Art and activism join together in seven city concert tour to encourage peace during uncertain times

By Lucie K. Scheuer for the Rogue Valley Times

War seems to be breaking out everywhere. People are clamoring for human rights. There is unrest across the country, across the world.

Folk singers, meanwhile, are lighting up stages in the Northwest, talking about peace, the possibility of change, resistance to war and oppression.

No, this isn’t the 1960s or even about the antiwar movement that arose from it. This is 2025. It is now, and three of the most prominent folk artist-activists of the former era — Holly Near, Ferron and choreographer Krissy Keefer — have once again stepped up to address the serious conflicts emerging in this one.

Rogue Valley residents will have the opportunity to come together to be inspired and reenergized to work for peace at a special, one-performance-only concert, “A Woman’s Song for Peace,” at 5 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 12, at the Craterian Theater, 23 S. Central Ave., Medford. In addition, San Francisco’s celebrated Dance Brigade, Taiko drummers and Afro-Caribbean jazz artist Christelle Durandy will also perform. 

The show is part of a seven-city Northwest tour that begins in Eugene, prior to the presidential inauguration and the people’s march planned for Jan. 18.

Its three co-creators — Keefer, producer of famed San Francisco-based dance troupe Dance Brigade, along with celebrated folk singer-songwriters Near and Canadian-born, queer feminist-activist Ferron, sat down for an enlightening conversation via zoom after Christmas to delve a bit more into the development of “A Woman’s Song for Peace,” what the performance will entail and what it hopes to achieve.

Keefer explained that one of the ideas that contributed to her creating this “maelstrom of activity” are the conflicts that have erupted in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan that “are going on unbridled.” She said she is “deeply discouraged” that neither president — Joe Biden nor Donald Trump — has or had an antiwar agenda, especially around the bombing of Gaza, which she said, “has been painful to watch.”

“So, I gathered together like-minded colleagues whom I’ve known for 50 years, both Holly Near and Ferron, and asked them if they would like to join me on a peace tour; Holly having done an endless amount of peace work over the last 50 years and Ferron also headlining the women’s movement, and who is always concerned with peace. …It seems like a nice configuration of artists to go up and down the west coast and reinvigorate that agenda.”

Near, who has practically become a household name in this part of the world, has written some stirring, defining peace folk anthems over the years including her “gentle, angry” “Singing for Our Lives,” and “Peace Becomes You,” written with a gospel rhythm and blues sort of style, sung with teasing lilt. She didn’t reveal if her anthem “Great Peace March” will be in the show but promises her set will meld with the dances performed.

“We do what we can to inspire people and to let them have a chance to see who they really are before they get torn apart by the system — but then the next piece of that is they have to leave the theater and see in their communities what can they do to create alliances with people within the community who are going to protect one another.”

When asked in regard to the antiwar and women’s movements, if she feels we are back at the beginning, she responded, “We are a continuation of people who are born and die … and there’s those of us who keep trying to reach for humanity’s best self … to define it and work toward it, and it doesn’t start with a movement that has a name.”

“It’s an evolution and an evolving sense of who we are on this planet that is spinning through space at an incredible rate of speed, and we get a very short time to be here — and what do we want to do with it?”

“My interest is to try and help people and myself find our peaceful center and just try to work from there,” songwriter and poet Ferron added. “I’m not really sure we are going to be able to change this next world that’s coming up, but we could be at peace somehow with our power that we do have.”

Describing the show further, Keefer explained, “I chose some songs that Dance Brigade has danced to in the past that are also iconic songs that are part of the repertories of both these women.”

“I also chose some songs that cross the timeline of social activism,” she added, referring to the outrage conveyed in Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddamn,” tempered with the balladeering of Woody Guthrie’s “Deportee” about the plight of Mexican immigrants.

Keefer passed the baton to Ferron to describe the final musical-dance piece, her composition, “It Won’t Take Long.” Ferron said she had a nightmare about where humanity is going, which ultimately became a rallying song.

At the end of all this conflict, “We’re not going to use guns; we’re going to use our hearts,” Ferron believes. “There are many people who are just like us and they feel alone, just like we do and if we can just get together and feel the heat of the moment it will be like practicing walking on fire.”

The press release for this tour quotes Keefer, stating, “Dance Brigade offers ‘A Woman’s Song for Peace’ with the aim of reorienting audiences to our shared humanity and desire for peace. We believe that this collaboration can unify and activate people. We offer it as a gift to our communities for healing.”

Tickets for “A Woman’s Song for Peace” are $25-$45 in advance; $35-$55 the week of the show. Tickets and further information are available at craterian.org, at the box office, or by calling 541-779-3000.

Reach Ashland-based writer Lucie K. Scheuer at LucieScheuer19@gmail.com. This review first appeared in the Rogue Valley Times.