WE ARE LOOKING FOR PEOPLE WHO… (requirements)
-are East & Southeast Asian identified & Woman identified
-have social justice seeking and anti-oppressive analyses and values
-can commit to 3-hour weekly practices on Sunday evenings (6-9pm), and
approximately 10 shows per year
**** All ages & sizes welcome ****
THESE WOULD BE ASSETS… (optional)
-Good physical stamina and fitness
-Drumming or musical experience
-Performance experience
-Experience in being part of a collective
WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN DURING THE AUDITION?
-you’ll be given some background info on RAW & North-American Taiko
tradition
-we will do some warm-up & drumming drills together
-we will provide some basic instruction
-you will be part of some creative exercises and a short performance
-we will do a short interview with you
AUDITION LOCATION & TIME:
Sunday, March 2, 6-9pm
Cabbagetown Community Arts Centre
454 Parliament St.
Toronto
WHAT IS THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS?
-> one 3-hour audition (March 2)
-> for call-backs only: two more audition sessions (March 9 and 16 - both days!)
-> for apprentices only: a one year apprenticeship (every Sunday, 6-9pm)
TO REGISTER, please send your name and contact info to:
Karen B K Chan
audition@ragingasianwomen.ca
416.568.2426
FOR FURTHER INFO on RAW, check out our website at www.RagingAsianWomen.ca
All posts published in February 2008
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Raging Asian Women (RAW) Taiko Drummers - Toronto Recruitment!
February 14, 2008 • Thea Lim
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Sneaky!
February 13, 2008 • Tuval Dinner
Has anyone heard of Bill C-484? Its a sneaky bugger. Basically the bill is using the high profile murder of several pregnant Canadian women last year to bolster the anti-choice movement. The bill aims to give the unborn legal protection from violence.
At first I found this very confusing. Of course I don’t think a fetus should be exposed to murderous violence. That’s obvious. But the reality is that in the 30+ states south of our border where this law exists it has most often been used to prosecute women who have sought out abortions. The law is not a genuine attempt to reduce or redress violence against women and the unborn. Its a way of eroding laws protecting a women’s right to choose.
You can find out more about the bill here and sign a petition protesting this bill here.
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Talk It Out!
February 12, 2008 • Tuval Dinner
What!? Free Movie!? I can’t believe it.
But it’s true. For tomorrow night’s screening of A Winter Tale at the Revue the admission is free. This looks like an amazing film and a profound tool to start meaningful discussions about youth violence:
SCREENINGS FOR FEBRUARY & MARCH 2008
February 13th to 28th @ The Revue Cinema (400 Roncesvalles (Toronto)
February 29th to March 6th @ Rainbow Cinemas (Woodbine Mall)A Winter Tale tells the story of a black men’s support group that forms at a Caribbean Takeaway restaurant in Parkdale, after a ten-year-old boy is killed by a stray bullet. The film is followed by a one-hour discussion with members of the cast to engage youth and young adults on violence, the impact it has in their schools and communities, as well as the media’s handling of such events.
Visit: AWinterTale.ca to view the film’s trailer.
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Women Ski Jumpers Want in for 2010
February 12, 2008 • Stacey May Fowles
A group of teen athletes are fighting to get women’s ski jumping into the 2010 Games after the IOC stated that “the sport has not met its stringent standards:”
Men’s ski jumping will be included at the Vancouver-Whistler Olympics. Female ski jumpers and their supporters say their exclusion is tantamount to gender discrimination.
“I think VANOC and the COC, Sport Canada and the government of Canada — everyone — believes in equality in this country and we’re promoting that,” said Brent Morrice, the chair of Ski Jumping Canada.
The female ski jumpers who are in this fight to compete are teens, all 16 and 17 years old:
Jan Willis, the mother of Canadian Ski Jumper Katie Willis, said she and the athletes are heartened by the support they’ve received for their cause from government, sporting officials, and the Canadian public.
“I think (the support) is really helping the girls, too,” Willis said after the meeting.
“They’re all heading off (Saturday) for six weeks in Europe for competitions and I know that’s really given them a lot of support and energy to really show that they deserve to be in the Olympics.”
Interestingly enough, Katie Willis has already found fame in the arena of ski jumping. She’s in the history books as not only the youngest athlete, but also the first Canadian woman to win a gold medal at an international ski jumping event. She was only 14 when she finished on top against the world’s best athletes, many nearly a decade older than her, at a summer Continental Cup event in Klingenthal, Germany.
“I thought maybe I would find out how it felt to fly.”
Um, doesn’t she sound like a prime candidate to compete for Canada?
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Rockin’ Out
February 12, 2008 • Stacey May Fowles
Last night I go to see The Business of Being Born (which was incredible) and end up crying like, well, a baby. This morning I watch the trailer for this movie and have another mini cry-fest. I was going to blame all this crying on hormones but why blame? I’m just going to enjoy…
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No Olympics on Stolen Land
February 12, 2008 • Nicole Cohen
On Tuesday, Feb 12th, at 7 p.m., Kanahus Pellkey of the Native Youth Movement will be in Toronto talking about how the upcoming Olympics in Vancouver is impacting Indigenous lands, and how people are mobilizing around this issue.
From the event’s email (location of the talk and contact info below):
With the 2010 Winter Olympics scheduled to occur on unceded Coast Salish, St’at’imc and Squamish territory in two years, the spectacle surrounding them continues to wreak havoc on Indigenous people, poor people, and the Earth.
“By them choosing to have the Olympics here, it’s opening up our land, our sacred sites, our medicine grounds,” says Kanahus Pellkey. “We want
investors to know our land is not for sale.” Pre-Olympic fever occupies
the province of BC, and the economic excitement has massively accelerated gentrification and the building of highways, resorts, and condos. The construction of infrastructure for the 2010 Olympics itself is adding to extensive destruction of traditional homelands of the local Indigenous peoples. -
how she move!
February 11, 2008 • Thea Lim
Update: Whoops! I originally posted that Raya Green was played by Vanessa Oryema. I was wrong - she’s played by Rutina Wesley. Sorry!
Ok, I’ll admit it, I kind of have a teen dance movie problem. One of my favourite movies of last year was Stomp the Yard (I will make an honest case for why I truly believe it is a passionate appeal for gender and racial equality! Also it is full of hot babes).
But while I understand why some might not quite agree that Stick It is among one of the most rousing and anti-establishment pieces of cinema of the early ‘00s, with ZERO guilty pleasure quotient I highly, heartily recommend How She Move.
In a word, what distinguishes How She Move from all the other teen dance movies that I hold dear to my heart, is how Real it is. And Realness is pretty unusual for a genre that can rarely hold itself back when it comes to fulfilling stereotypes about poor neighbourhoods, teenagers, men and women and physically impossible dance sequences.
Both the female and male characters span a broad spectrum of personalities, instead of falling into socially sanctioned roles of what it means to be a man or a woman. Or when they do fall into those roles, the motivations and reasons for why they choose to follow that path is clear - demonstrating (intentionally or not) that gender is learned rather than biological. That’s a pretty hefty topic for a movie featuring Keyshia Cole in a cameo.
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A Shameless Anthology is looking for you…
February 10, 2008 • Stacey May Fowles
(Click the image to enlarge.)
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Shameless on the CBC
February 8, 2008 • Stacey May Fowles
Sorry for the short notice, but I’m going to be on CBC Radio’s Here & Now at around 3:45 today to chat about young women’s relationship to feminism and the high level of sexual harassment teen girls are experiencing in schools. You can listen online here, or tune in on your radio (in Southern Ontario) at CBC Radio 99.1 FM.
We’re likely going to chat about this, and then we’re going to talk about this and I’m going to say this is part of the solution.
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Born Ready & Smokescreen at Theatre Passe Muraille
February 8, 2008 • piKe krpan
One of my favourite theatres in Toronto, Theatre Passe Muraille, is about begin a run of the productions Born Ready by Joseph Jomo Pierre and Smokescreen by David S. Craig. These plays explore the worlds of youth at risk and are inspired by real situations happening in Toronto right now. “The exploration is timely,” says Andy McKim, Artistic Director at Theatre Passe Muraille. “While violent crime overall is in decline, violent crime among young people, fuelled by drugs and guns, is on the rise.”
Born Ready has a contentious female character, Sue, described as “a gun personified as a woman, who drives the piece forward.” I’m curious to see how her world is portrayed. I’m excited to see how she will make her decisions and what sort of agency the character has. It’s so fantastic to see these challenging plays mounted again. I suspect their February showings have to do with Black History Month. I must add that thought-provoking theatre at Passe Muraille is nothing new.
If you want to see these plays during the first week of their run (Feb 14-Feb 21), you can get a special 2 for 1 ticket deal. Just call the theatre’s box office at 416 5034 7529 and say that Andy sent you.
