|
|
| Welcome to Cafe Cultura's
March 2015 newsletter! We're excited to keep in touch with you as we work to fulfill our mission.
#CafeCultura #XpressYourself #TellingOurStories |
|
| Caf� Cultura is an award-winning arts, culture, and youth development organization that promotes unity and healing among Indigenous peoples through creative expression while empowering youth to find their voice, reclaim oral and written traditions, and become leaders in their communities. |
|
|
|
|
Cafe Cultura presents Rise Up
w/ spoken word, music, free HIV/STI testing, free food, resource fair, vendors, door prizes, & community!
|
| 
 Spread the word...Bring your family & friends!!!!! VOLUNTEERS PLEASE ARRIVE AT 4pm :-) Note: Make sure to come early to sign up and get a good seat.
WHAT: All ages open mic (alcohol/drug free event) in honor of National Women & Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (March 10) & National Native HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (March 20)
WHEN: 2nd Fri. of every month....March 13th....next open mics (April 10th & May 8th @ Denver Inner City Parish/La Academia)
--->6 to 9pm
WHERE: Denver Indian Center (4407 Morrison Rd...off of Ohio Ave & Utica St)
$3 (nobody turned away)
Everyone is welcome!
Featured performers:
---->Desirae Harp ...The hummingbird, Native songstress is a member of the Ona*staTis (Miwhsewal Wappo) Nation and a descendant of the Dine (Navajo) Nation. She is a poet, college student, and community activist. Growing up in Santa Rosa, California, Desirae wanted to fuse rhythm and blues with hip hop like the Fugees, and to sing in her indigenous language like Ulali. Though she had been writing songs since she was a girl, it was not until Desirae started singing with the band Audiopharmacy that she began to gain confidence in her ability to become a professional singer and to use her voice as a tool for social change. She has performed in the Native American Contemporary Arts Festival, Bioneers Conference, Native American Journalist Associational Awards Ceremony, One World Beat Festival, and Dancing Earth's Origi-Nation: Roots and Seeds. She has performed with Grammy Award nominee R. Carlos Nikai. She has performed as a lead vocalist with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, and was the lead vocalist in an opera conducted by Grammy Award nominee Sara Jobin. She has shared the stage with acclaimed poets such as John Trudell, Jimmy Santiago Baca, and Lorna Dee Cervantes.
|
|
| SOLARIZE - Desirae Harp, Fly 50 and SeasunZ |
---->
Denice Frohman
is an award-winning poet and educator, whose work explores the intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and the "in-betweeness" that exists in us all. She is the 2013 Women of the World Poetry Slam Champion, 2014 CantoMundo Fellow, 2013 Hispanic Choice Award, and 2012 Leeway Transformation Award recipient. Her work has been featured in the Huffington Post, Upworthy, The Apiary and more. Her poem "Dear Straight People" went viral and has over 1 million views on Youtube. She has performed and taught poetry across the country and internationally, and is one half of the spoken word duo, Sister Outsider.is empowering a generation of young environmental and social leaders by providing education, tools and resources to become effective leaders in their communities. We inspire youth to connect with their creative passion and take it into positive action.
|
|
| Denice Frohman - "Dear Straight People" (WOWPS 2013) |
---->
Sing Our Rivers Red
Earring Exhibit: Sing Our Rivers Red (SORR) initiative aims to bring awareness to the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women and colonial gender based violence in the United States and Canada. The traveling earring exhibit is a collection of 1,181 Native designed single-sided earrings meant to symbolize the women who were stolen. It is our intent to use art as activism to raise awareness about this epidemic that occurs in the US as well as all across Turtle Island. Earrings have been sent from throughout both countries.
|
in association with:
-Branching Seedz of Resistance
-Sisters of Color United for Education
-University of Denver's Graduate School of Social Work
-Warriors Organizing and Rising in Denver (WORD)
-Youth HIV Advocacy Coalition (
YHACnow
)
#CafeCultura #XpressYourself #TellingOurStories
|
During the Mi Casa @ Lake showcase & book release on Feb. 18th, participants in Cafe Cultura's "Telling Our Stories" workshop series performed their poems in front of their family, friends, & staff during their book release.
Click here or on the book cover below to read some of their work. You will be impressed by what they have to say!
Here are a few excerpts:
"Who has the power to change but me?
I am my hope, my strength, my soul. I feel the long, wet drops shuffle down your face. I say everything will be ok. You say you are not alive and wish you could die. I am the armrest where you can place your head."
"Whenever you come to the Rez,
you may only see the dirt and more dirt that burns your feet. You say, "The Rez is boring." Well, you do not live there. I say the Rez is beautiful. If you don't see it, oh well! Like the elders say, "If you don't see our beauty, then you haven't seen the beauty in yourself."
"I look to my left
and there I see my guide, my mentor, my real teacher, my best uncle. He taught me everything in life. As a teacher, he has given me the best advice and skills I need to become a man."
We continue working with our partners to allow youth participants opportunities to express themselves and tell their stories through the publishing of books and coordinating showcases. They currently include Heart & Hand, Grant Beacon Middle School, and STRIVE Prep SMART. We will start with our partnerships with Contemporary Learning Academy and Escuela Tlatelolco within the next 2 weeks.
We are excited to make our recent youth-written books available online. To access each collection of powerful spoken word poetry from participants in our workshop series, simply click on the book cover.
Make sure to read future newsletters for more updates.
|
|
Cirque du Soleil
Benefit Performance for Cafe Cultura
 
We are honored to work with Cirque du Soleil in hosting a benefit performance to support our Telling Our Stories workshop series. Tickets are now for sale for 2 Thursday 7:30pm shows: June 25 and July 23.
For information about the show and to purchase tickets, simply visit
|
|
| Contact Information |
|
Cafe Cultura
P.O. Box 11791
Denver, CO 80211
Office: 1029 Santa Fe Dr Unit #6
Hours: Mon-Thurs from 9am to 2:00pm
Fri from 9am to 5pm
|
|
Make a one-time or monthly donation to Cafe Cultura!
You have the opportunity to invest in Cafe Cultura's work in the community. Click on the following image to make a tax-deductible donation. 
|
| Xpress Yourself Basic Spoken Word Workshops for Youth (#XpressYourself) |
We have worked with numerous schools and organizations throughout Colorado to give underserved youth an opportunity to express themselves. Our most recent partners have included: American Indian Youth Leadership Institute (Boulder Valley School District), Escuela Tlatelolco, Kunsmiller Creative Arts Academy, & Vista Peak Preparatory.
If you are interested
in having Cafe Cultura present at your school or organization, feel free to contact us. Our
basic version
is a
one time, 1 to 2 hour
session
. We have used this
highly engaging
and
culturally relevant
workshop structure for over eight years to encourage Chicana/o and Native youth to use spoken word to give voice to our stories of love, struggle, injustice, and celebration. They serve to
supplement and support Language Arts/English curriculum
. Workshop structure was designed by a spoken word artist with 4 years experience teaching at the middle and high school level with contributions from other poets and youth advocates.Click here for a detailed information sheet.
 |
| Cafe Cultura's Xpress Yourself: Hip Hop, Poetry, & Spoken Word workshops |
|
|
Whether you are a beginner or an experienced poet, join us as we workshop poems you are currently drafting or will write during our time together.
WHEN:
Last Saturday of the month (March 28, April 25th, May 30th)
TIME:
11:00 to 12:30pm
WHERE:
Cafe Cultura Office (1029 Santa Fe Dr)
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
|
| Exciting Updates |
Thank you to everyone who joined us for another amazing open mic. We appreciate our community's support in making it a benefit for Jessie Hernandez. Special thank you to our features (
Earth Guardians,
DJ Cavem, &
Sarah Ortegon) for using your art to uplift us. Shout out to
Mile High UNITY for stepping forward as young leaders to inform us about your efforts. We especially appreciate the numerous volunteers (including Cafe Cultura poets & members of our Collective and Board of Directors) who helped throughout the night....loading, set-up, during, clean-up, returning equipment.
-
Fundraising @ Colfax Marathon
:
So far, we have 5 people committed to running on a relay team on behalf of Cafe Cultura (K?s� Garcia, Gerardo Munoz, Leroy Saiz, Boni Sanchez, & Ara Cruz). If you would like to join us in promoting healthy living while fundraising for our organization, let us know. Support youth in finding their voice through our spoken word workshops!
-
Cafe Cultura will be collaborating on an HIV/AIDS prevention research project with Assistant Professor, Ramona Beltran and the University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work
. Funded by the Public Good Fund through
University of Denver's Center for Community Engaged Scholarship and Service Learning
, the project will work with several other Denver-based organizations to develop a culture-centered HIV/AIDS prevention curriculum for Indigenous youth and to support increasing education and participation in our annual Rise Up! community event to be held in March, 2015. Recruitment efforts are slated to begin soon, so stay tuned if you want to be involved.
-We continue to receive support from important members of the foundation community. Thank you to our recent funders: Bowen Family Performing Arts Fund (The Denver Foundation), National Association for Latino Arts and Culture Fund for the Arts, Seventh Generation Fund, Peyback Foundation, Hispanics In Philanthropy, Latino Community Foundation of Colorado, WESTAF, and The Chinook Fund.
-We were honored to have been selected for the
2013 Mayor's Award for Excellence in Arts & Culture (Youth Arts)
. Here is the video they produced for us:
 |
| 2013 Denver Mayor's Awards for Excellence in Arts and Culture - Youth Arts Award: Cafe Cultura |
-
Performances/shows from Cafe Cultura poets:
If you want us to host an open mic featuring our spoken word artists, contact us ASAP. Funds will go to sustaining our organization and the work we do in the community (especially our workshops for youth).
-Feel free to
visit
our website
often for updates
(click on the image).
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
