ULTRACULTURAL OTHERS: BLOOD MAGIK/Birth Herstories
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BLOOD MAGIK/Birth Herstories
October 19-21, 2017
Share your birth story
Lower East Side, Manhattan
October 19, 2-7pm
Blood Magik: A Red Tent
Featured artists include Ximena Balmori, Yannah Paradise, and more. (Workshop for female-identified folks only, space is limited.)
RSVP required: ultraculturalothers@gmail.com
October 20, (time TBA)
Birth Herstories rehearsal. (Open to all mothers and grandmothers.)
RSVP required: ultraculturalothers@gmail.com
October 21, 1-3pm
Birth Herstories: a public, participatory performance
Collaborators include Undakova & Or Nah, Bailey Rollins of Moonstone Babies, with support from Ancient Song Doula Services. (Free and open to all.)
East River Park Labyrinth
What is BLOOD MAGIK: A Red Tent?
A space for women’s rejuvenation, community healing, and education in the wise ways of giving your blood to the Mother Earth. Based loosely on the “Red Tent” concept where pre-biblical women spent ritual time together in isolation from the greater community during their period, this structure draws together women on their moon recognizing menstruation as a potent height of female spiritual power. The lodge creates a space for the healthy socialization of female-bodied folks, cementing intergenerational bonds between women and recognizing femaleness as a potent source of nurturance, presence, life-giving and death-wielding power.
I cannot participate for the entire length of the BLOOD MAGIK workshop. Can I attend for part?
All are welcome to attend for the full length, but we also understand that this workshop occurs during many women’s working hours. If you are coming from work, please arrive no later than 5pm.
I’m unsure if I can find a babysitter, but I want to attend!
Young children are welcome.
What is Herstories about?
We want to hear your birth stories—the momentary pleasures, pains, traumas, and triumphs as you made your way through the birth spiral. We especially want to hear from women who danced and sang out their babies, rebelled against convention, made art, made love, experienced orgasmic birth, unassisted birth, water birth, or birth outside in nature. We also want activist stories speaking out against the violence done to women’s bodies by an over-medicalized, corporatized hospital system. We want your story, the raw and honest truth.
What do you plan to do with these stories? And what can I expect from the event?
We want to combine the stories of many strong mothers into a powerful oral herstory that foregrounds women’s natural birthing instincts, hormonal thresholds of pleasure, and spiritual power. Birth Herstories will open with a womb meditation led by doula and birth-activist Akhet Bailey Rollins, and will culminate in a gentle community Rebirth Ritual. Stories will be sung, spoken, and performed, and then remixed into an original soundscape by UNDAKOVA.
The soundscape will ultimately be mixed and mastered and made available online.
I can’t attend the public sharing of Herstories on Oct. 21, but I want to share my story with you. How can I?
Wonderful! You can share your birth story prior to the event through filling out this survey.
ULTRACULTURAL OTHERS is an intentional community and urban mystery skool, directed by Katie Cercone and David Williams. Their work, BLOOD MAGIK/Birth Herstories, seeks to re-establish a reverence for women’s ancient wisdom and power.
Katie Cercone’s exhibition record includes the Brooklyn Museum, Dallas Contemporary, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Her critical writing has been featured in many publications including White Hot, Bitch Magazine, Utne Reader, and The Brooklyn Rail. She is co-founder and active member of the queer, transnational feminist collective, Go! Push Pops, and is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for the U.S.-Japan Exchange Program in Tokyo.
David Williams is an established DJ who has worked for over 20 years under the pseudonym UNDAKOVA. Described as an urban monk and sound healer, he has pioneered the fusion of yoga and hip-hop, most recently creating a curriculum for inner city youth.
Akhet n Baset is a Spiritual Birth and Postpartum Doula specializing in spiritual midwifery, and infuses different esoteric healing modalities from conception through postpartum. She has a Masters in Infancy and Early Childhood Education.
