Category: News

Happy New Year!

 

Peace Beautiful People!

 

We hope this message finds you savoring the final days of 2013, present to everything that’s grown you this cycle, and full of wild aspirations for all that is to come!

 

We are suspended in gratitude for a tremendous year! Check out the photo collages, text, and video links below testifying to the magic of 2013!

 

Use these links to skip through the articles:

 

On a Mission

Kick Off the Year Breaking Silence in Mexico

Hall of Game: Allies and Inspirations

10 Year Anniversary

OuterSpaces Tour

First Music Video Launch

 

Thank you from the belly of our souls to everyone who has stood by us, shown us love, blown our minds, organized a show, spread our word, and made our work meaningful by letting it move you. 

 

Wishing you deep connection, balance, and abundant love for the new year!

 

With All Our Hearts,

Alixa & Naima

 

audiences

SOME OF THE BEST AUDIENCES OF 2013

 

In 2013, Climbing PoeTree rocked 43 shows and facilitated 14 workshops in 33 cities on the North American continent, including more than 20 universities, colleges, and high schools.

Whether doing an intimate workshop with women imprisoned at the SF County Jail, or performing for thousands of change-makers at the Marin Civic Center, our mission was the same:

To use art as a force for healing, a tool for justice, and an ignitor of inspiration. Everywhere we went we aimed to energize folks to step into their greatest potential for activating the social transformation, spiritual upliftment, and peace the world is so thirsty for.

We feel grateful for 
the inspiration exchanged with every body & soul 
in every venue where we had the honor to perform! 

 
 
 
 
 
 
mexico

 

 
WE STARTED 2013 PERFORMING IN MEXICO!

  

 

We feel incredibly blessed to have to kicked off new years performing alongside phenomenal revolutionary artists in Chiapas, Mexico!!! As the clock struck midnight on the threshold of 2013, we were clutching microphones, breaking silence with poetic proclamations of love, resistance, and resilience.

 

During the same trip, we attended international encuentros of anti-systemic movements, kicked it with Emory Douglas (former Minister of Culture for the Black Panther Party) and his daughter, poet Meres-Sia, stayed at a radical artists residence called EDELO, visited a Zapatista stronghold, sat in ceremony with Tatas (Mayan elders) around a sacred fire to honor the passage into the 13th Baktun.

  

We swam in the incredible waterfalls of Agua Azul, and jumped into an enormous lake surrounded by volcanoes. We are endlessly grateful for this opportunity to celebrate the dawn of this long awaited planetary awakening in Central America! 
 
 

See More Pictures Here!

  

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 hallofgame

 

  HALL OF GAME

  

 

 

We were blessed to get to share the stage with some incredible inspirations and allies of ours this year, including  

 

Danny Glover:

 

a personal hero, inspiring in action and love, it was amazing to have the opportunity to keynote along side him at Bioneers 2013.

 

 

Cornel West:  

 

 

Check out this video of Cornel West giving Climbing PoeTree a shout out and speaking on the power of poetics after our performance!

  

 

Angela Davis: 

  

A personal highlight this year was having Dr. Davis rocking out by the speakers, steady pumping her fist at our OuterSpaces show in Kalamazoo! 

  

 

Dead Prez & Rebel Diaz:

 

We’ve been touring the same circuit for the last 10 years with these two catalyzing groups and its always powerful to share stage and space. This year we spoke on a panel with Stic of Dead Prez and got to rock a few concerts with each of them. It’s wonderful to see the growth reflected as we carve parallel paths of creative rebellion. 

 

 

Saul Williams:

 

Another soul brother who is always so inspiring. This year brought us together a number of times. Highlight was sharing the stage at Symbiosis 2013. Possibly one of the most creative settings we have ever presented at! 

 

 

Favianna Rodriguez, Invincible, & Jeff Chang:

 

Our path took us to Tucson AZ, where we met some of the most courageous change-makers of our time. It was like stepping into a dream to walk into the Culture Strike meeting, and feel surrounded by new and old faces whose commitment to justice had led us here. 

 

 

Caroline Casey:

 

We met backstage under the moon and made played metaphor hot potato! Astrologer, mystic, word weaver, founder of Coyote Network News. If you want to be inspired to the bone, check out her weekly radio show, The Visionary Activist, which we were lucky enough to be invited as guests! 

 

 

John Densmore:

 

We were honored to speak on a panel and do a workshop on art and activism with former drummer of The Doors!  

 

 

 

And so many more including Joanna Macy, Buddhist author and environmental activist (pictured here), Atossa Soltani (founder of Amazon Watch), Melanie Cervante (founder of Dignidad Rebelde), and Crystal Clarity (favorite artist of all time!) among others. span>

Anniversary

CLIMBING POETREE 
10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY!

 

This year marked a decade of dedicating our ART as our WEAPON, our MEDICINE, our VOICE, and our VISION!

 

On July 27th, 2013, hundred’s of people gathered at the National Black Theater in Harlem

to celebrate 10 years of Alixa’s and Naima’s creative collaboration as Climbing PoeTree. We are eternally thankful to all the people and forces that joined together to make the night so magical, overflowing with tremendous energy and beauty! 

 

 

There were phenomenal opening performances by some of our most beloved and fierce

artist comrades, an enchanting aerial trapeze performance and premier collaboration between with Naima and her blood sister, and we rocked out with a strapping 6-woman band doing re-mixes of our classics and never heard before work! 

 

 

On display was a multi-media installation of Hurricane Season built of bamboo and shadow art, the entire S.T.I.T.C.H.E.D. tapestry forming a tunnel of thousands of stories from people nationwide, an exhibition of Alixa and Naima’s artwork, retrospective slide-show, and archival exhibit featuring relics of Climbing PoeTree’s history.

 

Click here to see even more photos of the event!

 

We are releasing 3 videos of that legendary night!!!

 

The first is of Climbing PoeTree’s finale performance with the illustrious live band. 

  

Watch here 

and stay tuned over the next few weeks for subsequent cinematic tributes to the the multitude of beautiful spirits that made our 10 year anniversary so sublime!

  

 

 

 

 

Outerspaces

  

 

OuterSpaces: 

Power in the Margins

 

We continued our intergalactic collaboration this year with venerable exceptional emcee
& Cuban feminist hip hop duo Las Krudas. 
reached the social-movement hubs of Tucson, AZ and Detroit, MI, rounding out a dozen-city tour 
with this this international, bilingual, pansexual, polyracial, multi-media, cross-genre performance event that nurtures parallel universes where we commit to our visions for planetary transformation.

 

It was a remarkable voyage of epic concerts, deep community connections, legendary collaborations, creative expansion, and deep healing. A truly powerful collaboration arose amongst us all, and we are so grateful to have shared the tremendous energy with beautiful crowds along the way!

 

See more photos here!

 

Book OuterSpaces here!

And as you may have seen… 

 

musicvideo 

 

WE JUST LAUNCHED OUR VERY FIRST MUSIC VIDEO!!! 

 

Thanks to the vision and support of Director Basil Shadid, we filmed our premier music video in 4 cities featuring a myriad of activists, educators, and radical artists in NYC, Seattle, SF, and Oakland.

 
La Libertad No Se Para

 

is a new song about the unstoppable power 

of the people!

 

The beat is by Bronze Candidate of Shining Soul! 

 

Check out the Dual Power Productions website for a full lists of video credits.

 

& some more photos here!