Cultures of Resistance

March 27 2012 6-8:30pm, University Hall Amphitheater.

Does each gesture really make a difference? Can music and dance be weapons of peace? In 2003, on the eve of the Iraq war, director Iara Lee embarked on a journey to better understand a world increasingly embroiled in conflict and, as she saw it, heading for self-destruction. After several years, travelling over five continents, Iara encountered growing numbers of people who committed their lives to promoting change. This is their story. From IRAN, where graffiti and rap became tools in fighting government repression, to BURMA, where monks acting in the tradition of Gandhi take on a dictatorship, moving on to BRAZIL, where musicians reach out to slum kids and transform guns into guitars, and ending in PALESTINIAN refugee camps in LEBANON, where photography, music, and film have given a voice to those rarely heard, CULTURES OF RESISTANCE explores how art and creativity can be ammunition in the battle for peace and justice.

Featuring: Medellín poets for peace, Capoeira masters from Brazil, Niger Delta militants, Iranian graffiti artists, womens movement leaders in Rwanda, Lebanons refugee filmmakers, U.S. political pranksters, indigenous Kayapó activists from the Xingu River, Israeli dissidents, hip-hop artists from Palestine, and many more...

Language of America

February 20th 4-6:30pm University Hall Amphitheater (The Amphitheater is located on the second floor of University Hall.
 Near the Porter Square MBTA station)

Listen to the names of New England rivers, its towns and states: Sippewissett, Skowhegan, Connecticut, Penobscot... the sounds flow like forest streams carrying a hidden story—an Indian story of America from beginning to present. Language of America takes us deep into New England's last surviving Indian places and languages, revealing a 9,000-year-old success story that's been pushed to the edge of extinction by a government that proclaims "diversity" but doesn't want to practice it with Native peoples who resist being assimilated.

Meet Allen Sockabasin, singing his child into becoming a Passamaquoddy speaker; Jessie Littledoe, who against all odds, has brought back her Wampanoag language that had not been spoken for 200 years; and Ella Sekatau, who still refers to non-Indians as "the strangers" and has never forgotten the sacred Narragansett ceremonies.

Language of America explores Indian language, philosophy, and community as never before. It shows how Indian words reveal an inherent connectedness between people, nature and spirit. The film bears witness to America's history of Indian human rights abuse, yet it inspires hope by promoting an understanding of diversity that accepts Native peoples’ inextricably shared history and destiny with their neighbors.