REJOICE & RISE
On February 14th , V-Day and Middle Church hosted an online event , Rejoice & RISE , a Body Love Uprising . The hour-long event was hosted by V and Middlechurch ’ s Rev . Dr . Jacqui Lewis .
Artists , thinkers , and activists came together to explore what it means to truly love our bodies , honor and respect them and the Earth in the midst of a global pandemic . Participants included :
EMMA THOMPSON , Academy Award winning actress KALISWA BREWSTER , Actress ( Blue Bloods , Emotional Creature ), Digital Producer AMANDA HAMBRICK ASHCRAFT , Executive Minister for Justice , Education & Movement Building at Middle Church TAÍNA ASILI , Singer and Songwriter , Filmmaker and activist whose “ We Are Rising ” is an anthem for the One Billion Rising campaign JUDITH CLARK , Activist , Senior Advisor Women and Justice Project , advisory committee Survivors Justice Project KAITLIN CURTICE , Poet , Public Speaker , and Author of NATIVE : Identity , Belonging and Rediscovering God CHANEL DASILVA , Award-winning dancer and choreographer , Co-founder and Director of Move NYC MADGE DIETRICH , Actress and Performer DAMARIS B . HILL , Poet and Writer , author of Breath Better Spent : Living Black Girlhood and Associate Professor of Creative Writing at University of Kentucky ADRIENNE HURD , Dancer , Choreographer and Actress DOMINIQUE JACKSON , Actress , Author , Model , and Reality Television personality SARU JAYARAMAN , President of One Fair Wage and Director of the Food Labor Research Center at University of California , Berkeley MARTHA REDBONE , Singer and Songwriter CAELYN OSBERN MADINA WARDAK , Afghan activist , Founder of Burqas & Beer TERRY TEMPEST WILLIAMS , Award winning Writer and Activist , member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters , Writer-in-Residence at the Harvard Divinity School