Celebrating Independence: The Strong Voices of LAWTF

During the month of July, our country celebrated our Independence Day. While many of us spent our time celebrating with family and friends, we can also take some time this month to reflect on the freedom that we enjoy on a daily basis. One freedom that the Los Angeles Women's Theatre Festival (LAWTF) cherishes and celebrates throughout the year is freedom of artistic expression through the many voices of our performers, as well as through our workshops and outreach events. Our Festival provides a space for women to share their individual artistry and experiences, and to express their cultural viewpoints of womanhood.

Below are some of LAWTF’s performers who speak to independence and freedom of expression:

Saria Idana

Saria Idana, originally from New York, is a theatre, literary, and music artist. committed to freedom of expression as a vehicle for social activism. Saria's work focuses on personal and global struggle in conjunction with social justice and human resiliency.

Her piece, "Homeless in Homeland," deals with her experiences as a Jewish-American woman exploring her identity as she travels to the Middle East amidst the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "Saria speaks in her own voice and in the voices of fifteen other characters, American, Palestinian and Israeli." (sariaidana.com) Part of her show includes a 30-minute talk back to the audience in which she discusses the intersections of art and activism in relation to the topics found within her solo show.

Mzuri Moyo

Mzuri Moyo hails from Paterson, New Jersey and is best known for her powerful vocals. Mzuri has performed all over the United States and abroad. She lived briefly in Paris and Italy where she trained as a singer. She trained as an actress at HB Studio in New York City. 

"Miriam Makeba: Mama Africa" debuted at the 19th Anniversary Festival and was written specifically for the Festival to bring focus on rape of women and children in the Congo. She portrays Miriam Makeba, the late South African singer and activist, who not only was the first African to popularize African music in the US and around the world, but also took a strong stance against South African apartheid. 

These two artists are just two of well over 400 solo artists from around the globe that have been presented by the Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival who take on the challenge of presenting works that speak to personal expression through their disciplines of performance art.  There is an empowerment that lies within artistic freedom, one that transports and inspires audiences through “edutainment.”

To experience more LAWTF performers, we invite you to visit some of our performers on our YouTube channel. You may also visit us on our website at www.lawtf.com. Make sure you to sign up for our monthly newsletter  to receive information about the Festival and our events and Like Us on Facebook.

Gustavo Garcia

Marketing/PR Assistant