Fabled Asp Benefit
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| Come enjoy a night of poetry, music and jazz with members of The Bay Area Blues Society’s Hall Of Fame, ‘Jazz Group Of The Year’: AVOTCJA & MODÚPUE
AVOTCJA (Poet/Musician) “A powerful, poetic, musical tour de force… Avotcja and Modupue will move you to tears, contemplation, and action. Must be heard to be believed.” Melanie Berzon-Mgr: KCSM-FM (The Jazz Station) “Avotcja is a unique voice among our poets, musicians, playwrights and other creative folk today. She combines a fierce, persistent and consistent passion for justice with a beauty of words, sounds and image that can take your breath away. To put it simply, Avotcja is a national and international treasure.”Elizabeth (Betita) Martinez, activist, author, educator. www.fabledasp.com About Fabled Asp This project will build an archive of documents and oral histories of Bay Area lesbian activists with disabilities from the 1970s to the present. Disabled lesbians have accomplished an impressive amount in the span of 40 years. They spearheaded activism about issues of disability in the women’s community. They were founders of major disability organizations and were at the forefront of activism around federal access legislation. They pioneered and / or maintained special needs services at Gay Pride Day, AXIS Dance Company, Wry Crips Reader’s Theater, and two local women’s wheelchair basketball teams. It has been a remarkable cohort of women and lesbians with disabilities who all converged to create social change and promote creativity. If our lives were about something it was to say — we exist, we count, we love, we dance, we make love, we act, we play, we create, we are human! It is time to honor lesbians with disabilities in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, heterosexual, and queer communities! Why Honor Disabled Lesbian Culture? Lesbian activists have offered a unique narrative of community to our entire society. Disabled activists have demanded inclusion and independence. What happens when these two identities come together? Lesbians with disabilities, along with their allies, have pioneered a concept of society based on interdependence. Lesbians with disabilities provide a graphic example of how a community of support shapes a life positively, or conversely, how the lack of a supportive community adversely affects one’s ability to live. They challenge assumptions: heterosexuality in the disabled community and able-bodiedness in the queer community. All lesbians with disabilities carry additional identities (e.g. race, class, ethnicity, size, etc.) which add to the ongoing conversation and the richness of perspective that diversity provides. Why Is This Important Now? In the past 10 years, many disabled lesbian activists have died. It is particularly important to capture the stories of this historical group before the community experiences more losses, and while the community has the capacity to commemorate and articulate the extraordinary accomplishments of this cohort and the individuals who comprised it. Artists
Wheelchair accessible, Sign language interpreted. To make this events accessible for all women, please refrain from wearing scents and perfumes. |
