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LAST YEAR'S PARTICIPANTS LISTED BELOW

Annually AMINAIZM produces a concert showcasing female dancers, poets, actresses, etc. in honor of SWAN Day. This past March they presented, "From A Place Of Passion - An Evening Of Woemn In Dance" which featured internationally acclaimed dancers such as; Francine Ott (courtesy of Ronald K. Brown, Evidence Dance Co.), MUV - Movement For An Urban Village (Directed by Shalewa Mackall), N'tifafa Akoko (courtesy of AMINAIZM/ Emotions Danced), Khadyjah Harper-Alleyne (Female Master drummer w/ Les Amazones De Guinee all female drum ensemble), Awo Iyami Female Percussionists (African American female West African Percussion Ensemble), Amina Heckstall (Director of AMINAIZM), and Camille A. Brown (Commissioned by Alvin Ailey, Memphis Ballet, Philadanco, and more!). The concert was a huge success and will move to a larger venue, in 2010.

Female artists who want to be involved in next years production, please fill out the form below, expressing your interest and performing arts skill.

SWAN Day/Support Women Artists Now Day is a new international holiday that celebrates women artists.  It is an annual event taking place on the last Saturday of Women’s History Month (March).
Please join us for the Third International SWAN Day on Saturday, March 27, 2010.
By focusing attention on the work of women artists, SWAN Day helps people imagine what the world might be like if women’s art and perspectives were fully integrated into all
of our lives.
See This Year's Events
There were over 170 SWAN Day 2009 events in 12 countries.  To see a list of all of them, please click the link below:

    List of SWAN Day 2009 Events>>

People celebrate this new holiday by participating in SWAN Day events and by making donations to their favorite women artists. The long term goal of SWAN Day is to inspire communities around the world to find new ways to recognize and support women artists as a basic element of civic planning.

The idea for SWAN Day grew out of a collaboration between The Fund for Women Artists and Chicago's WITASWAN (Women in the Audiences Supporting Women Artists Now).  WITASWAN is an informal alliance of women who are using their power as consumers to increase opportunities for women artists.  It began as an initiative of the Illinois chapter of the American Association of University Women.  The complete history of WITASWAN is at www.films42.com/witaswan.asp.

Since WITASWAN was co-founded by Jan Lisa Huttner, a Chicago film critic, it was launched with a focus on women filmmakers.  WITASWAN members make a commitment to see at least one film every month that is directed or written by a woman, whether it is in a theater or on a DVD. 

Jan Lisa Huttner invited Martha Richards, the Executive Director of The Fund for Women Artists, to speak at an American Association of University Women conference in Bloomington, IL in April 2007.  (For pictures of this historic meeting see www.aauw-il.org/WITASWAN/index.html).  The idea for SWAN Day was born during the car ride between Bloomington and Chicago, as Huttner and Richards discussed ways to build more direct connections between women artists and women audience members.

Huttner had demonstrated through her work with WITASWAN that there were women audience members who wanted to see more work by women, and Richards had built the WomenArts Network, an online directory of over 1,000 women artists from all over the world.  In the car and over a shared pizza dinner, they came up with the idea of SWAN Day as a galvanizing annual event that would serve both artists and audience members. 

What Is The Fund for Women Artists?

SWAN Day is a project of The Fund for Women Artists, a non-profit arts service organization dedicated to helping women artists get the resources they need to do their creative work.  Created in 1994 by Martha Richards, the organization has raised over $4 million and created a website that provides free networking, fundraising and advocacy services to over 500,000 visitors a year.  For more information about the programs of The Fund for Women Artists, please see the About Us section of our website at www.WomenArts.org/share.

SWAN Day 2009 is made possible by generous grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Starry Night Fund of the Tides Foundation, and the Leo S. Guthman Fund, The Sister Fund, and by gifts of time, energy and money from artists and arts supporters around the world.

Support Women Artists Now Day
Administered By The Fund for Women Artists
3739 Balboa Street #181
San Francisco, CA 94121
Phone: (415) 751-2202
Websites: www.SwanDay.org and www.WomenArts.org
Email:  info@womenarts.org

SWAN Day is a project of The Fund for Women Artists, WITASWAN & You.