“I love the film I think it’s great. It’s should be
seen by women all women of color ” SmokiFantastic

“I liked the women in the film. All doing different and exciting and
interesting things. Their struggles echoed my own and their successes
inspired me. The visuals were gorgeous. You make us look beautiful and interesting and
different.” Claudia Alick

“I loved the film. I was extremely impressed, and it exceeded my already high
expectations. I loved the message, the passion, and the desire to change the
current human perspective. I would definitely recommend it to friends and family,
and would Never limit it to only hip-hop fans. The message speaks to everyone….
David Applebaum”

“last night was great… congrats again… it all looked beautiful & i am very
proud to be a part of such an amazing project.”
Kyana Brindle

SmokiFantastic..

Nemesis the Grey Moon was born in chicago, now she stays in Harlem. We follow her on 125th trying to cell cds, to the studio, and talk about what to do when one gets weak…

Rosa Clemente is a Hip Jop Activist, member of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and a journalist with Pacifica Radio, WBAI 99.5FM NYC and Air America Radio.

In our film she discusses pregnancy, politics and the end of the US Bombing in Vieques Puerto Rico.

Rosa Clemente is a grassroots organizer of the most necessary kind. Known for speaking truth to power, she is unafraid and determined to carve a better path for her black and brown brothers and sisters. She speaks with our audiences about the challenges facing Latino and African American peoples and opens up about her own struggles. As an expecting mother surviving a difficult pregnancy, Rosa discusses relationships to self, men and money from an intensely personal and powerful place. When her daughter is born, we re-visit this cultural revolutionary to see who motherhood has thickened the plot.

Rosa Clemente is a Hip-Hop activist, a journalist with WBAI Radio in New York City and a member of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement.

Rosa Alicia Clemente is a Black Puerto Rican grassroots organizer, journalist, and entrepreneur. She is the founder of Know Thy Self Speakers Bureau which has created two successful college/universities tours, Dare to Struggle, Dare to Win and the Speak Truth to Power tours and most recently has created the Hip Hop Skool for Social Justice. With an earned degree from the University of Albany and a Masters of Professional Studies form Cornell University she is committed to scholar-activism and youth organizing. Her work as an activist has taken her across the United States and internationally to colleges, universities, high schools and prisons. She has delivered lectures on topics such as African-American and Latino/a Intercultural Relations, Hip-Hop Activism, The History of the Young Lords Party, and Organizing to Free U.S. Political Prisoners. Rosa has written for Clamor Magazine, The Black World Today, The Final Call and has been the subject of articles in the Village Voice, The Amsterdam News, the New York Times and Red Eye Magazine. She has appeared on CNN, C-Span, Democracy Now, Street Soldiers, and National Public Radio(NPR). In 2001 she was a youth representative at the United Nations World Conference against Racism in South Africa and in 2002 was named by Red Eye Magazine as one of the top 50 Hip Hop Activists to look out for. Currently she is a co-host/co-producer WBAI’s (99.5 FM/NYC) show Where We Live, was recently published in Third World Press, Role Call: A Generational Anthology, is a member of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and the Black August Collective, and is the coordinator of the State of Black World Youth Caucus.

Check Out Her Work:

The Rockefeller Drug Reform Sham

REPORTING FROM NEW ORLEANS

Hip-hop, Money, Youth & Liberation: A Talk with Rosa Clemente

visit her website www.rosaclemente.org

Make a movie. Build a career. Launch a dream.

Invites you to Join us for CineWomen NY Screens

A PREVIEW DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Tuesday, March 28th
7:00 pm
Two Boots Pioneer Theater, 155 E. 3rd St. corner of Ave. A
Screening, Q & A, Followed by FREE Beer & Pizza Reception

THE ART OF LOVE AND STRUGGLE
Directed by Jessica Habie 1:20 minutes

A new feature documentary preview on: hip-hop, spoken work, and performance artists, singers and activists; narrated by Smokifantastic. Love? Money? Political Propaganda? What inspires female artists to take risks? An up-close look at eleven ladies and the paths they choose in life, love and the movement for social change. Artists include: Raqiyah Mays, Denise De La Cruz, Nemesis, Elizabeth Mendez Berry, Claudia Alick, Helena D. Lewis, Amanda Diva, Kyana Brindle, Vista Solo, Toni Blackman.

ABOUT Jessica:
Jessica is the founder of EyesInfinite Films and President of the EyesInfinite Foundation. She graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts Film Program where she completed her short film “Act Accordingly” in 2003. Since then she has traveled to the World Social Forum in Mumbai India (2004) to produce her first documentary feature “Another World is Happening” which documents the artistic involvement at the Third Social Forum. “The Art of Love and Struggle” is set to be released in March 2006! Jessica is coming back from the Middle East, where she is in production with her current feature “Art and Apathy” to celebrate the release of the film with all of the talented ladies featured in the project.

HARLEM SISTAS DOUBLE-DUTCH
Directed by Nicole Franklin, 7 minutes

Nicole Franklin’s short film brings to life the characters Vivian and
Ruby who are thriving women in Harlem’s new renaissance. Vivian,
a free-spirited Harlem diva gives advice to her admiring niece in a film
that shows how family bonds can get in the way of a woman’s night
on the town. Or do they?

ABOUT NICOLE:
As President and Senior Producer of EPIPHANY Inc., Nicole Franklin is an award-winning filmmaker whose credits include the feature length film I Was Made To Love Her: the Double Dutch Documentary and Journeys In Black: The Jamie Foxx Biography , Meet BESS which profiles the soprano who originated the role of Bess in Porgy and Bess and the actress for whom George Gershwin wrote the part. Principal photography is on location in Oslo, Norway.
In the narrative world, Nicole directed and co-wrote with actor/writer/producer Peter Parros Harlem Sistas Double Dutch (WNET’s Reel NY X, Woodstock Film Festival). This film is derived from her new feature length screenplay When Sistas Jump. The screenplay When Sistas Jump, is a double Dutch jumprope feature set in New York’s Harlem neighborhood and inspired by the older women who jump rope.
Nicole is also producing famed actress and singer Lonette McKee’s™ directorial debut Dream Street, an edgy, character driven urban drama. In addition to film Nicole is directing theatre including the one-act play set on a New York City subway, Damon and Debra by playwright Judy Chicurel.

ABOUT CINEWOMEN NY SCREENS
Opportunities to screen work are important to any filmmaker, especially women filmmakers.

To promote women working in film, CineWomen NY is partnered with The Pioneer Theater, a showplace of Independent Cinema. Our monthly screening series is held the fourth Tuesday of every month except for December and August.

Our commitment is to provide a slate of films, by emerging artists at all levels, celebrating the work of women in film, video, and digital media. Acceptance criteria include women behind the scenes informing the project as crew and cast, whether as producers, directors, writers, editors, and/or cinematographers. Filmmakers are encouraged to be present at the screenings for a Q&A offering a lively interaction with the audience followed by a beer and pizza party held in the Two Boots Den Of Cin. A great way to carry on further conversations with the filmmakers, network and meet like minded cinemaphiles.

CineWomen NY Screens
Tuesday February 28th -2006
Pioneer Theatre 155 East 3rd St. (off Ave A)
7:00PM - 9:00PM Screening with Q&A
9:00PM - 10:00PM Beer & Pizza Party
Tickets: $9.00, pre-purchase on-line at www.twoboots.com

CineWomen NY Screening Team
Louise Fleming: Director
Jillian Abbott: Curator/Programming
Jessica Burstein: Curator/Programming
Maria Pusateri: Curator/Programming
**************************************
Jesse Hutcheson: Publicity/Research-Development
Lisa Perry: Publicity/Research-Development

CineWomen NY
Make a movie. Build a career. Launch a dream.
www.CineWomenNY.org

Kyana Brindle: this isn’t a love poem…love poems be about sweetness and light… love poems be about god and openness love poems be about feeling whole and complete and in the flow of that universal life force energy radiating from inside me between we in ecstasy …hellmuthafuckin no this shit is raw and swollen like a black eye painful and so good at the same time…
www.smokinword.org/publications.htm

Between Spaces
By Kyana Brindle

Kyana Brindle is a writer vocalist, and performer from New York, who lives in Harlem. “Between Spaces” is her first one-woman show. She has performed her poetry and singing at Nightengales, Laila Lounge, Bowery Poetry Club, Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Hampshire Collge, Soul Cafe, and other venues. Kyana is a reiki practioner, sexual health educator and former managing director of Smokin Word. She is currently pursuing her master’s degree in psychology at NYU and has taught creative writing and directed theatre for youth throughout New York. A healer and artist Kyana believes in using spirituality and creative service as tools for transformation and social change.

space #1

i sit at the kitchen table
sipping cabernet
waiting for you to
come home
the low humming
of the refrigerator
calms me
and i notice the plants
drying in the window
the once-green edges
now brown and sadly curved
at once i am
trying not to think of you
and imagining you
touching me
your brown hands
cupping my breasts
circling my nipple with a finger
a moan escaping my lips
seeing us framed in white sheets
candle light flickering and
no sound but our breath
skin
flesh on flesh
chests rising and falling
in time with
hips calling out yes
my back arched to meet you

i try to forget that i
want you here forever
that i need to wake up to your
closed eyelids and even breath
each morning
it reminds me of my purpose, loving you
every day brings me closer to
the realization that i must
walk alone
carve my own path
even if you are beside me
the choices are mine to make
and this fills me with
loneliness i thought i buried
beneath smiles and red wine

In our film the very very talented Helena D.Lewis takes us to the “stroll” in New Jersey and talks to us about the young women she worked with when she was founding a drop in center for sex workers. She also shares her award winning poetry, much of which is inspired by her work with prostitutes, inmates and HIV patients. From working with sex offenders to defending sex workers, Helena speaks in hard to hear truths. Her poetry keeps her traveling around the country. She has performed twice with Def Poetry Jam.

www.hdlpoet.com

Helena D. Lewis, a Brick City [Newark, New Jersey, USA] native, is a natural born entertainer. She has done some modeling and acting. However, it is her gift with words that has brought her national attention.

Helena D. Lewis got her polishing with other artists like Pinky, Talaam Acey, Flow Mentalz, and Rob Hylton at her home mic, Bogies, in East Orange, NJ. In the beginning, they were dubbed New Jersey’s Fake A$$ Poets, but all the naysayers soon were silenced as this group of supposedly wanna-be rappers became a force to be reckoned with in the NY/NJ poetic community of seasoned writers, performers, and slammers.

Helena D. Lewis started writing in college, but she wasn’t always the polished poet that she is today. She was tentative at her first open mic performance as the audience shouted “VIRGIN!!,” the cheer that greets most first timers. But as their greeting faded with time so did her doubts. It was not long before she was a featured artist and touring colleges and venues all around the country, from Baltimore, MD to New York, NY to Miami, FL. But she did not stop there. She also picked up several awards, including winning a coveted spot on the famous Nuyorican Poets Cafe 2000 National Slam Team (previous Nuyorican Slam Team members have included: Sarah Jones, Jessica Care Moore, Saul Williams, and Steve Colman).

Helena D. Lewis delivers a special brand of in-your-face, no-holds-barred poetry that spans a wide range of subjects, from prostitution to time-travel. Her spoken word content and performance exploring a new side to poetry that exposes raw emotions. Her work spurns the sappy and unintelligible Love Jones-esque brand of poetry for a refreshing, honest, and blunt substitute, not saccharine but pure cane sugar.

Her words are the kind that invoke emotions that speak to everyone. Her delivery is the kind that enthralls the audience and involves them in the poetry. when you see her perform live, check out her chapbook - From The Gut, and listen to her CD - Where Does It Hurt?, be prepared to . . . feel it.

Incomplete versions of Things I Just Can’t Get Out My Mind…
by Helena D. Lewis

Long after my death
I want someone to speak my words with pride
use my chapbook and cd as a guide
to help slide them through
the sliding indrieernce of humanity
I was born female and black
two strikes against me
yet im prevailing
not existing
surving
surpassing jokers
plotting
convinced they can steal my joy
rename me toy
with capitalism breathing down my back
I am the queen of swords
fighting for the have nots
telling the knots in my stomach
no weapon forged against me shall prosper
for i am filled with the courage of women who jumped ship
before the completion of the middle passage
like them i rather die then be enslaved
or stop fighting for the American dream
not promised to me
but whispered on winds
by lynched men on trees
all black like me
see

Incomplete versions of thoughts I can’t get out my mind…

On the eve of my 31st birthday
I found myself alone
alone in the medical imaging center
with the old maid card I plucked when I was six still in my back pocket
waiting for the technician to x-ray my left foot for the 8th time
preying the swellen of unknown origin was not another sign of old age to come
like my inability to use all the digits on my right hand on cold, damped and rainy
days…painfully caused by the arthritis I acquired working minimum wage to obtain a four
year degree in 8years from an accredited university that serves no purpose in a room I
barely use…

Not the person I should be
Not the person I was
but destined to be more

Incomplete versions of thoughts I can’t get out my mind…

No
No, I don’t wanna’ date your
baby’s father, cousin, ex-best friend
I might be single
but
I’m not desparate

Incomplete versions of Things I Just Can’t Get Out My Mind

Claudia Alick is alone in her room smoking her one cigarette of the day, getting ready for bed and telling us secrets. The next day she is showing family pictures and telling stories of traveling from Montana to New York City only to become a member of the “Employed Poor”. Through her video diary she describe her newest love—hip hop theatre—the trials and tribulations of forming a production company.

www.claudiaalick.com

Claudia Alick, Executive Producer and Artistic Director of Smokin Word Productions, is the author of the chap-books “The Haiku Scam”, “Disingenuous”, reviews of hip-hop literature in BUST magazine, and many plays that have been seen on the stages of The Kennedy Center, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, LaMama ETC, 45 Bleeker, Chashama Experimental Theatre, New Perspectives Theatre, and PS 122 in the 2002 and 2003 NYC Hip Hop Theatre Festivals. Her play “6 Hits” won the audience award in the Downtown Urban Theatre Festival. She has won poetry slams at such venues as Nuyorican Poets Cafe, Hottest Poets, Urbana Slam at The Bowery Poetry Bar, and Louder Arts at Bar 13 where she qualified as a finalist for their national slam teams. Other performance credits include 2 seasons of the Peabody award winning series HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, the film “TerrorMarketers”, and features in the documentaries “WordJunky” (dir. Audrey Colcannon) and Ladies on the Mic’s project on Women in hip-hop (dir. Jessica Habie). Claudia teaches spoken word workshops for children, adults, corporate groups, and the incarcerated. She has guest lectured at New York University (NYU) and Montgomery College, taught at Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, Bell Multi-Cultural Highschool with Arena Stage, The Shakespeare Theatre’s South East Project, P.A.L. After-school centers, at Riker’s Island with Community Word Project, and at high-schools in New York with Creative Arts Team. Claudia also runs the playwrights workshop for MC’s and poets, WORDSHOP.

EMPLOYEED POOR
Living in this city aint no joke!
I’m working 40 hours a week just to stay broke.
Property is still the great divider cause landowners still got all the power.
What’s the difference between me and an indentured servant
when 50 percent of my pay check goes just to pay rent?
I’ve got collectors siphoning me off just a little at a time
these monthly bleedings got me losing my mind!
I’m talking GAS, Electric, phone-I aint even got CABEL!-
If luxury is the Garden of Eden then call me Cain and Abel
cause I am fighting with myself. Struggling to retain my drive
cause ya have to keep on hustlin if ya want to stay alive.
See, I gambled on education but all I got is loans,
I went for the chicken but instead I got the bones.
I’m living in a Lilliputian apartment and I’m feeling like Gulliver.
I’ve got a bedroom/dining/living-room/other.
I’ve got a loft bed where I sleep high in the sky.
I climb the ladder each night reaching for my piece of the pie.
I rise before sunshine alone and in pain. Shower unconscious,
dreams dribble down the drain,
always running late, the train doors wake me with a jerk,
riding the middle passage each morn from home to work.
I’m getting sick of this Sisyphean struggle,
but all the alternatives only spell trouble.
What am I supposed to do, quit my job? become a bum?
I’ve done that- not being able to afford food is NOT FUN.
I’m on the treadmill heading to wealth and
I’m about to drop dead doing this shit for my health.

Visit www.claudiaalick.com or www.smokinword.com to read more of Claudia’s work.

Raqiyah Mays is the Executive Editor of the Ave Magazine, known as “A Street Movement In Print”, a writer for Vibe, the Source, XXL, the Associated Press and DJ for Hot97! In “The Art of Love and Struggle” this out spoken cultural scholar takes us back in time to the beginning of her career at community radio, through troubled times and into bright futures as she discusses her controversial thoughts on love, dating and politics.

www.hot97.com

The Ave Magazine

Q&A: Queen Latifah and LL Cool J
By Raqiyah Mays, For The Associated Press | January 12, 2006

SmokiFantastic is from another planet! Literally! Educated on the planet of Saturn by the Music god Sun-Ra, this goddess descends to Earth to narrate and guide our ladies along the path of self-expression and exploration. When she dances she changes perceptions of time and space! When she speaks her poetry she evokes what is eternally feminine, eternally returning, eternally creating!

www.smokifantastic.com

Bobbi Williams (who plays Smokifantastic in “The Art of Love and Struggle” is an interdisciplinary performance artist, educator and visionary. Williams holds a Master in Fine Arts in Playwriting and acting from Carnegie Mellon University and Moscow Art Theater School. Williams has received a BFA in directing from Point Park College.

SMOKIFANTASTIC
PROFILE

Adventurer.
Smoki is an explorer of the Inner Galactic. She is a Super Hero, Omniscientist and ambassador from the planet Venus. Love Goddess from the burning Lakshimi Mountains of Venus. Protector of the Earth. Aquarian Mystic. Smoki lives in the axis mundi and central balancing point of the Earth. The East Village.

Mission
My divine mission is to help souls embrace the Age of Aquarius. My path is to balance unify and uplift energy help humans connect to the earth and master their creative potential.

Talents
Space Surfing. Shape Shifting. Time Traveling. Spirit Dancing. Dream catching.

Manifestations
Psychic Fabulina, Dr.Friday, The Colorist, Padma, Oceania

DEEP SPACE HARMONICS

Are you the dreamer or the dreamed?

Smokifantastic love Goddess from Venus, Super Nova Songstress, is birthing galaxies with her new interactive space exploration. Hold on tight and travel to the exciting innergalactic. Deep Space Harmonics is an observation of our intimate connection with our ancestors, each other, our selves and all that is. You are an astronaut in the astro plane lucidly becoming a multi media visual experience. Ms. Fantastic’s art is timeless. The experience liberates your senses. Deep Space is pure art a natural force of nature.

“My path is to understand forms that create and express vibratory healing energy. This expression helps us to see a different perspective of life.” Smokifantastic

Amanda Diva may be a new face at MTV2 but she has an old soul. We meet this fiery young lady on the lawn of the East River where she is having her Palm Read buy the fabulous Smoki Fantastic. As they discuss pushing limits, flying solo and loving hip hop culture, our audience gets an personal look into this woman’s mind. There we find a passionate dedication to the arts, Black People and hip hop culture.

Read more about Amanda, see pictures and hear her work by visiting
www.amandadiva.com