values.” — JOSÉ OME MAZATL José not only wrote a letter of solidarity but he also asked Arnoldo Gar- cia to curate RAZA CON GAZA at the Eastside Arts Alliance in Oakland. The event included Latinx poets, musicians and danc- ers who came together for two days of art-in-solidar- ity, including: AntiFaSon, Camellia Boutros, Diana Gameros, Leticia García, Lubna Morrar, Madeleine
nationalist Jewish identity. The soft power tactics of
“Normalization” in the Palestin- ian context is particularly relevant to artists, academics and cultural workers as it refers to any activity that creates the impression of false equivalency that Palestinians, the oppressed, and Israel, the oppressor, are both equally responsible for “the conflict.” As defined by the PACBI website, an example of a boycotta- ble normalization project is “a joint event that is designed explicitly to
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