Rachel Flood

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Short Bio: Rachel Flood has been performing for over seven years. She’s been featured locally at the Folk Festival, Poetry Slam and Under the Volcano and internationally in Berkley, Brooklyn, Denver, San Diego, Boston, Maine, and Chicago.

There's nothing little about Sista'Hood

Rachel Flood had an idea that grew. It continued to grow: it is still growing. Flood sounds happy. She was right; she is right.

Five years ago, she founded the Sista'Hood Celebration. It was a one-night hip hop and poetry show that included a film about women in hip hop called Nobody Knows My Name, by Rachel Raimist. Three hundred and fifty people filled Vancouver’s Sonar and told her that there was a demand for more.

So more is what she gave.

This year, the fifth Sista'Hood takes place from Feb 28th to March 27th and will include 10 events covering poetry to skateboarding, embracing film and music, in a variety of venues (www.sistahoodcelebration.com).

“It’s my baby,” Flood explains in her rapid, confident chatter. “It has grown a life of it’s own.”

Flood spent the first 17years of her life in Calgary and the next 10 in Vancouver. “I was looking to find a job that I could be happy with,” she recalls, noting that she is not an easily employable person. In fact she is a spoken word performer (poet) who was inspired by the talented women she had seen in Vancouver. With International Women’s Day looming, she got the idea for Sista'Hood.

The only event of it’s kind in Canada, Sista'Hood is, in Flood’s words, multidisciplinary. Events include the kick-off party Feb 28th, a selection of films, lessons in skateboarding, and a workshop in breakdancing, to name only a few.

To paraphrase a song by Eurythmics, Sista’s are doing it for themselves. Built on idealism, Sista'Hood seeks to work within the community employing the talents or skills that so inspired Flood in the first place. This year, she was helped to expand by money granted to her by the Canada Council for the Arts.

“The focus is grassroots and do-it-yourself,” Flood stresses. She should know. Sista'Hood might now have its sponsors and believers, but it started with an idea and Floods belief that it could happen.

Now she wants collaborators, to see where Sista'Hood could go. “We went from one event to ten,” she says. Laughing with dread in her voice, she sees the day when there could be 800. That day might be a long way off. Then again, Sista'Hood started as just a thought.

Tom Harrison- for the Vancouver Province

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