When dancer Sheen Jamaal saw a video of protestors doing the Cupid Shuffle in New Jersey, inspiration struck to do something similar in New York. He immediately called his friend and collaborator Allison “Buttons” Bedell, and the seed for the Dance For George protest was planted.
The Harlem Festival of Culture not only pays homage to the past but also envisions a brighter future. It serves as a platform to showcase the rich diversity and dynamism of Harlem's artistic community, while also acting as a catalyst for social change and community empowerment. The festival boasts a lineup of artists from various genres and backgrounds, including jazz, soul, hip-hop, gospel, blues, rock, Latin, and Afrobeat.
Orquesta Solfónica de Madrid
The Orquesta Solfónica de Madrid (Solphonic Orchestra of Madrid) is a self-organized orchestra that was formed in the context of the social movement 15M and that has gained popularity for playing classical music in demonstrations and acts of social protest.
Thrive Collective mobilizes students, parents, artists, and community stakeholders to partner with public schools for transformational change. They function both as a matchmaker and direct service provider of arts and mentoring programs that cultivate the character and competencies necessary for students to thrive in today’s world.
Founded by Frankie Hutchinson, Emma Burgess-Olson and Christine Tran, Discwoman is a New York-based platform, collective, and booking agency—representing and showcasing cis women, trans women and genderqueer talent in electronic music. Started as a two-day festival in September 2014 at Bossa Nova Civic Club Discwoman has since produced and curated events in 15+ cities—working with over 150 DJs and producers to-date.
It was a long time coming - but it was worth the wait.
Nearly two years ago, more than a dozen of Mexico’s biggest performing artists came together in a mega-event aimed at saving Wirikuta, one of the country’s most sacred sites, from devastation at the hands of Canadian gold and silver mining operations.
In the wake of the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, Black Lives Matter supporters are finding creative ways to make sure the movement is acknowledged everywhere.
When ordering at Starbucks, people have changed their name to “Black Lives Matter” so that, when their order is up, the baristas have to yell out their new moniker.
‘‘HAMILTON,’’ the new musical biography of Alexander Hamilton created by and starring Lin-Manuel Miranda, kicks off with a doozy of a question. The houselights rise on Aaron Burr, the third vice president of the United States and, infamously, the killer of Hamilton in a duel in 1804. Burr steps to center stage and reels off several lines of verse:
A technological feat has emerged amid the Chilean protests. A video of protestors bringing down a police drone has gone viral on social media sites. These protestors didn't use any physical or gun force to bring the drone down. Instead, they used another form of technology: lasers. A lot of bright green laser beams were pointed in unison at the drone, which can be seen moving erratically, before quickly falling down to Earth.
Fabled Asp is a multimedia online archive that documents forty years of activist history and creativity. Disabled lesbian activism is a radical assertion of self in the face of societal stigma and marginalization. The project illuminates the myriad ways disabled lesbians have been moving against invisibility through civil rights actions, theater, dance, sports, and visual arts.
from "Laugh, O Revolution: Humor in the Egyptian Uprising" by Anna Louie Sussman, in 2011.
Revolutions can be messy. They can be tragic. As long as the Internet is working, they can be tweeted. And, as Egyptians demonstrated during their 18 days of protest, they can also be funny.
Frank Waln, a 25 year old Native American hip hop artist, tours the country and Canada performing and teaching motivational workshops to students across the country. He took to rap at a young age when he found a cd (Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP) on the side of the road. Growing up on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation of South Dakota, he realized that the hip hop music genre was an outlet for expressing pain and frustration.
Greta Thunberg has made her musical debut on a single by the 1975. On a track called The 1975, a version of which traditionally opens each of the British band’s albums, the 16-year-old environmental activist restates her position on the need to act on the climate emergency.
"Send It On" is a song recorded by American recording artists Miley Cyrus, Jonas Brothers, Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez from charity project Disney's Friends for Change. The track's producers Adam Anders and Peer Åström co-wrote it with Nikki Hassman. The song was released on August 11, 2009 by Walt Disney and Hollywood Records as a charity single in order to benefit international environmental associations.
Migratón México es un proyecto satírico que se creó colaborativamente en 2017 a partir de un Laboratorio de Artivismo y Humor que organizó el Hemi en San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, México, con un un grupo de más de 30 artistas y activistas de México, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua y Estados Unidos.
Las Vulpes was the first spanish punk rock band formed only by women. It was founded in Baracaldo (Vizcaya, Basque Country) in the summer of 1982, as a result of the guitarist´s desire on creating an all women punk band. After a few changes, the final formation consisted on: Loles Vázquez (guitar), Mamen Rodrigo (voice), Begoña Astigarraga (bass) and Lupe Vázquez (drums), all between 17 and 22 years of age.
Ultra-Red is a collective founded by two AIDS activists in 1994 to explore the intersection of the political and aesthetic through "militant sound investigations".
Female Frequency is a collective dedicated to empowering women & girls through the creation of music that is entirely female generated. "We are making an album created entirely by females, start to finish --
this means that all writing, instrumentation, arrangement, performance, production, engineering, mixing, mastering, marketing and visual media will be carried out by females."
On April 30th NYU in conjunction with Free University held liberation lab in Washington Square Park from 11 30 Am until roughly 5 or 6pm. The day was very festive and full of amazing talks, performances, installations and discussions. I even got to participate in this day via our final project in the creative activist course.
Conscious Lee is a public awareness project to help people value and protect their rivers. Rivers are rich sources of life and are vital for clean water. They are beautiful spaces to connect with nature. We all need to appreciate our rivers. We can all help river wildlife and protect this natural amenity for future generations.
Neighbors in modern cities have less and less communication, and they all go about their business as soon as they close the door. In Switzerland, a woman dies every week as a result of domestic violence, so in an effort to get everyone to act, the charity has put up an interactive billboard in a shopping mall that shows a man in a family doing violence to a woman.
Back after a five year hiatus, V-Day Sedona joins with hundreds of other productions across the globe in celebrating V-Day’s 20th anniversary with an act of artistic activism. For its 20th anniversary, V-Day is calling on activists around the world to Rise, Resist and Unite.