Archive for MorganBoecher

Monster – a poem by Cristina Dominguez

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I’m learning more and more
the space between each l e t t e r
now further apart with you,
now that I’m a part of you,
they aren’t even near
they can’t touch the meaning
inside and around them

they are leaning
trying to see
to understand
to hear in their own echo
the purpose,
the beautiful curse,
that found them first…

usually the story starts
and finds the beauty,
lying in the darkness,
the kind that no one saw
there all along
the hidden familiar
the meant to be
created reality
a meaningless song
that only has meaning
because it has been repeated
for far too long

those stories miss
the perfections in the flaws,
the inflections of light
that live in a darkness
so dense
so permanent in presence
so pregnant with heart-wrenching potential
that sight can’t find them,
our eyes can’t see them,
only once
they give up trying,
close and closed
they open up,
they erupt
and cry
tears breaking
their seals
losing
and lost again

what no one knows
you’ll learn there
thick
true
black
light
never
lies
white lies
fairy tales
are blinding
and binding

the monster
is a princess
who thinks
who feels
who wants

the monster
is the princess
that is real

the webs we weave
don’t tap into
a tapestry of harmony

but tangled
mangled
contorted and tortured
I’m wrapped
in the craft
in the work
that taught me my worth

I’m sleeping
in the clouds
that clear my mind

The nightmare
that we share
is a dream
in the darkness
not ready
to be seen

won’t regret
won’t white wash
sugar coat
or paint over
the pain I feel
everyday
the pain
the stir

inside
behind my eyes
behind my lies
the intensity
that keeps me
from staying
in line

stray with me
fall into the spaces
between
the cracks
and ruins
where what is right
is what feels right

tread in trouble
with me
be buried
alive
in the art
of my arteries

I’m the dragon that guards
the haunted castle
because I know
how the light
bakes
and mistakes
the shapes
that lay
the mystery

warm
wet
not ready yet
wait with me
take me back
to where
I never knew
I could start again
to where
I don’t
have to begin

Nothing about
the darkness
goes against
my will

Terror is
the way
they keep you still

I’m
mutating
and
you’re circulating
captivating
and cultivating
we’re waiting…

happily ever after
means there is a place
where risk and danger
are endangered
where life becomes monotony

the complexity
and endlessness of the dark
unrests me

I forever want to be
the monster
they make of me

Category: Blog, Cristina Dominguez /

Premiere Stages 2010 Season at Kean University: Jaguars, Truth-seekers and Whole Foods

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Premiere Stages at Kean University (Union, NJ) presents a dynamic mix of original plays. The professional theatre’s season includes a powerful new drama, an important new play in a co-production with Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, and the development of a speedy new comedy. Family-friendly musical theatre productions and special initiatives for children and students make the season enjoyable for all audiences.

The Good Counselor is Kathryn Grant’s drama about a chosen son’s quest for truth. A bright, young public defender struggles to represent two neglectful mothers, one his client, the other his own. A thought-provoking and beautifully written new play, The Good Counselor literally prompts the audience to serve as the jury in determining what it means to be a good parent. This Premiere Stages Festival Winner, selected from over three hundred submissions, opens Thursday, July 15, in the Zella Fry Theatre and continues through Sunday, August 1.

Collaborating with Playwrights’ Theatre of New Jersey, Premiere Stages presents Tammy Ryan’s Lost Boy Found in Whole Foods (September 2 trough 19). In this timely new work, Gabriel, an optimistic former “lost boy” from Sudan meets Christine, a suburban mother in desperate need of attention and adventure. What begins as an unlikely friendship becomes an unbreakable bond that changes the pair and leads them to a better understanding of their place in the world.

“We workshopped the play in staged readings,” stated John Wooten, Premiere Stages’ Artistic Director. “The response was incredible. It was clear that this was not a story that should be told, it was one that had to be told.”

The campus community agrees. The Human Rights Institute at Kean University, the Darfur Rehabilitation Project, and the Kean Department of Theatre are collaborating with Premiere Stages to bring this important story to the stage. A special opening night pre-show reception for donors will be held on September 3rd in Kean University’s new Human Rights Institute and a champagne toast with the cast follows the performance.

“I am pleased to have these important partners working with us to bring the play to life. It’s an amazing story and another example of how the arts often bring important issues to the forefront.”

In a similar developmental process, Premiere Stages will advance Gino Dilorio’s The Jag. In this evolving new comedy, a father and son struggle to find missing parts as they reconstruct a car that was never meant to be finished. Through an intensive one-week process, interactive staged readings are presented to the public (June 25 through 27).

Premiere Stages’ Musical Fun Series features two of New Jersey’s finest Actors’ Equity Association theatre companies for young audiences. Running Rabbit Family Theatre presents Pinocchio and Pushcart Players offers Stone Soup and Other Stories and Cuentos Del Arbol .

Premiere Stages launches the brand new Premiere’s Holiday Workshop. A special holiday treat for the entire family, the Workshop features readings of three holiday-themed plays and includes hot cider and treats for everyone. Admission is free; patrons need only to bring a new, unwrapped toy for Toys for Tots.

All performances take place on the Kean University campus, located at 1000 Morris Avenue, Union, N.J. Premiere Stages offers affordable prices, air-conditioned facilities and free parking close to the theatres. Premiere Stages provides free or discounted tickets to patrons with disabilities. All Premiere Stages facilities are fully accessible spaces. Please call for a list of sign-interpreted, audio-described or open-captioned performances. Assistive listening devices and large print programs are available at all times. Publications are available with advanced notice in alternate formats.

Tickets for productions range from $15 to $25, with discounts for groups (Musical Fun tickets are $12 with discounts for groups). The Premiere Package (a new subscription series) saves patrons up to $30.00 and includes free admission to staged readings and other special events. For more information, call 908-737-4092 or visit www.kean.edu/premierestages .

Premiere Stages is made possible in part through funding from The New Jersey State Council on the Arts, The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Kean’s Quality First Initiative, The Westfield Foundation, The Gleason Family Foundation, The Provident Bank Foundation, and through the generous support of individual patrons.

_______________________________________________

Schedule of Events:

The Jag
FREE staged readings in the Murphy Dunn Theatre (Vaughn Eames Fine Arts Building)
Friday, June 25, 7 p.m.
Saturday, June 26, 7 p.m.
Sunday, June 27, 3 p.m.

The Good Counselor
Zella Fry Theatre (Vaughn Eames Fine Arts Building)
Thursday, July 15 – Sunday, August 1
Thursday – Saturday performances begin at 8 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday matinee performances begin at 3 p.m.

Lost Boy Found in Whole Foods
Zella Fry Theatre (Vaughn Eames Fine Arts Building)
Friday, September 2 – Sunday, September 19
Fridays and Saturday performances begin at 8 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday matinee performances begin at 3 p.m.
“Pizza Preview” Performance on Thursday, September 2 at 8pm
VIP Opening Night Fundraiser and Performance on Friday, September 3 at 8pm
Special “Early Curtain” performances on Weds, September 8, at 10 a.m. and Thursday, September 16 at 5 p.m.

Premiere’s Holiday Workshop
December 9 – 11, 2010 time(s) to be announced

Musical Fun Series

All Musical Fun performances will be presented in the Little Theatre, with ticket prices ranging from $10 to $12.

PINOCCHIO
Tuesday, July 13 at 11:00 am and 1:30 pm..
Wednesday, July 14 at 11:00 am and 1:30 pm..

CUENTOS del ARBOL
Thursday, July 15 at 11:00 am

STONE SOUP…and other stories
Wednesday, July 21 at 11:00 am and 1:00 pm

CUENTOS del ARBOL
Wednesday, July 28 at 11:00 am

This press release is also available online at:
http://www.kean.edu/about_press.html

Contact Information:

To order tickets, join our mailing list, and/or to request a season brochure, please call the Kean Stage Box Office at 908-737-SHOW (7469).
For groups, call Paul Whelihan at 908-737-4077.
For Camp and the Premiere Residency Program, please call Erica Nagel at 908-737-4092, or visit Premiere Stages online at www.kean.edu/premierestages.

For specifics of the season, please contact Artistic Director John Wooten at jwooten@kean.edu or 908-737-4360.

Category: Blog, Co-Sponsored Event / Tags: , ,

Fearful of a free love – a poem by Cristina Dominguez

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Alone with myself
alone with thoughts of you,
dreams that we might pursue
the metaphor that is something more

Do you have plans in store for me?
Something locked away?
Will I, can I, find the key?
Or are you just as lost in this feeling
as I am, and finding me
only out of your desperate need
to not be the lone and forlorn refugee

Spontaneity craving
the all too unsurprising predictability
that I do not have the ability to willingly
conjure up, for your fearful gut that undermines
your revolutionary desires
the very thing that inspires
this all new, unconventional concoction
of love in me

Stagnant in your opposition to compromise
but positioned to compose around
something safe and sound
that I can’t be

Why can’t we both remain wild and free?
Liberty meets love, and lives in it liberally
instead of denying and dying
the part that defies a love that’s limiting.
Packed away are my overt attempts to
create and break free that love within me.
But will that love be too different
too strange to move your eyes to see
The love I know you have for me?

It isn’t easy
It isn’t what you need to satisfy and pacify your fears
Ready to challenge me but you stay
securely still in your stubborn habit
of thirsting for security

I won’t be part of the assembly line of lovers
replacing the past
enslaving myself to your repetitive defense mechanisms
that mass produced flat and failed relationships

The dimensions we’ve mentioned
philosophically talking with the top down in your cool convertible
free and versatile
in thought, in mind, in spirit.
But though you can hear it
you can’t take to heart
the part that would free
your heart

You aren’t fearful of who would leave you
but frightened by what it would mean if someone would stay~
Would sway in the wind and the water that is you,
flowing in a stream to a stream of consciousness
as wide eyed and open as the ocean
Not hindered by the currents currently claiming
calming and inhibiting
the independent spirit
in an uninhabitable love

That body of water
that body of love
a mirror reflecting–
how you won’t
how you refuse
to look
to see
the you, you love sufficiently
for you have efficiently
not let it be tied down
but do not love enough to embrace fully..
to let it be lifted up
to give up,
not surrendering
but rendering
it free.

Let your expectations
like their limitations
be obsolete.
You’re wading in a pool of your own possibility
I’m waiting for you to dive into
the depths of our opportunity.
There will be no death of you or me,
we can coexist in this discovery
you can feel it
now believe it
you can be free
in loving me

Category: Blog, Cristina Dominguez / Tags: , ,

EVERY Color of the Rainbow: A New York City Pride Story

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by Morgan Boecher

Last weekend was my first time attending a Pride event of a New-York-City scale. My only other experience was when I was a teenager during the sleepy summer months in Gainesville, Florida. The festival that happened in our downtown plaza was an inspiring effort, with all the Roy G. Biv decorations and dildo raffles, but it never overwhelmed like NYC Pride does.

What overwhelmed me the most, more than the campy getups and the countless people streaming through 5th Avenue, was the comfort of finding queer folks around every corner. It made me feel a little more at home, at least. As a transsexual man with an undeniably feminine physique, I have trouble fitting within the everyday cissexual (non-trans) world. When I go butch, I look lesbian, which gets it all wrong.

However, NYC Pride weekend, subsuming all in delightful queerness, made my gender identity matter a little less. At least when I was walking around the streets being one in the crowd. At other times it mattered more.

Preceding the Sunday parade was the Dyke March, a politically charged protest demanding equal rights, the end of LBTQ violence, and visibility. Considering how cis-male-centric mainstream images of LGBTQ culture are, the Dyke March is a wonderful way for queer women to claim their space. Being someone who does not in any way identify as a dyke, I respectfully stood aside. Giving oppressed groups a chance to their own space is powerful and important. I did get to chat with a friend of mine who participated in the march, though.

Our talk of gendered space led us to ruminate over the displacement of trans people. Cissexual people are often confused about where trans men and women ought and ought not be. The Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival is a good example, with their reluctance to allow trans womyn access to the “womyn-born-womyn” space. Anyway, while discussing the gendered barriers of the Dyke March, my friend told me that she met someone there who expressed skepticism about trans men.

“I just don’t understand trans men because I enjoy being a woman so much,” she said.

*Sigh.* Just the same sentiment I met when I came out to some proudly womyn-born-womyn friends of mine. Despite the beautiful mélange of gender and sexual diversity crowding the streets of NYC, trans experiences are still going misunderstood. It’s not that trans men devalue womanhood; it’s just that they don’t identify with it.

The Dyke March is an empowering step toward recognizing a greater range of human experience, but some trans visibility could stretch that recognition even further.

Category: Blog, Morgan Boecher /

phati’tude Literary Magazine Celebrates Relaunch at the Bowery > Poetry Club, NYC

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The Bowery Poetry Club
Friday, July 9, 2010 @ 7:30PM

featuring
Tara Betts, Timothy Liu, Angelo Nikolopoulos, Jeffrey Perkins
Devi Lockwood, Jon Sands & Jesús Papoleto Meléndez
with special guest David Henderson

We are pleased to announce the publication of phati’tude
Literary Magazine’s relaunch issue, MULTICULTURALISM: IN SEARCH
OF A NEW PERSPECTIVE and our Summer issue, THE LAVENDER ISSUE:
LGBT LITERATURE TODAY. Both publications will be available for
sale on our website on July 15, 2010 on Amazon.com. Each issue
features writers from the U.S., Canada, England, Scotland,
Australia, New Zealand, Guam, the Philippines, Japan.

Come join us! It’ll be great to see old friends and meet new
ones!

For more information visit us at http://phatitude.org

Category: Blog, Co-Sponsored Event, Events /

Friendly Fire – a poem by Cristina Dominguez

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Those nearest
and dearest
don’t hear
or see us
at times
because they can
remain blinded
by their own lives.

My home is your home;
what’s mine is yours
what’s yours is mine:
Yours is mine
watch me turn a blind eye
watch me lie
“We are equal”

They see us as
exaggerating radicals
making battles
where peace prevails
shattering their perspective
by making concrete
their advantage point,
the connection between
their heteronormativity
and our lived inequity

Can I ask you a question?
I don’t understand
Who’s the man?
How can I brand you?
so I can see
so we can be
“We are the same”

Delegitimizing
minimizing
the detainment of our
deviation,
how live and let live
isn’t live and let thrive
we’ll survive

So sex
…yes that’s next
how do you?
There isn’t a
penis present
so here it is
narrowing
and entering
into you
“We are the same”

This phallocentric tendency
isn’t just diminishing me
but their own
female,
free-of-male
sexuality.
Only his
Erect flesh
Makes the act correct?
I guess…

Why are you offended?
This can be men-did.
We can work this out
into a peace
and ease that will
please this
place of power
I can judge you from

Look I’m so evolved
and so involved
and invested,
and molesting your
intimate life.
I’m open-minded
I, don’t
mind
my minor mistakes,
give me a break
“We are the same”

Interrogating and
negating
isn’t creating,
isn’t nurturing
my future.
Stereotypes
grow ripe
in the light
of your assumptions.
Seeds from the quick,
cheap, consumption
of my life.
But in that
surviving act,
perhaps
we are the same

Category: Blog, Cristina Dominguez /

Designing Women: The Intersection of Art, Culture, and Car Design

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Who knew? During the 50s, an era in auto design known for super-sized macho male autos with rocket-like tailfins and increasing engine power, when guys tended to call their cars “she,” General Motors surprisingly hired a team of women auto designers who were trailblazing pioneers and had a critical role in the company’s Renaissance of Design. And today, a group of women are among the designers spearheading the generation of new cars that might make or break the company.

The Museum of the City of New York, in conjunction with its current exhibition, “Cars, Culture and the City,” presents Designing Women:  The Intersection of Art, Culture and Car Design, a very special public program that examines this largely untold story of GM’s past and present designing women (June 28, 6:30pm). Four of GM’s top women designers will lead the program, discussing both the pioneering days of the early women designers at GM to their current roles designing such cars as next generation Cadillacs. They will be able to take questions and be available for conversation following the program.

For a fascinating preview of the Designing Women program,
please enjoy this short video:
http://www.youtube.com/user/MuseumofCityofNY

To make reservations, please visit:
http://www.mcny.org/public-programs/all/Designing-Women.html

For more information or to RSVP by phone, please call:
917-492-3395

The first 200 people to RSVP will receive at the end of the
program a free autographed sketch of new Cadillac designs drawn
by the designing women.

Amy Nizwantowski
Phil&Co
On behalf of the Museum of the City of New York

Category: Blog, Co-Sponsored Event, Events /

There is still time to make your voice heard in support of the Reproductive Health Act!

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1. Look up your New York State Senator here: http://www.nysenate.gov/senators
2. Look to see if they have Facebook and/or a Twitter page and “like” or “follow” them
3. Once you have either liked them on Facebook or followed them on Twitter – write a wall post on their page or tweet at them with a message that says you are a constituent and that you want to see Reproductive Health Act passed in 2010.
4. If your State Senator does not have a Facebook or Twitter page, you can “like” and write a wall post on the full NYS Senate Facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/#!/NYsenate

If you do not have a Facebook or Twitter account, you can still take action over the phone or e-mail:

Look up your State Senator and their contact info here: http://www.nysenate.gov/senators and leave a quick message or e-mail that says you are a constituent and that you support reproductive choice and want the Reproductive Health Act (s.5808) passed in 2010!

Sign the Reproductive Health Act petition on-line!:
http://www.prochoiceny.org/getinvolved/rhapetition.shtml

This message is brought to you by NARAL Pro-Choice New York

Category: Blog /

A Womanist in the Midst of Vultures- A poem

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By Carolyn Blair

Dear Media,
I want to thank you for letting me know that I’m not good enough.
That my skin is too dark, my nose is too wide, and my lips are just not right.
I want to thank you,

I want to thank you for reading me bedtime stories about celebrity diets and ways I can attract a man with a Victoria’s Secret push-up bra.
I want to thank you,

I want to thank you for tucking me in at night with my insecurities and tears,
I want to thank you.
I want to thank you for waking me up to liposuction mornings and self-hating coffee,
Thank you.
Where make-up is an essential.
Can you tell me if that Mac lip-gloss comes in the shade of self-confidence? I’ll take four.
Fall 2009. Feminist Theory class. Class assignment: read pages 15-17.

It says “It’s learning how to stand alone, unpopular, and sometimes reviled.
Words into sentences, sentences into paragraphs, paragraphs into an essay,
A tear kisses my cheeks, while my eyes are trap in the warmth of feminism.

Where was NBC and Good Morning America with this ground breaking news?
Of course it will be hard for me to move when the strings of male domination is holding me back from the truth.
How can I tell my unborn child that the same person who gave him life is oppressed not one way but two ways?

Like magicians, the government sprinkles its magic dust on everything, Making America seemed so great. The government can do that you sometimes.
Illusions of golden streets, large houses, and picket fences blinds you from the existence of racism and sexism.

The world won’t accept a man with feminine tendencies, so the brick of masculinity chokes him. Never allowing him to express his sexuality freely,
Don’t ask don’t tell policy becomes his bible, when homophobic stares leave reminders on his chest that he is a man. Nothing more, nothing less.

I cannot be that girl anymore. Where my vagina is just your pit stop and your lies are submerged in the black sheets of my mind.
Using my body to vanquish your insecurities and validate your masculinity.
What about me?

I used to think I can use my body to make you love me, but before I could say those three words you got “Oh I think she likes me” hives and ran away from me.
I became your housewife who does your sexual laundry.
Stuck here doing your dishes, glass shatters leaving me to pick up the pieces of my self-esteem.
But since I meet feminism, I no longer need you.

Alice Walker, Bell Hooks, Angela Davis serenade me with their words,
Taught me that confidence comes from within. That my body is mine and mine alone.
I don’t subscribe to your smiles anymore. I subscribe to the liberated issues of Ms. Magazine, Drench myself in feminist theory, and I can easily tell how race and gender intersect with each other.
Like etch-a-sketch, your scars of sexual advancements are erased from my body and replaced with divine black feminist poetry of June Jordan and Sapphire.

You vultures can pick at me all you want, I’m a womanist and this is my story.

Category: Blog /

Everyday is a HOLLAday: Hollaback! iPhone App & Site Launch Party

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Come and celebrate the beginning of the end of street harassment! After five years of running Hollaback as a blog, we’re growing up, relaunching our site, and launching an iPhone app that will track exactly when and where street harassment happens. We’re building a world where everyone has the right to feel safe, confident, and sexy – one hollaback at time. Dolly Trolly and DJs Miss Bliss and Emily Allen will be spinning killer tunes throughout the night. More entertainment will be announced in the coming weeks.

Location:
Southpaw
125 5th Ave
Brooklyn, NY

Tickets are $12 at the door
And $8 for our fabulous KickStarter contributors!
All proceeds benefit Hollaback!

Get in for FREE by becoming a HOLLAhero!
To become a HOLLAhero you can either:
-Bring 10 friends
-Bring 5 friends and 1 silent auction item
-Bring 2 silent auction items
Please note, HOLLAheroes must sign up in advance of the event.

Email Rebecca at rebecca@ihollaback.org if you are interested in becoming a HOLLAhero or for event details.

For more information, check out the facebook event page!

UPDATE: We’re thrilled to announce that we have an Android app and SMS texting in the works as well!

Category: Blog, Co-Sponsored Event, Events /
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