Barnard Presents "She Disappeared: Mothers and Daughters in Prison"
Performance Opens the 2006 Scholar and Feminist Conference "Engendering Justice: Prisons, Activism and Change"
Sarabeth Berman and Denny Partridge
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On April 7 from 7-8:30 p.m., Barnard will present "She Disappeared: Mothers and Daughters in Prison," a meditation on how incarceration affects families. Organized by senior Sarabeth Berman and Alice B. Pels Professor of Theatre Denny Partridge, the show has an original script that pulls together poetry and prose by and about imprisoned women. The piece was written/edited by Berman, and also by its performers, Barnard senior Alexandra Stevens, Columbia junior Ali Rohrs, and New York residents Yolanda Johnson-Peterkin and Patricia Zimmerman. The show takes place in the Altschul Atrium in Altschul Hall, and is free and open to the public, although reservations are required. Visit http://www.barnard.edu/bcrw/scholarandfeminist/register.htm to reserve your seat.
Denny Partridge began her work in prison performance in 1972 on the west coast and in the south. She's been taking Barnard and Columbia students with her to the prisons for the past seven years, and said of "She Disappeared": "For me personally, this has been joyful and deeply meaningful. It gives all of us a meeting ground to work together as people. You are really jumping into someone else's skin and taking possession of the need for empathy. It's very humbling."
Partridge's passion for her work with inmates inspired Berman, an urban studies major with a concentration in the performing arts, to focus on the topic for her senior thesis. "She Disappeared" grew out of their year-long work together on that thesis, with Berman taking the lead on the show's organization.
Immediately after "She Disappeared," The Black Out Arts Collective will perform excerpts from their Lyrics on Lockdown tour, a project initiated in 2001 that uses spoken word poetry to address the fact that the United States now incarcerates more people per capita than any other nation in the world. Then, sophomore Leah Krauss and other students from Professor Amy Trompetter's Alternative Theater Lab will present a series of short hand puppet plays dealing with incarceration, re-entry programs and drug rehabilitation centers. It all adds up to an evening in which artists imagine their art as a catalyst for social change.
"She Disappeared" is being held on the eve of the 2006 Scholar and the Feminist Conference "Engendering Justice: Prisons, Activism and Change," sponsored by the Barnard Center for Research on Women. From 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on April 8, BCRW will hold talks, panels and workshops exploring the causes and consequences of the rising rate of incarceration of women (twice the increase for men in 2004, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice). International academic experts, prison educators and social justice advocates will be on hand, including:
- Julia Sudbury (University of Toronto) author, Global Lockdown: Race, Gender and the Prison-Industrial Complex
- Chino Hardin, Prison Moratorium Project
- Patricia Allard, Criminal Justice Program, Brennan Center at NYU
- Plus, the American Friends Service Commities (Quakers), The Bedford Hills College Program and more...
For full schedule and registration information, go to www.barnard.edu/bcrw.
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