Singing for Our Lives!

Sat 3 PM | River

BeLoved Asheville

How can you use music in your context to build community and resist together? Holly Near penned the line “singing for our lives” in the song, We Are A Gentle Angry People. In these deadly and dangerous days, we recognize that we must be led by our faith and our courage, indeed we must sing for our lives. Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon says, “To this day, I don’t understand how people think they can bring anybody together without a song.” Our intersectional community from the streets and from the struggle at BeLoved Asheville has always been at its heart a singing community. We sing in our spiritual gatherings, sing and chant on the streetsin prayer & protest, and in the halls of power. This will be an interactive workshop where we will use popular education to share how we infuse music in our current movements and how to utilize music to help us in caring for ourselves and our communities as we work for justice.

Amy Cantrell

Rev. Amy Cantrell lives/works in the intentional community, BeLoved Asheville. BeLoved is an intersectional community of people from the streets and margins who conspire to do justice and end oppression including homelessness, poverty, and racism. BeLoved’s mission includes: Homeless Voice Project & Street Medic Team, Root Down Tiny House Village, Rise Up Art & Music Studio, being the first declared Sanctuary in WNC, Elders Free Farmers Markets, and campaigns around Housing Not Handcuffs, Anti-gentrification, A Million for the People, and the uprooting of systemic racism including work around police brutality and the removal of Confederate monuments. She is a pastor in the Presbyterian Church, USA. She is mom to twin four year olds, loves the color purple, playing guitar, and studying movement history. Find her on Facebook @Amy Cantrell and @BeLovedAsheville.
www.belovedasheville.com

Sessions:
189 Singing!

Ponkho Bermejo

Ponkho is a part of the intentional community of BeLoved Asheville. BeLoved works to make sharing and radical recycling an every day practice in building a new world in the shell of the old. Ponkho weaves his Mexican culture into his work as a cultural artist and community organizer. He creates public art out of recycled pallets that double as community gardens for elders and creates Neighborhood Fiestas to organize communities to support each other. He supported justice campaigns including the Charlotte Uprising, Housing Not Handcuffs, and an Emergency Food and Know Your Rights Campaign during the recent ICE raids. Ponkho is painter, graphic artist, and photographer with BeLoved’s Rise Up Studio as well as a musician and song-writer.

Sessions:
189 Singing for Our Lives!

Adrienne Sigmon

Adrienne is part of the intentional community of BeLoved Asheville. BeLoved conspires to put love and justice into action! She brings her experience from the streets into creating solutions like housing for all through the building of a Tiny House Village, organizing people experiencing homelessness through a Homeless Voice Community Power group, and healthcare for all through helping to create the first homeless Street Medic team in the nation. She has worked to challenge racism in policing and used power tools to work at taking down a Confederate Monument. She is a photographer and artist with BeLoved’s Rise Up Studio.

Sessions:
189 Singing for Our Lives!