WALAALO! Somali Sisters Collective
The Walaalo! Somali Sisters Collective is a Creative Economy initiative that values culture and performance as assets, and reflects New WORLD Theater's commitment to supporting artists and communities of color in our region.
Through a community-based arts process, Walaalo! creates new approaches to self-directed economic development. The women of the Somalu community meet weekly for visual arts and craft workshops, small business development training, English lessons, and community-based performance workshops. To facilitate the performing arts process, New WORLD Theater has hosted guest artists such as: dance theater artist and poet, Potri Ranka Manis; playwright and performance artist Robbie McCauley, dancer/choreographer Wanjiru Kamuyu, visual artist and musician Terry Jenoure, and percussionist Irene Shaikly.
This multi-year, collective process rooted in storytelling, oral history, song and movement will lead to the creation of a collaborative, multidisciplinary theater production presented by New WORLD Theater, Shekadii Walaalo (Sister-Story). Award-winning filmmaker Julie Akeret will chronicle the project activities, with the goal of creating a new documentary on the stories of the Somali refugee community.
Supported in part by the John & Abigail Adams Arts Program of the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the Women's Fund of Western Massachusetts, and the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities, this highly collaborative project would not be possible without the work of the following partner organizations: the Center for Popular Economics, Lean on Me Family Center, the International Language Institute, Akeret Productions, Dean's Beans, Gasoline Alley, Light of Restoration Ministries, the Fund for Women Artists, the Community Music School of Springfield. Additional supporters include: American Friends Service Committee of Western Massachussets, and Food for Thought Books.
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Spotlight on the Somali Community Festival Over the past five years, more than 100 Somali refugee families have been resettled in the city of Springfield and the surrounding areas. Median household income in Springfield is barely half the state average, and unemployment is 25% higher than the rest of Western Massachusetts. Women are particularly limited in mobility, educational access and professional choices.
In November 2006, the Somali Women's Project held its first public event, the Somali Community Festival, at the Panache Banquet Hall in Springfield, MA. The event was a wonderful success, with a delicious array of home-cooked Somali foods, hand-made crafts sold by women and children participating in the project, and live music and dancing by the Vermont-based Somali Bantu Band and Somali Women's Project performers!
The Somali Women's Project is an arts-based economic development initiative that values culture and performance as assets, and reflects New WORLD Theater's commitment to supporting artists and communities of color in our region.
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On November 22, 2008 the Walaalo! Sisters Collective presented their original theater presentation
Shekadii Walaalo
Shekadii Walaalo, Sister-Story, is the culminating performance of a multi-year community-based project, featuring the Pioneer Valley's own Somali community in a vibrant evening of live music, dance, video, poetry and storytelling. Based on the traditional Somali epic form, the Riwad, Shekadii Walaalo illuminates the contemporary experiences of the Somali women and men who are now our neighbors. It is a journey of survival, displacement, and new beginnings: from fleeing a beloved homeland, through war and refugee camps, to resettlement in Massachusetts, and the realities of life as African Muslims in post-9/11 America. These extraordinary stories reveal the power of the human spirit to rise above the worst of human atrocities, and the persistence of love through the greatest of human challenges. This community-based theater production is an original work created by members of the Walaalo! Somali Sisters Collective, in collaboration with professional artists supported by New WORLD Theater. |
Crisis in Somalia -- Community Forums
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The current situation in Somalia has been called the greatest humanitarian crisis in Africa. Political violence has displaced over a million Somalis within their country and dispersed more than refugees 450,000 worldwide. In the past year alone, the number of refugees has doubled. But you may not have heard any of this in the mainstream media.The Walaalo! project arises from the Somali community's experience of war and displacement. A special series of public forums will provide background and perspective on their story.
These free events invite you to dialogue with local and national scholars and Somali community leaders, to reach a deeper understanding of Somali history, current events, and the political roots of the ongoing refugee crisis. They'll also include informal sharings of Somali songs, poetry and personal stories with the Walaalo! participants.
The Crisis in Somalia forums were co-sponsored by New WORLD Theater, the Center for Popular Economics, Western Mass. American Friends Service Committee and other partner organizations, with generous support from the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities. |
Past Forum Events include:
Wednesday, October 15, 6-8 pm. Light of Restoration, 100 Suffolk Street, Holyoke, MA. Featuring Roxanne Lawson, Africa Policy Director, TransAfrica Forum.
Tuesday, November 18, 6-8 pm. Food for Thought Books, Amherst, MA. featuring Dr. Abdi Samatar, Author and Professor of Geography and Global Studies at the University of Minnesota.
Saturday, November 22 - Post-performance dialogue following the Walaalo! performance
Saturday, February 28, 4-6 pm
MLK Community Center,
3 Rutland Street, Springfield, MA
featuring Smith College professor KATWIWE MULE, video clips of past forums and live performance by members of Walaalo! Sisters Collective
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