FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday May 17th 2021
CONTACT:
Media Relations: Zoe Gray social@powherhouse.com
Impact Producer: Charlene SanJenko charlene@powherhouse.com
Artist: Tina Overbury tina@tinaolife.com
STORYTELLING FOR RECONCILIATION
AN IRELAND & CANADA STORY
Press Conference & Digital Premiere of OMYGOD by TinaO
May 17th 2021 – Vancouver, BC Canada – PowHERhouse Impact Media Group with TinaOLife announces the three country press conference and the global digital premiere of OMYGOD, a Storytelling for Reconciliation experience about the women we’ve burned, the babies we’ve buried and the Gods we have worshipped.
There are Some Stories only Art Can Hold
On May 28th 2021, the digital press conference and screening of OMYGOD will connect audiences of Ireland, Canada and the United States to introduce the social impact project Storytelling for Reconciliation, and meet the writer/storyteller TinaO alongside the core creative team behind OMYGOD.
OMYGOD Press Conference
Friday May 28th at 10am (PDT)
OMYGOD Screening
Ireland 7:30pm BST / 11:30am PDT
New York / Toronto 6pm EDT / 3pm PDT
Vancouver / Los Angeles 6:30pm PDT
What is OMYGOD?
It’s not a feminist show or a witch burning show, and it is not a “dead-babies” show. It is a weaving of complexity and historical scar tissues that exists not to entertain, but to invite transformation. It is a production offered in a spirit of restorative justice, reconciliation and as a bridge of humility between cultures.
In Canada we have a Highway of Tears.
In Ireland, they have an Irish Triangle.
In our current time, the narrative of OMYGOD follows a little girl named Cristiona who loses her mother, and her 50 year old self says yes to a call to Ireland as she wrestles with her own story of God, faith, Indigeneity, and grief.
The Tuam Babies and the Death of 9000 Irish Babies
In Tuam, County Galway Ireland, the remains of 796 unnamed babies were found buried in an abandoned septic tank outside of the Bon Secour Catholic Mother and Baby home. Such homes existed across Ireland, and more than 56,000 children from a ‘fallen’ mother were born there. The anonymous testimony from residents compares the homes to prisons, and recalls that the nuns verbally abused the children, often calling them the “spawn of satan” or “devil’s spawn”. Some were adopted out of the homes illegally to the United States and across Ireland, others spent their whole childhoods in such home. Across Ireland, some 9000 of these children died in Mother and Baby County Homes, each erased from their mother’s care and for many, from their actual existence.
Canada’s Indigenous Genocide and the loss of 6000 Children
Before we can have reconciliation we must have truth. Starting in 1831, the colonial governments in what we now call Canada removed Indigenous children from their families and forced them into residential schools with the explicit goal of cultural genocide. Priests, nuns and clergymen belonging to Christian Churches operated these homes and effectively carried out the task of “civilizing” more than 150,000 children, thousands of whom lost their lives in the schools, thousand more of whom suffered through abuse of all kinds and subsequent trauma.
The Murder of Women
In 1487 The Malleus Maleficarum, or, the “Hammer of the Witches,” was written by Catholic Clergyman, Heinrich Kramer. This manual detailed the how-to of naming, torturing and burning a witch, and it became a founding trauma tool in the Christianization of Pagan and Celtic Ireland.
Seven generations of children watched their mothers emerge from cages and prison cells after being crushed and tortured, becoming screaming witches before their eyes.
Witch burning continues. In 2010 Ama Hemmah, a 72 year old grandmother was burned alive in Ghana after being named a witch.
OMYGOD is a Storytelling for Reconciliation experience. It is a poetic, often humorous and harrowing journey across time, cultures, and faiths to invite each of us to walk a full story all the way through the trauma to acceptance, to grief and ultimately to a place of rest beyond blame. As a storyteller, this is TinaO’s offering to reconciliation: even if we weren’t there, we can still say we’re sorry and mean it.
Before we can have Reconciliation we must have Truth.
OMYGOD is Executive Produced by Impact Media Producer Charlene SanJenko. PowHERhouse Impact Media Group is a 100% Indigenous owned organization who champions social impact projects that change the narrative for H.E.R. – Human Expansion Realized.
OMYGOD – KEY CREATIVE TEAM
Writer/Storyteller/Performer – Tina Overbury
Dramaturg – Nicolle Nattrass
Creative Consultant – Dean Paul Gibson
Digital Director – James Gardiner
Director of Photography – Randal Hrytzak Bemoved Media
Sound Designer – Paul Tedeschini
Editor – Jay Lehmann
OMYGOD, a Storytelling for Reconciliation piece about the women we burned, the babies we buried and the Gods we have worshipped, premieres on Friday May 28th with a Digital Press Conference at 10am PDT, followed by three individual screenings: Ireland/UK screening 7:30pm BST; New York/Toronto 6pm EDT; and Vancouver/Los Angeles 6:30pm PDT.
To book your seat and receive a full agenda and press kit, click the red button above, or rsvp here.
To connect with Impact Producer Charlene SanJenko, please respond to: Charlene@Powherhouse.com
To connect with TinaO or the creative team please respond to Tina@TinaOLife.com
CONTACT:
Media Relations: Zoe Gray social@powherhouse.com
Impact Producer: Charlene SanJenko charlene@powherhouse.com
Artist: Tina Overbury tina@tinaolife.com