By Pooja Prema, Rites of Passage Project Founder & Artistic Director
It’s with a big deep breath, that I announce at long-last: RITES OF PASSAGE: 20/20 VISION!!!!!! This project is an offering of clear sight into our Collective past, our present and our potential future,Revolutionary Art, Activism + Initiation for the New Century by Women + Femmes of Color
Live: August 14- 23, 2020
For those of you who experienced the first Rites of Passage in 2013, this is the next evolution. 20/20 Vision was born out of my need to speak to a broader scope of the feminine experience in America, with a focus on the voices of WOC, with all NEW "Rooms of Cure".
Now is Our Time.
Creating this project involves learning how tp embody the radically beautiful values of this Project. How do we truly CO-CREATE a living village - to sew together our losses and our triumphs, our tender broken places with the bright red threads of healing that we each are carrying: You are my teacher. I am your teacher. Together, we are learning. And THIS is Rites of Passage 20/20 Vision: 80 women of color + allies from around the US. Creating a potent space for the stories that have gone unheard, and for the Medicine WE ALL NEED.
In the words of one of my personal heroines - with whom I share the same ancestral homeland, and love of eloquence + rebellion:
“Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness – and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe.....Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them. Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”
- Arundhati Roy
Ultimately Rites of Passage is meant to speak to all of us, regardless of our background or gender. We all need to nurture new cultures of remembrance on the Earth, along with community containers for initiation.
My hope is that this website and this project, will be space for us all to remember the Resilience we each carry.
We welcome all kinds of support: a HOUSE, artists, production folks, volunteers, MONEY, artist housing. It takes many webs of support to build this:)
Thank you for reading, for sharing, for breathing in this new world together.