Join WAYS OF PEACE at ANTIGONE IN FERGUSON
Thursday, June 27th at 7:00-9:30 PM
FREE ADMISSION / St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church
157 Montague Street, Brooklyn, NY
Antigone in Ferguson aims to...bring diverse and—at times—divergent communities together to remind them of their humanity and the core values they share. — Bryan Doerries, Theater of War Productions
Sophocles’ Antigone is an ancient play about a teenage girl who wishes to bury her brother, Polyneices, who recently died in a brutal civil war. Conceived in the wake of Michael Brown’s death in 2014, Antigone in Ferguson is a collaboration between Theater of War Productions and community members of Ferguson, MO and features an original score performed by a core choir of Brown’s teachers, activists, and law enforcement from St. Louis and New York City.
Every night that we sing “I’m Covered” at the end of the play, it’s my way of covering my student Michael Brown. — De-Rance Blaylock (Soloist)
Each performance culminates in a powerful, audience-driven discussion about race and gender-based violence and social justice. Rabbi Regina Sandler-Phillips is honored to represent WAYS OF PEACE as a panelist at the post-performance discussion on Thursday, June 27th.
In cities of diversity...we bury the dead of non-Jews along with the dead of Jews, for these are ways of peace. We console the mourners of non-Jews along with the mourners of Jews, for these are ways of peace. — Jerusalem Talmud (~400 CE)
New York City Council Testimony on Hart Island
More than one million dead, most of them lost to family and forgotten by history, have been buried on Hart Island since 1869. At a recent City Council hearing, Rabbi Regina Sandler-Phillips gave testimony on behalf of WAYS OF PEACE in support of expanded family and public access to the island, a new municipal office that would support and assist all New Yorkers to access vital funeral resources; and an inter-agency task force on issues related to public burial.
I was privileged to visit Hart Island in September 2017, and I want to express my gratitude for all that has brought us to this point: for the solidarity of anonymous prison inmates who built monuments to honor those they buried; for the loving courage and tenacity of Hart Island family members, friends, and community activists; for the stewardship and accompaniment of supportive municipal representatives through decades of challenge and change....
The honor of the dead is not an isolated funeral product, but rather an ongoing process of building community across all the lines that too often divide us. READ MORE