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AHA MEDIA is very honored to be featured in “With Glowing Hearts” the movie directed by Andrew Lavigne and produced by Jon Ornoy of Animal Mother Films
A Social Media revolution has been brewing for the past five years on websites from FaceBook, to Wikipedia, to Flickr, and as it spreads throughout the Internet and into popular culture through an increasing number of portals, it is creating a new sense of community and empowerment amongst those who have embraced it.
History has shown that poor and marginalized communities stand to gain the most from leaps forward in the democratization of information, so the excitement in areas like Vancouver’s maligned Downtown Eastside about the possibilities of Web 2.0 and beyond is palpable.
With the Winter Olympics less than a year away, billions have been spent in preparations and many poverty advocates are concerned about how the city’s several thousand homeless and working poor will fit into the equation as Vancouver puts on its best face for the world.
Against this background the film examines Social Media in action as a group named Fearless City embarks on a campaign to empower and protect its neighbours with cellphones, video-streaming, and the World Wide Web.
With great thanks to both our mentors, Andrew Lavigne and Jon Ornoy for a wonderful movie trailer! 🙂
Thanks to all our friends and our colleagues in the film ” With Glowing Hearts” 🙂
AHA MEDIA is pleased to meet The Chinese Library Services Association at Chinatown Night Market in Vancouver
AHA MEDIA was very pleased to meet Ronald and Lee of The Chinese Community Library Services Association on Saturday August 8,2009 at Chinatown Night Market in Vancouver.
The Chinese Community Library Services Association is located at 591 East Pender Street. (604) 254 2107 http://www.chineselibrary.org Email: clibrary@gmail.com
Below is a video of Ronald, Manager of the Chinese Community Library writing out AHA MEDIA’s name into beautiful Chinese Characters using a Caligraphy Brush.
This was filmed by April Smith of AHA MEDIA on a Nokia N95 mobile cameraphone. April is passionate and skilled in making Nokia films by exploring mobile media production through the camera lens of a cellphone. For a better quality version of this video, please DM April Smith @AprilFilms on Twitter.
Every Saturday, during the Chinatown Night Market, one can visit The Chinese Community Library Services Association Booth and get your name written into Chinese Characters by Ronald and his Caligraphy brush for a small donation.
Help Support our local Chinese Community Library in Chinatown 🙂
Email clibrary@gmail.com
AHA MEDIA is very proud to introduce Alvin Clayton, our newest Vancouver Downtown Eastside (DTES) Community Reporter !
AHA MEDIA is very proud to have Alvin Clayton – a First Nations Nisgaa elder as part of our Vancover Downtown Eastside ( DTES) Community Reporting team.
AHA MEDIA first met Alvin at the Upwords Magazine group http://www.upwordsmagazine.wordpress.com at LifeSkills Centre and after seeing his preparation, dedication and Aboriginal governance skills to his unique style of reporting on homeless and health issues, we were happy to invite Alvin to join AHA MEDIA. 🙂
AHA MEDIA is dedicated to helping all our communities become more informed!
AHA MEDIA and W2 Community Media Art Society are proud to present Tragic Magic featuring Silas Howard and Heather Ács + Vancouver DJs: Dance Mix Ninety-Six, Ugly, OCDJ, Women&Song – Sunday, August 2, 10pm-4am, $5.
TRAGIC MAGIC
featuring Silas Howard and Heather Ács
+ Vancouver DJs: Dance Mix Ninety-Six, Ugly, OCDJ, Women&Song
W2 Flack Block Gallery
click here for W2 website event listing and flyer
157 W Hastings @ Cambie
Sunday, August 2, 10pm-4am, $5.
Silas Howard of Tribe 8 and New York City downtown performance artist Heather Ács present an evening of new solo works, traversing through a multi-media world of string theory, social trespassing & loopholes in the American dream. Through ruminations on desire, shame, and loss these two escape artists invite us into a non-linear landscape scattered with fragmented mothers, renegade chickens, tranny jazzmen, and the mysterious figure of Mr. Hollywood in order to ask what is the price of letting go, selling out, or rewriting the script?
“Tragic Magic was so good it hurt…Thank Goodness I brought moist towelettes!” Justin Bond
Heather Ács’ piece “what the brain forgets and the heart denies, the body remembers…” explores illness, death, grieving and loss refracted through working class Appalachian and Mexican cultural imagery, creating a nonlinear world layered with movement, gesture, storytelling, soundscape, video, and installation. In this multi-media solo performance piece, time and testimonies loop, break apart, burrow, reemerge, and cross over. Breath taking, glass breaking, gifts are bestowed. Sparrows descend, tortillas and tears sizzle on the comal, a river flows with dirt and glitter. Lesley Gore croons cotton candy lyrics laced with razor blades while dust gathers in an empty house. Stitch it all together with string theory and skeleton keys, stuff into a mason jar, shake until your heart might break, check your pulse, make a wish, and see what rises to the surface.
Howard’s Thank you for Being Urgent is a textured tale of a transman coming up in the queer punk world of San Francisco and spilling into the crappy and exalted glitter of Hollywood. He searches for true tales of fierce outsiders and re-imagines the mainstream, never loosening his grip on the underground. Our hero begs sanity from mystery man Mr. Hollywood through playful and plaintive letters, ruminating on desire, shame, and the infinite loopholes in the American Dream. Traversing serendipitous heights and punishing ironies, Thank you for Being Urgent chronicles burlesque dancers with dementia, tranny jazzmen and film executives, using archival photos, monologues and charm.
Bios:
HEATHER M. ÁCS
Heather M. Ács is a multi-media theatre performance artist, activist, educator and high-femme troublemaker. Her gritty, glittery work has been featured at the Culture Project, HERE Arts Center , the Kitchen, the Public Theater, Theater for the New City , and the New York City International Fringe Festival. She performs and facilitates workshops at community spaces, colleges and conferences from coast to coast. Heather has worked with Nao Bustamante, Karen Finley, Claude Michelle-Wampler, J. Ed Araiza of the SITI Company, and Steven Soderbergh. Heather is also a dedicated teaching artist. She uses theatre as a tool for social change with low-income youth in cities throughout the U.S. and has studied with Cornerstone Theatre Company, Sojourn Theatre, and Augusto Boal.
SILAS HOWARD
Silas Howard, (writer, director, and musician), co-directed his first feature, By Hook Or By Crook, with Harry Dodge. The indie classic was a 2002 Sundance Film Festival premiere and five-time Best Feature winner. Silas Howard’s next film, Exactly Like You, (co-written with Nina Landey), is based on the life of Billy Tipton. Howard’s short documentary, What I Love About Dying also premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival.
For eight years, Howard toured with his band Tribe 8, the notorious queer punk band (a band boycotted by republicans and women at Michigan womyn’s music festival). The band has been featured in Rolling Stone, The Village Voice, and The Los Angeles Times. You can check out Howard’s music videos, short musical and documentaries which have aired on MTV and LOGO networks and at Disneyland, Anaheim (weird, yet true). Howard’s writing is also featured in the anthologies, “Without a Net: Growing Up WorkingClass” and “Live Through This ,” as well as the artists’ journal, “LTTR.” Currently Silas is working on a novel set in San Francisco’s mid-90’s homocore scene.
W2 Community Media Arts Society
#205 – 163 W. Hastings St. (Flack Block)
Vancouver, BC V6B 1H5
www.creativetechnology.org
Mobile: 604.644.4349 • Fax 604.844.7441
Twitter: @W2Woodwards @FearlessCity
AHA MEDIA is proud to present – First United Church on Hastings Street in Vancouver Downtown Eastside to be part of First Tweetmyride Global Campaign To Raise $1 Million For Charity Via Twitter
First United Church and First United Mission is an inner city ministry of the United Church … 320 Hastings Street E. Vancouver, BC, V6A 1P4 604 681-8365
First Tweetmyride Global Campaign To Raise $1 Million For Charity Via Twitter
Vancouver, Canada –
Around the world in the lead up to Vancouver-based Australian, Gavin Romanis, participating in the international mountain bike race, La Ruta de los Conquistadores in Costa Rica from November 11-14, 2009
(www.adventurerace.com) – known as one of the toughest on the planet.
Inspired by Ashton Kutcher and CNN’s challenge to gain 1 million followers on Twitter, and fuelled by the vibrant biking community of Vancouver, Canada, the basis behind the tweetmyride global campaign is to encourage global giving to avariety of causes.
Co-founders Leoni Milano and Gavin Romanis integrated these ideas to create a campaign with global reach, utilizing Twitter to help achieve their goal to raise $1 million over the 4-month period that runs from July 30 – November 30, 2009.
“When I realised how gruelling La Ruta de los Conquistadores was going to be, I knew that I would need more than my own determination to get me through it – so the idea of doing it to help charities across the world seemed like the ideal inspiration” says Gavin Romanis, who has no prior experience in mountain bike racing, but was seduced by the challenge’s combination of travel and outdoor adventure.
Milano and Romanis wanted to create something that would have a global impact – hence the campaign’s tagline:
“Twitter has no boundaries – neither should we”. Tweetmyride will demonstrate the power of social networking and show that contributions – no matter how small – all help to build something incredibly worthwhile.
tweetmyride is a Twitter-driven global charity campaign, created to raise money for 10 charities
“There are literally thousands of charities out there doing incredible work, and we’re thrilled to have these carefully chosen charities on board. For some, this will be their first foray into experimenting with social networking and they have all embraced this unique style of fundraising and awareness with keen enthusiasm,” says co-founder Leoni Milano.
Twitter allows each of the charities the opportunity to connect and communicate on a more tangible level with their followers, donors and supporters, which in turn helps develop relationships for a deeper impact. It gives the charities a voice that helps people connect on a personal level, rather than just being a donor.
The campaign’s vision is to also encourage others to hold their own ‘tweetmyride’ biking events around the world and have family and friends donate (towards their rides) to the participating charities, which they can then tweet about.
Donors get to go online to the tweetmyride website and choose which charity they wish to support from those participating in the campaign. All donations will go directly to each charity.
The participating charities (including twitter names) being supported in the campaign are:
1. charity: water, USA – www.twitter.com/charitywater
2. First United Church, Canada – www.twitter.com/fucm
3. Fred Hollows Foundation, Australia – www.twitter.com/FredHollows
4. Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders, Canada – www.twitter.com/MSF_canada
5. National Breast Cancer Foundation, Australia – www.twitter.com/NBCFAus
6. Oxfam Canada, Canada – www.twitter.com/oxfamcanada
7. Starlight Children’s Foundation, Australia – www.twitter.com/Starlight_star
8. Team Fox for The Michael J. Fox Foundation, USA – www.twitter.com/TEAMFOX
9. The CREAR Association, Costa Rica – www.twitter.com/CostaRicaCREAR
10. World Vision, UK – www.twitter.com/WVUKnews
Contact:
Nora Weber
Media Relations
Terracom Communications
+1 425 418 4555
——————————————-
Leoni Milano, Co-founder
tweetmyride
+1 778 237 7840
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