This weekend-long workshop at the Ashe Cultural Center New Orleans provided a space where artists and organizers learned effective ways to deepen their work and strengthen their capacity to use creativity, imagination and organizing in community building.

Session leaders included visual artist Ricardo Levins Morales (RLM Arts), Tufara Muhammad Waller (Highlander Center), Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Maria Bauman and Bennalldra Williams (Urban Bush Women), Stephanie McKee (Moving Stories), and Arts & Democracy Project team members Javiera Benavente and Kathie deNobriga. 

AGENDA

Friday, February 3, 2012

6:00-6:45          Dinner: Chef Bruce Rollins

6:45 -8:45         Welcome: The Arts & Democracy Project, Moving Stories and Urban Bush Women: Review our purpose together, open the space for learning and justice, meet each other, hear one another's stories and offer a working definition of cultural organizing. 

Saturday, February 4

 9:30         Coffee & continental breakfast 

10:00        Welcome, introduce new arrivals, review agenda & make group agreements

10:30        Cultural Organizing in the Gulf Coast

Examples of community organizing with culture at the core: Trapp Bonner, Moving Forward Gulf Coast; Reverend Tyrone and the Zion Travelers Cooperative from Plaquemine's Parish;  Stephanie McKee, Junebug Production's Homecoming Project.

11:15        “Physio-expresso"

11:20        Values and Principles of Cultural Organizing: an interactive discussion

noon          lunch on site

1:00          The How of It: tools, techniques, discipline approaches to cultural organizing, and how they connect to values: brainstorming & discussion

1:40           Tool Time: explore more depth HOW we do this work. Short presentations by  facilitators, followed by specific breakouts around disciplines: Embodying the  Work, Visual Arts, Theatre,  Movement, Group Facilitation Methods, and Music.

3:15            break 

3:30-4:45     Telling Our Stories, Finding New Solutions - Focusing on specific stories, dig   deeper into organizing struggles in small group discussions

Sunday, February 5

9:30      Coffee and breakfast

10:00    Mind-Blazing Conversations

11:00    Making Larger Connections: using stories and case studies for broader learning

12:30    lunch on site

1:15     Closing: Evaluation, Intentions, Closing the Space

2:15     Farewells