Sunday March 27, 2022 at 1PM

Westbeth Community Room
155 Bank Street
New York, NY

Between Washington and West Sts
enter through courtyard

Come celebrate with Music, Dance, Poetry . . .
SAVE THE DATE – Sunday, March 20, 11am-2pm on Pier 46 
(at Hudson River Park & Charles Street, NYC)

At 11:33am join in RINGING of BELLS for PEACE @ the moment of the Vernal Equinox, led by City Council member Erik Bottcher.

The Villager
Celebrate the coming of spring at Hudson River Pier 46/h2>
March. It’s balmy one day and frigid another. It’s a month of fickle weather inching toward spring.
Spring officially arrives on March 20 at 11:33 am, when day and night are equal across the planet. This Sunday the temperature might possibly be in the 60s.
On that day, Westbeth multi-media artist SuZen with a cadre of friends is hosting a spring celebration on Pier 46, Hudson River and Charles, to usher in the season of rebirth.

“It’s a time of renewal, new beginnings,” SuZen says, “especially, after two years of the pandemic. It’s a time to celebrate life and one another.”

From 11 am to 2 pm, The Spirit of Spring Festival of the Arts will feature music with the Westbeth Jammers, dance, and poetry.
At the exact moment of spring’s entrance, peace bell ringings will take place led by the neighborhood’s newly elected council member Erik Bottcher. The public is invited to make “joyful noise”.

“Now more than ever do we want to think about peace,” she says, reminding neighbors that the ringing of bells for peace will be at the exact moment of the vernal equinox, 11:33 a.m.

Read the entire article by Tequila Minsky HERE

GLORIA MIGUEL INTERVIEW ON NEWS 12 MARCH 22,2022

Photo: Jonathan Staff

The Native American Bohemia in Brownstone Brooklyn

Ms.Muriel Miguel and her two older sisters, Gloria (95) and Lisa Mayo (who died in 2013 at 89), have often been described as the matriarchs of Indigenous theater in North America.

“They made a space for so many people and companies,” Penny Couchie, an actor and choreographer of Ojibwe and Mohawk ancestry, said. “They made no apologies for the way that we tell stories.”

In recent weeks, Ms. Miguel has been scrambling to finish preparing for the debut of her latest production, “Misdemeanor Dream,” a collaboration between her company, Spiderwoman Theater, and Aanmitaagzi, an arts group led by Ms. Couchie and her husband, Sid Bobb, on Nipissing First Nation territory in Ontario. The show, which will open on March 10 at La MaMa, the experimental theater in the East Village, represents the culmination of her life’s work so far, she said.

– Saki Knafo, NY Times March 4, 2022 (excerpt)
Read entire article HERE

La MaMa ETC presents the world premiere of Misdemeanor Dream

March 10 – 27, 2022

Ellen Stewart Theatre
66 East 4th Street, 2nd floor
New York, NY 10003

Tickets: https://www.lamama.org/shows/misdemeanor-dream-2022

“Misdemeanor Dream” features Ms. Miguel’s sister Gloria, in the role of The Elder.Credit…Adrienne Grunwald for The New York Times

It is the latest large-scale production of Spiderwoman Theater, the legendary Downtown feminist-Indigenous theater ensemble. Created by a multi-generational performing ensemble with members drawn from Indigenous communities across North America and internationally, this unique production across inter-woven disciplines explores the realms of Indigenous story, magic, interrupted dreams and lost languages, while including all who experience it in a vital continuum of Native spirit and worldview.

In Misdemeanor Dream, old spirits long-ago silenced reveal themselves to the current inhabitants of Turtle Island through their stories and experiences of daily, contemporary life (“Turtle Island” is the name given to Earth by Indigenous peoples in North America).

We are, in the words of Spiderwoman co-founder and artistic director Muriel Miguel, “exploring what we, as Indigenous people, have lost, how we reclaim it and our path to move into a future where we can hold on to our dreams, heal ourselves and be hopeful.”