PRESS ADVISORY: June 2, 2009

Lacy MacAuley, lacy@massey-media.com, (202) 445-4692

Festival in DC seeks to unite healers, activists, artists, and the DC community

Organizers seek a better way forward in uncertain economic times

What: SACRED DC Festival for healing, arts, and activism

When: Sunday, June 21, 10:30 AM – 7:30 PM

Where: Malcolm X Park (Meridian Hill), Josephine Butler Center

2437 15th St NW, Washington DC 20009

WASHINGTON DC – FIRST ANNUAL SACRED DC Festival will build and strengthen the DC community as well as provide positive alternatives to youth through arts, culture, healing and activism. Local DC residents and youth will experience hands on workshops with local artists, musicians, and healing arts practitioners.

Activities will include free massage, meditation, a drum circle, street theater, mural painting, DJ-ing, laughter yoga, music and dance performances, urban gardening, and healthy multicultural foods. In addition, festival goers can interact with and pick up information from local non-profits who are working on issues such as environmental and social justice in our communities and the world.

On the summer solstice healers, artists, and activists will be gathering to find common threads between their efforts to engage in dialogues on solutions to environmental and social injustices. With the national economy taking a dip and national happiness on a downswing, artists are inspiring DC community youth to find the artist within and to brighten their communities.

"Our city and our country are in need of healing right now, on the individual level and on the level of our entire civilization," stated Graciela Lopez, co-organizer of the festival. "SACRED DC is a festival to weave together the common threads of those working toward positive change. We are coming together on a sacred day of change, the summer solstice, as the whole earth and its communities are changing.”

“So many families and youth in DC have witnessed so much injustice and violence in their communities. This SACRED DC festival will give families who do not have the means or opportunity to an alternative way of healing, to raise their levels of consciousness by working together and finding their common oneness.” stated Zainabu Dance, co-organizer of SACRED DC Festival.

SACRED DC is an acronym for Solidarity, Arts, Culture Roots, Earth, Dance and is being sponsored by the DC Commission on Arts and Humanities and National Endowment for the Arts, local DC nonprofits, AFSC-MAR, local businesses, local artists and healing arts practitioners.                                                       

The festival hopes to draw upon the legacies centered in the Josephine Butler Center and Malcolm X Park, which have a history of service to the DC community and the African American community. A center for community arts and activism, Malcolm X Park is a space for residents to come together to build community through weekly drum circles and many political activities. The Josephine Butler Center is a former embassy, named after the local human rights crusader Josephine Butler. 

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For more information, including schedule of events: www.SacredDC.com