“The impetus for this seven-city West Coast tour was twofold: a celebration of the 50th anniversary of Dance Brigade and Wallflower Order and an anti-war tour leading up to the presidential inauguration on January 20 that features legendary headliners Holly Near and Ferron,” says Krissy Keefer, Dance Brigade’s artistic director.
Deeply concerned that there was not an anti-war agenda coming out of the Democratic Party, Krissy began working on the peace tour when Biden was still running against Trump. She needed to have a voice and, with like-minded artists Holly and Ferron, wanted to deliver a message of peace and the power of the female voice.
“We hope to rally our audiences to not give up,” she says.
Dance Brigade, a San Francisco-based dance company and an integral part of the women’s artistic and cultural scene since 1975, will perform its high-energy blend of ballet, modern dance, jazz, song, text, sign language, and explosive Taiko drumming. This dynamic multi-racial troupe of women dances at full throttle.
Holly Near, Ukiah’s singer-songwriter, actress, teacher, and activist, whose work is loving, challenging, funny and thought-provoking, is an outspoken singer and ambassador for peace. (Contributed)Holly Near, one of Ukiah’s own, started out in film and television in Hollywood and when Jane Fonda invited her to join the Free the Army Tour in 1971, she “jumped at the opportunity.”
“I knew it would be dangerous but felt it would be worth it. It’s a huge experience one doesn’t really turn down.”
It was on this tour, while entertaining the troops, where she encountered soldiers who were struggling against the war and against racism from within the military.
“That was a hugely courageous thing to do at the time,” she says.
“During that tour I got an in-depth education, greater than any university education I could have had, about how United States capitalism and imperialism function — advancing into other nations, controlling and supporting dictators and taking the country’s resources and bringing them back to this country.”
She is particularly sensitive to the ensuing brutal ways of war and specifically as to how war affects women.
“There were a lot of great singers like Phil Oaks, Country Joe McDonald and Marvin Gaye doing anti-war music, but I realized I didn’t know any songs that were about the effect of war on women, the effect of war on myself and the effect of war on the feminine.”
When she returned home from the tour, she became a fully-engaged singer/songwriter, documenting what she had learned, turning her knowledge and information into song, delivering it to others and providing a perspective on how to develop peaceful strategies for people to integrate into their daily lives.
“We’re hoping to give the listener a window, a certain point of view, to support them in absorbing this culture into themselves.”
Holly will perform her set with familiar bandmembers: pianist Tammy Lynne Hall, bassist Jan Martinelli, percussionist and singer-songwriter Christelle Durandy, and percussionist and drummer Michaelle Goerlitz.
Ferron, a distinctive Canadian folk singer-songwriter and poet whose style helped birth a 1990s underground movement, gained fame as one of Canada’s most respected songwriters and remains a salt-of-the-earth singer who approaches her art with both sleeves rolled up, ready to dive in. Live in concert, 2022. (Contributed)Ferron, Canada’s folk singer-songwriter and poet whose gritty style has been compared to the world’s greats, is openly lesbian and one of the earliest and most influential lyrical songwriters of the women’s music circuit.
(Although unavailable for the interview, she submitted the following: “I joined the tour because Holly, and Krissy and I have a long connection, and I was born to be part of this. When we march, it is the body representation that matters. The same is true for celebrating i.e.; the more the merrier.”)
The Dance Brigade will perform its own set and the finale, designed by Krissy, will include the two singers and the dance troupe weaving their music and dance together with numbers such as Nina Simone’s Mississippi Goddam, Violetta Parra’s Gracias a la vida, and Woody Guthrie’s Deportee.
“Given what’s going on with Trump’s promise to deport, what, 550,000 people… I mean, I can’t even imagine being a family at this point if there’s even one relative or distant relative or community member having to sit there in fear of what is going to take place. It’s just outrageous,” says Holly.
“I chose these songs,” says Krissy, “as a tribute to political artists who have written social justice songs in the U.S., Latin America and Cuba, all of whom greatly influenced the left in the U.S. The solidarity movement in the ’80s was one of the biggest movements that was happening in the country and I chose these songs because the issues are still so prevalent right now.”
Although there’s always a lot going on in Ukiah on any given night, Holly says, “This program has so much history and such a powerful involvement; it’s one of those events people will be sad if they miss, an event with not only a high level of talent — much of which is very entertaining — but also one that is very positive and inspirational.
“It’s a gathering, being in the same room with vaguely, like-minded people, and there’s nothing that can substitute for that. This audience will be filled with feminists, lesbian feminists, anti-war activists, people who have been doing work around race and class and all those other laundry-list isms — those people who are in search of kindness, in search of our humanity. How often can you be in a big room filled with that? It’s just tingling. This one, you might not want to miss.”
A Woman’s Song for Peace tour, produced by Krissy Keefer and Dance Brigade, will present shows in Eugene, Portland and Medford, Oregon, and Ukiah, Santa Rosa, Aptos and San Francisco.
Tickets for the Ukiah performance on Wednesday, Jan. 15, at the Center Theater at Mendocino College, are $45, $35, and $25, and are available at DanceMissionTheater.org or by calling 415-826-4441.
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