You are invited to an inspiring evening at Yoshi’s in San Francisco on October 16, 2010 featuring Alice Walker, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Color Purple, who will be speaking and reading from her new book. She will be joined by Grammy Award Winning musician India Arie for a collaborative set of poetry and music. There will also be dancing in the aisles to the African Highlife Band, Hedzoleh Soundz, followed by a concert with India Arie.
The poems for Hard Times Require Furious Dancing (New World Library) were conceived over the course of a year and reflect Walker's journey through the death of loved ones, familial abandonment, to the birth of new ideas, deliciousness of love and what it means to belong to the greater world family. Alice Walker’s writings offer visionary wisdom for how to navigate the challenges of our day. From Rwanda to Burma, Egypt to Mexico and Berkeley to Mendocino, Walker shares poetic reflections on love and hate, justice and injustice, war and awakening, and she reminds us of the undeniable call to compassionate action.
In the Author’s preface, Alice Walker says: “I have matured into someone I never dreamed I would become: an unbridled optimist who sees the glass as always full of something. It may be half full of water, precious in itself, but in the other half there’s a rainbow that could exist only in the vacant space. I have learned to dance…. Hard times require furious dancing. Each of us is the proof.”
This event is the evening portion of the day long program, Big Dream Café – 3rd Annual Visionary Conference for women produced by Cosmic Cowgirls University and Palm of Her Hand (501c3) featuring Bay Area visionaries: SARK, Shakti Gawain, Shiloh McCloud and Christine Arylo. The conference is dedicated to giving women the tools to access and fulfill their visions for their lives, and to persevere through challenges with grace, even -and especially during- hard times.

Event Details: Saturday, October 16 – Yoshi’s Jazz1330 Fillmore Street, San Francisco Tickets and More Information: The Big Dream Cafe Women’s Visionary Conference Evening: Hard Times Require Furious Dancing 8pm-11pm. Tickets: $65 Daytime: Big Dream Café 11am-6pm Tickets for the whole day and evening: $155