3 Furies Interview with Belinada Otas

Every time I am asked to speak about the Furies project, I reach another level of understanding about why I am doing it. I'm grateful to Belinda Otas, freelance journalist and avid blogger, for sending me a group of questions that provoked more thoughts and points of note highlighting the need for more in-depth dialogue about women's anger.

Belinda: You have had a busy year, from Travelling Light and now as part of AfroVibes, take us into your world and how poetry and the spoken word continues to help you shape and define your space with this manic world? 

For years I have walked through life as if I’m watching a movie, where characters come and go, evolve or implode, where the scenery, set, props and budget, in other words – circumstance - have a profound effect on how people rise to the challenge and test their mettle in this one short life. I find these stories fascinating. Even mine. It’s been tough for me growing up in a single parent family, having a migrant status, being a woman of colour who has experienced serious racism and the paradoxes of sexism and class-ism. Reality is brutal in its treachery and it's beauty, and I feel I have a very strange ability to walk around the planet as a tourist.

Amongst Women Part 1 - The Importance of Communication

Red Table Talks: Jada Pinkett-Smith, her mother Adrienne Banfield Jones and her daughter, Willow Smith Talk Love and Family

Red Table Talks: Jada Pinkett-Smith, Willow Smith Talk Love, Family

Before I comment on what this video is about I wanted to talk quickly about the success of all relationships resting in those involved being able to express themselves. It's more than healthy to be confident in expressing one's needs and to show openness to receive information from the other. The skill of Listening is a fading (faded?) art, it seems. It's crucial to articulate grievances without aggression or an ulterior motive to undermine someones confidence, destablize them. #Playfair.
 Verbal jostles are real but they're not the be all and end all. Sometimes they're useful for letting off steam but not to hurt. If you play fair its just a rutting session.  Two people with intimate knowledge of each others communication ability allows compassion to exist between them and can be part of a sense of home for someone when they feel so understood. Like an unconditional clause in the unspoken family contract.

But what if home is not so secure? Many find that they fail in communicating their needs because they just don't seem to be able to get themselves understood. They may have

FEMFEST - a Festival of Women Playwrights – an interview with Hope McIntyre of Sarasvati Productions

I interviewed Hope McIntyre, the Artistic Director of Sarasvati Productions and the driving force behind Femfest. Where other festivals with women at their focus have died out in Canada, the drive and determination of Sarasvati and all its volunteers, has  Femfest striding in its ninth year.

Click to go to Sarasvati's FemFest 

Website for 2011

Hope is herself a playwright, hence her passion and is at present developing a new theatre piece called "Jail Baby".  Hope Kindly sent the opening monologue:

Spotlight on Jasmine, about 8 months pregnant. 
As she speaks she changes into Remand Centre issue clothes.

JASMINE:      They say you can’t remember that far back – back to being born. Maybe I don’t remember, but if I close my eyes, I can feel the concrete against my slippery little body. I feel metal. I have nightmares of sliding out into a world of bars and cold and noise and suffocation. It’s like something I can’t escape. Born to be in prison. Born a prisoner. Sounds like a bad country song. Even worse, I became known as the toilet bowl baby. Now there’s a good song title. If only someone had taught me to play guitar, I could be traveling the world telling my sorry tale. I’d record an album in Memphis and they’d make a movie about me. (now fully dressed in prison garb, she looks down at herself) I’m just fulfilling my destiny. This is what my mom was wearing when I was born. I’m my mom 18 years later.

I asked Hope what were her future plans for Jail Baby:
"In terms of the plans, we are doing rewrites this year and working towards a full production and publication in May 2013. Our goal is to produce it for the general public but then also take it on