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<p class="title2"><b><span style="font-size: 18pt; color: red;">FOR
IMMEDIATE
RELEASE</span></b><b><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: red;"><br>
<br>
</span></b><b><span style="font-size: 18pt; color: red;">The Brecht
Forum</span></b><b><span style="font-size: 13.5pt; color: red;"><br>
</span></b><st1:street w:st="on"><st1:address w:st="on"><b><span
style="font-size: 10pt; color: red;">451 West St</span></b></st1:address></st1:street><b><span
style="font-size: 10pt; color: red;">. (Betw Bank & Bethune)</span></b><b><span
style="font-size: 13.5pt; color: red;"><br>
</span></b><st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on"><b><span
style="font-size: 10pt; color: red;">New York</span></b></st1:city><b><span
style="font-size: 10pt; color: red;">, <st1:state w:st="on">NY</st1:state>
<st1:postalcode w:st="on">10014</st1:postalcode></span></b></st1:place><br>
<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://www.brechtforum.org">www.brechtforum.org</a></span></p>
<p class="title2"><b><span style="font-size: 10pt; color: red;"><br>
Contact Liz Roberts (212) 242- 4201</span></b><span class="Kicker">
<a href="mailto:lizr@brechtforum.org">lizr@brechtforum.org</a><br>
_______________________________________________________________________<br>
In this Email:<br>
</span></p>
<p class="Title"><font color="#000000">11/10 & </font><font
color="#000000">11/11</font><font color="#000000"> </font><font
color="#000000">
Marx in Soho </font><font color="#000000"> BENEFIT PERFORMANCE OF
HOWARD ZINN’S PLAY <br>
11/11 2-DAY WORKSHOP BEGINS Consensus, Facilitation & Liberation<br>
11/13 Workshop: SOMA Therapy: Nazis Vs. Zapatistas & The Struggle
Against Cooptation/ <br>
11/13 Documentary: SOMA: An Anarchist Therapy<br>
</font><span class="date-time">11/16</span> Organizing for
Immigrants' Rights<br>
11/<span class="date-time"> 20 </span><span class="Kicker">EXHIBIT
OPENING / RECEPTION </span>Fragmented Families: From the Shadow’s Side<br>
11/<span class="date-time">21</span> Holding Israel Accountable: The
Case for Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS)
</p>
<p class="title2"><span class="Kicker">_______________________________________________________________________<br>
</span><font color="#000000">Friday, November 10 & </font><font
color="#000000">Saturday,
November 11</font><br>
<font color="#000000">8:00 pm <br>
BENEFIT PERFORMANCE <br>
OF HOWARD ZINN’S PLAY <br>
<br>
Marx in Soho<br>
<br>
Jerry Levy<br>
<br>
“By showing us Marx the man, Zinn poignantly humanizes him. By showing
us Marx the theorist, Zinn gently educates us. And by bringing Marx
into today’s era, Zinn cleverly and unmistakably argues the relevance
of Marx’s ideas in our time.” --Backstage West<br>
<br>
Imagine all Karl Marx would have to say after one hundred years of just
being able to watch...<br>
Howard Zinn’s “Marx in Soho” portrays the return of Marx roughly a
century after his death. Embedded in some secular afterlife where
intellectuals, artists, and radicals are sent, Marx is given permission
by the administrative committee to return to Soho London to have his
say. But through a bureaucratic mix–up, he winds up in SoHo in New
York. From there the audience is given a rare glimpse of a Marx seldom
talked about; Marx the scholar, the immigrant, the family man.
Responding to the fall of the Soviet Union and the conventional
perception that Marx’s ideas are dead, Zinn resurrects this
controversial historical figure, embraces democracy and passionately
rejects ideological rigidity with the phrase “I am not a Marxist.” In
poignant, funny, and intimate narrative, Zinn convinces us not only
that Marx is not dead, but that his critique of capitalism remains
relevant today. <br>
<br>
Sliding Scale: $10/$15/$25<br>
______________________________________________________________________________________________<br>
Saturday, November 11<br>
11:00 am - 6:00 pm<br>
2-DAY WORKSHOP BEGINS <br>
<br>
Consensus, Facilitation & Liberation<br>
<br>
Facilitators: Autumn Brown, Stuart Rockefeller, Danielle Sered &
Others TBA<br>
<br>
The consensus process is much more than a decision-making tool. It is
an opportunity to participate in a creative process, the outcome of
which is a synthesis of the raw materials we began with. It is a
radical method by which we re-socialize ourselves in order to confront
and reject our own desire for power over others, and the outmoded
hierarchical forms of group work we are used to participating in. This
workshop will focus on consensus as a revolutionary and liberating
practice, exploring its potential as an organizing tool through group
discussions, storytelling and games. During the first day, we will
examine past experience with participatory decision-making and group
work. We will then break down the consensus process into its component
parts, giving a framework for what is often an abstract experience and
revealing the flexibility inherent in the decision-making structure. In
learning a myriad of tools used in consensus group work and in
elucidating individual roles and responsibilities within the process,
we will come to a deeper understanding of consensus mechanics. During
the second day, we will bring our focus to the specific role of
facilitation in the consensus process. Once again, through shared
experience, hands-on training, and challenging exercises, we will
arrive at a deeper understanding of what it means to facilitate the
consensus process, what the possibilities and pitfalls of this role
are, and what tools are available to empower the facilitator and create
a culture of co-facilitation in a group. We will also work on practical
skills such as Active Listening, Co-facilitation for Large Groups
Meetings, Agenda Planning, and Conflict & Mediation. The content of
the workshop is divided into two separate days so that participants can
choose to come for one day or the other, or both. This workshop is open
to anyone who desires to learn about consensus, or fine-tune the
knowledge she or he already has. It is open to anyone who desires to
communicate more openly and work more creatively with others. <br>
<br>
Autumn Brown was trained in Consensus Method for Decision Making and
Group Process by the UK-based collective Seeds for Change, and she is
committed to utilizing, teaching, and integrating consensus in her life
and work. She has extensive experience facilitating with social justice
and performance art collectives, and provides frequent consensus and
facilitation trainings in New York City. She currently works to promote
preparedness and resiliency as the Community Outreach and Training
Coordinator for New York Disaster Interfaith Services.Stuart
Rockefeller is an anthropologist working in Bolivia and Argentina. He
first discovered the power of consensus decision-making through the NYC
Direct Action Network. After taking a course at Training for Change in
Philadelphia, he began conducting consensus and facilitation trainings
in the New York area. Over the last few years he has done trainings for
activist groups in New York, Connecticut and New Jersey.Danielle
Sered's current work is in Restorative Justice and prison re- entry.
Her facilitation, consensus, and conflict resolution training
experience includes work in prisons, jails, under-resourced schools,
community organizing, radical collectives, and extensive gang
intervention work. She is a trained mediator and is committed to
approaching conflict as an opportunity for transformation and
community-building. <br>
<br>
Sliding Scale: $15-$35 per day<br>
No One Turned Away<br>
__________________________________________________________________<br>
<br>
Monday, November 13<br>
6:00 pm <br>
WORKSHOP & VIDEO SCREENING <br>
<br>
SOMA Therapy: Nazis Vs. Zapatistas & The Struggle Against Cooptation<br>
<br>
Plus Screening of Documentary: SOMA: An Anarchist Therapy<br>
<br>
Nick Cooper<br>
<br>
6:00 – 7:30 pm: WORKSHOP<br>
7:30 pm: VIDEO SCREENING<br>
<br>
Using Soma Therapy exercises and techniques developed by Brazilian
anarchist Roberto Freire, Nick Cooper will conduct a workshop that
explores the anti-fascist non-hierarchical currents in history,
philosophy, and psychology, criticism, and organizing tactics to find
ways to struggle against oppression in ways that don't create other
oppressions .Informed by Zapatista principles, Wilhelm Reich's Mass
Psychology of Fascism, and Hannah Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism,
the workshop compares authoritarian models to those that are
consensual, communitarian or autonomous and develops a skill set for
identifying, challenging and defeating the authoritarian tool of
cooptation..<br>
Following the workshop we will screen Nick Cooper’s documentary, Soma:
An Anarchist Therapy in which Nick Cooper traveled to Rio de Janeiro,
Salvador, Bahia, and São Paulo to find the exercises, principles,
voices, and movement of somatherapy. He interviews 79-year-old Roberto
Freire who continues to develop soma therapy although he now has
difficulty walking and is half-blinded from torture by the Brazilian
military dictatorship.<br>
<br>
Workshop facilitator and filmmaker Nick Cooper became interested in
horizontal structures for change while working with Indymedia, Food Not
Bombs and other non-hierarchical groups. He traveled to Brazil to study
Soma Therapy, and to Chiapas, Mexico to study Zapatismo. He has also
attended events of the far right to study fascist and pre-fascist
organizing directly. <br>
<br>
Suggested donation: $6/$10/$15<br>
No One Turned Away</font></p>
<p class="title2"><font color="#000000">______________________________________________________________________________________________<br>
Thursday, November 16<br>
7:30 pm <br>
<br>
Organizing for Immigrants' Rights<br>
<br>
Aarti Sahani & Others TBA. Moderated by Ragini Shah<br>
<br>
In 2006 an unprecedented mobilization of immigrants, immigrants'
rights activists and other supporters took place in the United States.
The mobilization was widely reported as a response to House bill 4437
which among other things made unlawful presence in the U.S. a felony
punishable not only with immigration consequences but with time in
prison. However, many immigrants' rights groups were mobilizing well
before HR 4437. This panel invites some of those who have been
organizing in the field of immigrants' rights to speak about the
framing of the issue for organizing, organizing methodologies and
sustaining the movement. The panel will also discuss steps activists
can take to organize in our own communities for greater rights for
immigrants including how to make linkages to other social justice
movements. <br>
<br>
Aarti Sahani is from Families for Freedom. Moderator Ragini Shah
directs the Immigrant Children Representation Project at Columbia Law
School. She is also a member of the Emergency Broadcast Artists, a
group of people seeking to bring issues like immigrants' rights into
everyday life by using public theater.<br>
<br>
Suggested donation: $6/$10/$15<br>
No OneTurned Away<br>
_____________________________________________________________________________<br>
Monday, November 20<br>
5:30 <br>
EXHIBIT OPENING / RECEPTION <br>
<br>
Fragmented Families: From the Shadow’s Side<br>
<br>
A photo exhibit curated by Javier Machado<br>
<br>
This group show examines the impact of U.S. Cuba policy on Cubans
living in the U.S. and their families on the island. In 2004, the U.S.
government issued new travel restrictions that permit Cuban-origin
residents to visit their own country only once every three years, and
then for only two weeks. Through documentary and experimental work,
Cuban and non-Cuban photographers respond to these developments. <br>
<br>
Javier Machado is a Cuban photographer who moved to the U.S. in 2003.
He has been reworking a series of portraits that he shot in his old
neighborhood in Havana before leaving. His work was recently exhibited
at the P.S. 122 Gallery. <br>
_______________________________________________________________________________<br>
Tuesday, November 21<br>
7:30 pm <br>
</font></p>
<p class="title2"><font color="#000000">Holding Israel Accountable:
The Case for Boycott, Divestment Sanctions (BDS)<br>
<br>
Issa Mikel & Riham Barghouti<br>
<br>
Since 2002, there has been a growing movement for Boycott, Divestment
and Sanctions as the only principled means to place pressure on Israel
for its on-going violations of international law and the rights of the
Palestinian people. In Palestine, the Arab World, Europe and Africa,
diverse calls have come from unions, churches, solidarity
organizations, and political parties. The presentation will provide an
overview of this emerging movement and will attempt to respond to the
major arguments being presented by those who oppose BDS.<br>
<br>
Issa Mikel is a lawyer and human rights activist living and working in
New York. He is a member of the NYC Campaign for Boycott, Divestment,
Sanctions. Riham Barghouti is the former Director of Public Relations
at Birzeit University in Palestine and is a member of the Palestinian
Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel and the NYC
Campaign for Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions. <br>
<br>
Suggested donation: $6/$10/$15<br>
No One Turned Away<br>
<br>
</font></p>
<br>
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