Bread & Puppet 60th Anniversary Spring Tour!

from Bread and Puppet Theater

[This post only contains information relevant to Philadelphia and the surrounding area, to read the entire article follow the above link.]

Bread & Puppet Theater celebrates its 60th year with a tour to cities and towns across the US Northeast, presenting the company’s latest show: Inflammatory Earthling Rant (with help from Kropotkin).
https://breadandpuppet.org/tour-schedule

Earthlings are now aflame and consequently need inflammatory rants, directed against the arsonist: Western Civilization and its incompetent government. The habitual pragmatic communication jargon won’t do, so the ranters have to resort to the original language which was tasked to employ the spells, charms, and incantations needed to confront the disaster in order to instigate change – with help from Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid ideology.

After the show Bread & Puppet will serve its famous sourdough rye bread with aioli, and Bread & Puppet’s “Cheap Art” – books, posters, postcards, pamphlets and banners from the Bread & Puppet Press – will be for sale.

Show Length: Approximately 1 hour.

Tour Schedule

Saturday, April 1 – Glover, VT
Sunday, April 2 – Barre, VT
Tuesday, April 4 – Albany, NY
Wednesday, April 5 – Ithaca, NY
Thursday, April 6 & Friday, April 7 – Milton, PA
Saturday, April 8 – Kensington, MD
Monday, April 10 – Baltimore, MD
Tuesday, April 11 – Vernon, NJ
Wednesday, April 12 – New York, NY
Thursday, April 13 & Friday, April 14 – Hudson, NY
Saturday, April 15 & Sunday, April 16 – Philadelphia, PA
Tuesday, April 18 – Keane, NH
Wednesday, April 19 – Northampton, MA
Thursday, April 20 – Wakefield, RI
Friday, April 21 – Somerville, MA
Saturday, April 22 – Amherst, MA
Sunday, April 23 – Portland, ME

Philadelphia, PA
Saturday, April 15, 5pm & Sunday, April 16, 5pm
First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia
2125 Chestnut St, Philadelphia, PA 19103
$10-$25 suggested donation, no one turned away for lack of funds
No tickets necessary. Just bring cash for the hat.
https://philauu.org/

Book Bread and Puppet
If you are interested in booking Bread and Puppet at your venue or school, please email Paul at breadandpuppettour@gmail.com. We are eager to present shows and workshops with your community!

Building Power While The Lights Are Out

from Instagram

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Join us for a conversation with Jimmy Dunson, editor of the new anthology on disaster relief mutual aid, at 7pm 7/23 in person and live-dreamed on our Instagram. “Disaster capitalism, although still currently dominant, is no longer the only powerful force when disasters occur. There is a growing movement of movements engaged in decentralized, liberatory disaster relief, rooted in the values of mutual aid and solidarity. These efforts, grounded in radical social movement organizing, offer a direct action alternative: meeting the survival needs of the people and building power from below, while challenging the forces of Money and Power. This mutual aid disaster relief movement is a broad ecosystem, with diverse organizations, positions, and practices. As hurricanes, fires, pandemics, and other disasters increase in intensity and frequency, the insights, visions, and experiences the authors in this book share offer a valuable road map to meet the climate crisis head on, struggle for a just recovery when disasters do hit, reimagine our relationships to each other and the planet, and as the Zapatistas taught civil society, “Don’t seize power, exercise it.””

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Practicing Cooperation: Mutual Aid Beyond Capitalism

from Making Worlds Books

Providing a new conceptual framework for cooperation as a form of social practice, Practicing Cooperation describes and critiques three U.S.-based cooperatives: a pair of co-op grocers in Philadelphia, each adjusting to recent growth and renewal; a federation of two hundred low-cost community acupuncture clinics throughout the United States, banded together as a cooperative of practitioners and patients; and a collectively managed Philadelphia experimental dance company, founded in the early 1990s and still going strong.

Andrew Zitcer will be in conversation with Esteban Kelly to illuminate the range of activities that make contemporary cooperatives successful: dedicated practitioners, a commitment to inclusion, and ongoing critical reflection. The conversation will highlight how economic and social cooperation can be examined, critiqued, and implemented on multiple scales in order to combat the pervasiveness of competitive individualism.

“From the crises of racial inequity and capitalism that inspired the Black Lives Matter movement and the Green New Deal to the coronavirus pandemic, stories of mutual aid have shown that, though cooperation is variegated and ever changing, it is also a form of economic solidarity that can help weather contemporary social and economic crises. Addressing this theme, Practicing Cooperation delivers a trenchant and timely argument that the way to a more just and equitable society lies in the widespread adoption of cooperative practices. But what renders cooperation ethical, effective, and sustainable?

Providing a new conceptual framework for cooperation as a form of social practice, Practicing Cooperation describes and critiques three U.S.-based cooperatives: a pair of co-op grocers in Philadelphia, each adjusting to recent growth and renewal; a federation of two hundred low-cost community acupuncture clinics throughout the United States, banded together as a cooperative of practitioners and patients; and a collectively managed Philadelphia experimental dance company, founded in the early 1990s and still going strong. Through these case studies, Andrew Zitcer illuminates the range of activities that make contemporary cooperatives successful: dedicated practitioners, a commitment to inclusion, and ongoing critical reflection. He asserts that economic and social cooperation must be examined, critiqued, and implemented on multiple scales if it is to combat the pervasiveness of competitive individualism.

Practicing Cooperation is grounded in the voices of practitioners, and the result is a clear-eyed look at the lived experience of cooperators from different parts of the economy and a guidebook for people on the potential of this way of life for the pursuit of justice and fairness.”

[April 23 5pm – 6:30pm at Making Worlds Books 410 South 45th Street]