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Gizelxanath Rodriguez

Gizelxanath is a singer, cellist, urban farmer and activist at the intersection of Inidigenous rights, ecosocialism and migrant justice.

Gizelxanath is also politically active in international social movements related to Indigenous rights and ecological justice / ecosocialism. She was a delegate to the First Ecosocialist International, a historic gathering of over 100 activists from 5 continents in the Maroon afro-descendent community of Veroes, Venezuela. She has worked with Zapatista organizations based in Chiapas for several years, helping organize the East Coast Chiapas Solidarity Committee and providing musical performances and lessons to Zapatista Indigenous youth. She also works with community farmers in Pittsburgh to build food sovereignty with oppressed communities. This September, she will present her work as a community farmer, bandleader, and revolutionary artist at the Peace and Justice Studies Association conference at Arcadia University. In October of 2018, she introduced a new work, Migrant Liberation Movement Suite.

Dedicated to the intersection of climate change and forced migration, The Migrant Liberation Movement Suite included libretto in Yoeme, the Yaqui language, of which Gizel was a facilitator and researcher. She has also performed at the Skirball Center at NYU, the Kennedy Center, and universities and colleges across the country.

actors onstage
Anticolonial Creative Collaboration and the Development of Mirror Butterfly
Essay

Anticolonial Creative Collaboration and the Development of Mirror Butterfly

15 August 2019

Ben Barson and Gizelxanath Rodriguez, part of the Afro Yaqui Music Collective, talk about artivism—what it means, what it can look like—in relation to building a jazz opera with various communities around the world.