AoCC Cookout and Community Day

COOKOUT from 2:00 PM – 6:00 PM
Descriptions below.

Please come early to join us for a special workshop led by GPS Artist Sahar Damoni.

1PM | Lemon Water Ma’a Nana (Moving in your own space, and out of it)
with Sahar Damoni

3PM | Boots on the Ground: The Legacy of Black Chants and Line Dances
with Black Dance Change Makers (BDCM)

5PM | Yoga/Movement session
with Catherine Kirk / Black Dance Change Makers (BDCM)

TOWN HALL MEETING from 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Descriptions below.

7:15PM | Film Screening – DoNotTitle Me (2020) with Sahar Damoni

7:30PM | Post Screening Discussion

8PM | Extraordinary Enough with Timmy Ong

Courtyard Studio

In the Middle East and North African regions, lemon water with mint is consumed to cleanse the body of toxins and impurities. This workshop is an opportunity to clear the head and heart in order to dive into an exploration of our personal movementlangageandintuitiveartistic voice. The workshop combines exercises drawn from meditative, somatic, dance, and writing practices which Sahar Damoni has used to develop her choreographic work. We will use these tools to get in touch with our bodies and ourselves and develop and react to movement material. The workshop is built on the importance of reciprocity between body and mind and the therapeutic power of movement. In this workshop,we tap into dealing with stress and trauma in the body and gain tools to manage the physical effects of these sources in our bodies and souls. The workshop provides participants a safe and inclusive space for dealing with sensitive issues in a personal and exploratory way through somatic and movement-based exercises.The goal is to physically empower participants to fully feel, confront, and trust their bodies and intuition on their own healing journey for empowering the me in them and move in free way in their own bodies in their own space and out of it in the society. It is an opportunity for introspection and personal research. Together, we will listen to the whispering of our dreams and enjoy the exploration toward reaching them. The workshop draws on Sahar Damoni’s experience as an Arab Palestinian woman. Facing mental and emotional challenges in Arab society on a daily basis, Damoni saw the need to build a workshop from her personal story and professional experience that can provide an outlet to the difficulties other marginalized women, non dancers, dancers, and all people endure. The workshop offers emotional, physical, and practical responses that serve as tools to emphasize the strength of the individual and the support of the group.

Outdoor Courtyard

Line dances and chants have been essential to Black life, serving as powerful tools for joy, resistance, connection, and community-building. From the streets to the cookout, these practices have allowed us to gather, heal, celebrate, and organize. This session invites us to move and sound in rhythm with our collective history, our people, and one another. Together, we’ll channel cultural memory and tradition to create meaning through voice and movement. Be prepared to sweat, shout, and co-create.

Courtyard Studio

Black Dance Change Makers (BDCM) hosts a reset for folks to enter a state of rest and digest.

Courtyard Studio

Sahar Damoni was born and raised in a controversial piece of land and lives in a severely complicated reality. As a female Palestinian artist, she has more than enough barriers to break yet the political aspect of her identity adds more frustrations.  In Do Not Tittle Me, she expresses, observes, and wanders through her frustration. She attempts to capture the reality and the future of her individual Palestinian body physically, mentally, and socially. “Accept the position you are in, do not force it, do not push it. Your body will let go eventually. Just be patient with yourself, simply focus on the breathing. Do not worry about what you look like. Focus on how you feel”

“In Do Not Title Me, Damoni, a Palestinian choreographer who lives in Leipzig, confronts the audience directly through the title of her work, and presents physical expression of the struggle between conflicting claims through small limited movements and at the same time in a free movement.. Her presence is mesmerizing. Damoni offers to observe her and  “oriental” dance in a different way, not only because the person looking at her from behind seemingly does not know who she is, but because it is an offer to pause to observe for a moment the same “me” or “I”…Damoni adopts a strategy of resistance, of refusal. Damoni also drags her identity behind her in the form of the burning shoes, which she eventually fills. Damoni’s claim to the absence of definition is the definition of political identity, and her choreography embodies this complicated conflicted struggle perfectly well.” (Haaretz, Ran Brown, August 2022)

Courtyard Studio

Of the estimated 342 million people residing in the US, about 15% are foreign-born. Whether or not intentional, the US has long been seen—and has often presented itself—as a nation built by immigrants. But how difficult is it to immigrate to the “land of the free”? In some cases, the answer is not easy, but surprisingly simple: if only you can prove that you are extraordinary enough.