BAADAss Women Festival Begins March 9

The Bronx Academy of Arts & Dance forges forward with the 17th annual BAAD!ASS WOMEN FESTIVAL, celebrating the empowerment of women through art, culture and performance. The festival runs from March 9 -28 and includes evenings of dance, literature, film music and performance, The festival takes place at BAAD!, 2474 Westchester Avenue in the Westchester Square section of the Bronx. Ticket prices vary from free to $20. Participants can take advantage of the Five for $5 special (you and four "girlfriends" make a group of five and pay only $5 each with a prior reservation.) BAAD! offers discounts to BAAD! members, BCA cardholders and NALAC members, and free admission to residents of 10474 and 10461 zip codes. Ticket offers cannot be combined. Visit www.BAADBronx.org for more details.

The schedule for the shows and events is as follows:

Friday, March 9 | 8PM | $20
GASPING! WITH LAURA SHAPIRO, OXANA CHI, SHIZU HOMMA
With mordant humor, talking as well as movement, video projections, and colorful costumes, Laura Shapiro's Last Gasp! (First Draft), considers personal end-of-life preparations within a perspective of possible planetary apocalypse and/or exhaustion.

Two globe-trotters who jump across continents, the European-bred, NYC-based Oxana Chi (dance) and Layla Zami (saxophone), present works that offer contemporary Fusion and Afro-Futurism and invite audiences to experience a personal and inspirational interpretation of what it means to feel jazz!

Shizu Homma, a Brooklyn born artist currently residing in Philadelphia, presents dances that are visual, text based and conceptual, and returns to BAAD! with her first dance work since 2016 about transiting, moving, getting somewhere and meandering.

Saturday, March 10 | 8pm | Free
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF LESBIAN SPACES
Poets and writers lead a conversation on the erasure of the lesbian experience in modern queer, trans spaces. Moderated by Alicia Anabel Santos. Panel includes: Curated by Alicia Anabel Santos and Yoseli Castillo.

Thursday, March 15 | 7pm | Free
CHAVELA
Through its lyrical structure and evocative, thought-provoking journey the film, is centered around never before-seen interview footage of Chavela Vargas, the iconoclastic life of game-changing musician, shot 20 years before her death in 2012. Writer/Directors Catherine Gund and Daresha Kyi craft a film that is guided by the stories in Chavela's songs, and the myths and tales others have told about her - as well as those she spread about herself - the film weaves an arresting portrait of a woman who dared to dress, speak, sing, and dream her unique life into being.

FRIDAY, MARCH 16 | 8PM | $15
MUSIC TRIBUTE TO CHAVELA
Chavela Vargas was a Costa Rican guitarist and singer of Mexican rancheras, a masculine but emotional song about love and its mishaps sung from a man's perspective. Chavela delivered the songs in her own peculiar way slowing down the tempo for a more dramatic and nuances effect. From youth she challenged gender norms and became known for her trademark pants and red jorongo. Come for a night of local musicians honoring this legend.

SATURDAY, MARCH 17 | 8PM
BODY WORKS: MORIAH ELLA MASON, brASS, AYA LANE
Choreographer and former stripper, Moriah Ella Mason, explores how we perform eroticism and consume intimacy in a show about working as a stripper in Pittsburgh, PA.; brASS: Brown RadicalASS Burlesque brings full bodied storytelling and celebration of the erotic; and Aya Lane performs a mythical resistance story of "an underwater country populated by the unborn children of African women who were thrown or jumped off slave ships.

Thursday, March 22 | 7PM | FREE
WOMEN'S SAFETY SEMINAR
co-presented by Recoveries R US, LLC and BAAD!
As a survivor of rape and domestic violence Connie Pacheco created the Women's Safety Seminar to empower women with theory and a hands on practical self-defense workshop. Connie has over 30 years experience in the field working with women and families and is armed with training and credentials in the latest statistics and information on rape and other violent crimes. This seminar focuses on providing information on the dynamics of domestic violence and personal safety tips and general awareness. Connie's goal is for each participant to leave the seminar with a heightened awareness and a better understanding of the issues surrounding our safety as women. This seminar is for women of all ages and identities. Individuals under the age of 16 must be accompanied by an adult. This seminar is for trans and cisgender women only.

Friday, March 23 | 8pm
LIVE BIG GIRL!
Directed by Peggy Robles-Alvarado, Live Big Girl is a poetic play about 3 women (Rebeca Lois Lucret, Karina G-Lopez and Vanessa Chica), and their different and not so different experiences of living in a body that is not celebrated. There is root deep digging towards self-awareness, self-acceptance, and self-love. Through poetry, in movement and in stillness, offering a prescription for healing, in the taking back of their bodies from the mouths of critics. Fierceness comes when truths are shared. Live Big Girl!

Saturday, March 24 | 8pm
SOLE SISTERS
The BAAD!ASS Women dance concert is no-holds-barred. Eight choreographers takeover BAAD! The choreographers from the Bronx and beyond include Clara Auguste, Giavanni Farley, Farah Figuereo, Havanna Fisher, Kailey McCrudden, Loli Santiago and Rourou Ye.

Wednesday, March 28 | 7pm
CHOREOGRAPHERS CONNECTING IN THE BRONX: DREAMING OUT OF LA NEGRURA/BLACKNESS
co-presented by Pepatián and BAAD!
A documentary film (25min) about three choreographers from the Latinx diaspora - Sita Frederick, Rokafella, Marion Ramirez - who collaborated to create an experimental dance theater work with Salsa, Breaking, Afro-Caribbean and release techniques. A discussion with the artists follows the screening.

Crowned "a funky and welcoming performance space" by The New York Times, BAAD! is a performance and workshop space that presents cutting-edge works in dance and all creative disciplines empowering to women, Latinos and people of color and the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community. BAAD! is home to Arthur Aviles Typical Theatre (AATT) and the Bronx Dance Coalition and was founded by Arthur Aviles and Charles Rice-Gonzalez in 1998 in Hunts Point. BAAD! moved to Westchester Square in October 2013 to a gothic revivalist building on the grounds of St. Peter's Church.

BAAD!/AATT receive support from The NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, The SHS Foundation, The Mertz Gilmore Foundation, The New York Community Trust, The Liberty Fund of the New York Community Trust, The Howard Gilman Foundation, The Dance/NYC Dance Advancement Fund supported by the Ford Foundation, The New York State Council on the Arts, Councilmember Jimmy Vacca and Annabel Palma, The Jerome Foundation and private donations.