Sunday, March 9, 2008

Portland International Women's Day

The Portland International Women's Day on Sunday was wonderful . . . I set up my little table and tempted folks with jewelry and crafty doodads and information about classes; chatted with some lovely ladies from Siren Nation, who are planning another big festival here in Portland celebrating women in the local arts scene; drooled over earrings made from recycled skateboards from MapleXO; and bought Persepolis from representatives of my local independent women's bookstore, In Other Words. It was also a great excuse to wear some of my jewelry from K Robbins, which I traded for years ago at the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival . . . this was during my other life as Banshee Designs. I haven't made the clothing she traded for in years (and it has likely long since disintegrated), but she still offers these designs through her website!


But the best thing of all? I had a prime seat to see the performers! The Urban Berbers tribal belly dance troupe was there from Gypsy Caravan (I almost want to take classes just so I'll have an excuse to wear the outfits . . .) and it was such a highlight to see women of different sizes, shapes, and ages all so eloquently shake their groove things!

We also heard from teen girl band Blubird, performers The Alphabetix, poet S. Renee Mitchell, and finally, singer Liv Warfield. The crowd had thinned to almost nothing by the time she went on, but this soulful singer and her band still gave us a high-powered performance, and I promptly went home and bought her song "Sophisticated Sista" from iTunes. I'm planning to add it into the music mix I'm building for Tuesday night's Playful Prayer class.

1 comment:

gl. said...

i didn't know you were doing this! glad you had a good time. one of my artist's way clients got contacted by siren nation for the next fest: would you recommend them?

and isn't it great to find new music? :)

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