The Philadelphia Folklore Project (PFP) will celebrate its 26th year with a Birthday Bash on Saturday, June 1, 2013 (6:30 PM), at the Painted Bride Art Center at 230 Vine St., Philadelphia, Pa. Expect a wonderful and meaningful evening of performances, awards, delectable food, and drink.PFP has been cultivating folk arts and social change since 1987. The annual benefit is an opportunity to celebrate the importance of local communities and cultural traditions that matter. And it is a chance to support and advance PFP's work in this area. Tickets and sponsorships are now available. Tickets are $35 general admission, and $30 for PFP members. Sponsorships range from $200 to $1,000 and come with a range of benefits.
PFP will present the 2013 Folk Arts and Social Change Awards at the event to storyteller Linda Goss and artist/activist Eric Joselyn. Honoring people who have drawn on the power of community-based folk arts and cultural tradition to advance social change in our region (and beyond), the 2013 Folk Arts and Social Change Awards recognize how decades of work have built new futures for all of us: creating community well-being, disturbing the peace of racism and injustice, building self-determination, equity and power.
Linda Goss has been "waking up the people" for more than 50 years. Bringing her African America Appalachian family storytelling traditions into the Black Arts and Black Power movements, Linda insisted on (and made room for) the power and validity of folk culture. A pioneer of the storytelling movement, she was the first storyteller to perform at the Smithsonian's Festival of American Folklife. Addressing racism and exclusion, she organized other African American tellers, co-founding the National Black Storytelling Festival and Conference, the National Association of Black Storytellers, and Keepers of the Culture: enduring resources that have opened the way for countless people. Linda's lifetime work has been to connect ordinary people caught in oppressive situations - people who don't see themselves as storytellers or performers - to African American traditions of survival, resistance, and struggle. Linda is receiving the 2013 Kathryn Morgan Award for Folk Arts and Social Justice.
Rarely credited publicly, Eric Joselyn is a prolific working artist who has been turning peoples' demands and dreams into eye-catching (and conscience-catching) expressions for decades. Without recognizing it, you may have seen his work displayed street-side: at local demonstrations for immigrant rights, antiwar protests, or street theater against racism. Thousands of Chinatown residents and allies fighting to stop city plans for a stadium in Chinatown wore t-shirts Eric designed. He crafted cardboard bulldozers, puppets, costumes, and signs that activists carried to protest the city's use of eminent domain to displace poor and working families from their homes. Aiming to even the odds for social justice movements, Eric shapes "good tools" for popular struggle, inside the classroom as the Art Teacher and Folk Arts Coordinator at the Folk Arts-Cultural Treasures School, and outside the classroom, in his work with community members. He democratizes art-making, showing us how to exercise power. Eric is receiving the 2013 Rosemary Cubas Award for Folk Arts and Activism.
No comments :
Post a Comment