DWOW

Words for Peace a collaboration with Voices Breaking Boundaries Voices Breaking Boundaries organized the inaugural Words for Peace event on Sunday, September 22, 2002 at DiverseWorks, in response to the increasingly frightening political climate in the U.S. following the September 11, 2001 attacks.  The event featured spoken word, dance, and music and included live telephone readings by 1997 Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy, Jewish poet Irena Klepfisz, Palestinian American poet Naomi Shihab Nye and award-winning journalist Ahmed Rashid.  It was curated by Troy Gooden, Chuck Jackson, Rich Levy, Sehba Sarwar, Oskar Sonnen, Sandra Tarlin, and Michael Woodson. This year, DiverseWorks will revisit Words for Peace on September 11, 2013 in a collaboration with Voices Breaking Boundaries' Sehba Sarwar.

Artist Karen Finley will give a dramatic reading of four selected excerpts from "We Keep Our Victims Ready", first performed at DiverseWorks over two evenings in October 1989. About the oppressed in contemporary America, "We Keep Our Victims Ready" is a confrontational and powerful work of art that Finley has reframed in the context of current social and political issues: war, reproductive rights, freedom of expression, and identity. Finley's reading will be followed by a discussion and Q & A moderated by DiverseWorks Assistant Curator Rachel Cook and UH Visiting Assistant Professor of Art Jessica Santone. This event is free. Karen Finley is a New York-based artist whose raw and transgressive performances have long provoked controversy and debate. Finley was one of four artists whose NEA grant applications were vetoed due to content considered “indecent.” Finley and the other three artists sued for reinstatement and won the case in 1993 in the ninth circuit court in Los Angeles. In May 2013, Finley's performance and installation, Sext Me if You Can, was presented as part of NEA 4 in Residence at the New Museum in New York. For this interactive performance installation, Finley created a limited edition of paintings inspired by […]

A panel discussion on the current state of homelessness in Houston with artist Ben DeSoto, SEARCH Homeless Services Executive Director Thao Costis, Nick Cooper of Food Not Bombs, Dr. Pamela Berger of the Houston Food Bank.

QuAC: A Screening and Discussion with Sixto Wagan and Chuck Jackson QuAC: Queer Artist Collective performed many times on DiverseWorks’ stage. QuAC was a multi-ethnic performance group of twenty-something men and women charged to "fearlessly be themselves." Growing out of New York's Gay and Lesbian Community Center's Youth Enrichment series and Mary Ellen Strom’s School’s Out — The Naming Project, QuAC acted as a community building endeavor for not only the artists themselves, but for DiverseWorks as an organization. QuAC brought a diverse group of individuals from the LGBT community together in order to build self-esteem and and encourage self-reflection through the process of creative writing, movement, and video. Houston Poetry Fest Satellite Readings by Brother Said, Savannah Blue, and Equality The Houston Poetry Fest has been celebrating the crafted word in Houston since 1985. The main event will be held at the University of Houston-Downtown on October 11-13 and will include readings by guest poets and juried winners of the Fest's popular anthology competition as well as a new feature: Saturday morning workshops on writing poetry and getting published by several top Houston poets and writers. Workshops will be held at the Hardy & Nance Studios at 902 Hardy Street. […]

11.13.13 DWOW: Dance, Disaster, and Show and Tell, hosted by Artist Board members Lydia Hance, Hélène Schlumberger, and Carrie Schneider This DWOW mash-up includes: DANCE A screening of Lydia Hance's dance films Framing Bodies: LOVE ME, There's a Height Limit, and Quiver DISASTER REENACTMENTS Artist Elizabeth Eicher’s Disaster Reenactment is a series of events wherein the audience is invited to reenact scenes, moments, actions, or tableaus based on footage from major picture disaster films (think Volcano, Armageddon, The Towering Inferno, etc.). Eicher selects clips from these films and coordinates the reenactments, leaving the audience to make directorial decisions about how to portray the events. Participants gain a renewed sense of agency by embodying the boundaries and roles enacted within the disaster narrative. SHOW AND TELL Come prepared to present a 3-minutes max Show and Tell on any object of your choosing. Be on time to participate, because sign-ups start at 6 pm. The audience will vote on finalists, who will compete in a lightning round and take home a special prize! DWOW is sponsored in part by Saint Arnold Brewing Company and Topo Chico USA.