Earlier this year, local photographer Liora Kuttler became fed up with the way our country has treated womens' reproductive rights; the groups she joined, petitions she signed and the money she donated helped, but didn't make her feel as if she was making a difference.

So she put down the pens and picked up her camera.

"I got this image in my head, called two of my friends and said, 'Hey, can I paint things on you and photograph you half-naked?'"

A fun-sounding idea with serious execution. The original photos were posted by her friends onto Tumblr, where they went viral, eventually turning into a series (which can be seen here) that was donated to UniteWomen.org.

Things took off from there for Kuttler.

"I finally felt at peace with myself in relation to what was happening," she said. "People would write to me and tell me about their life, and say, 'Whenever I get frustrated about life, I look at your photos and think something is being done.'"

That's when Kuttler formulated a plan to take this concept beyond the Grand Canyon State, developing a nation-wide project that would bring her and her camera to like-minded women in each state, as well as Washington, D.C., profiling feminists and documenting the journey.

She plans to turn the project into a book, which she's titled Out of Fear: Rediscovering Feminism In America.

"The dichotomy of what that could mean is really driving the book for me," she said. "I began the project because I"m really scared about what's happening in the U.S. right now, but I'm also fearless and out of fear because I want to pursue the project. It's that combination that I feel is driving both me and the women I've been talking to."

Kuttler hopes to raise $44,914, at minimum, for the project to get on the road—anything beyond that would go straight to photographing more subjects and printing the book in hardcover.

If you're interested in more about Liora Kuttler and "The Feminist Photos," see her website at The Feminist Photos, or her Kickstarter page here.

• David Mendez
• Seen at Beowulf Alley's front door on Aug. 20

Looks as if Downtown Tucson's Beowulf Alley Theatre Company will be closing its doors for a few weeks, at least. My call to the folks at BATC went unanswered as of this writing, so I'll follow back with them and get that news up ASAP.

If you’ve ever been to a local event where there were big, extraordinary puppets, and you thought to yourself, “Who the hell took that much time to make big, extraordinary puppets?”, the answer is Puppets Amongus.

The puppet troupe has been invited to showcase its stuff at the World Puppet Carnival (yes, there is such a thing) next month in Almaty, Kazakhstan. But in order to do so, they need to raise the dough it will cost to get them there—which means this week we get treated to a preview of the show they’ll be performing there.

Puppets Amongus will be performing its Day of the Dead-themed show, El Sueño de Frida—a tribute to Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera—at the event, with musical accompaniment from Jimmy Carr, who will also perform with his band The Awkward Moments. The Silver Thread Trio rounds out the bill. If you’re debating whether to bring the kiddies along, here’s a note from the puppet masters: “This show is most appropriate for mature audiences due to artistic, puppet romance scenes. However, many children do enjoy the show, depending on parental discretion.”

The benefit for Puppets Amongus takes place at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 25, at the Rogue Theatre, 300 E. University Blvd., Suite 150. Tickets are $20 and available in advance by calling 628-1309. For more info, call 444-5538, or send an email to [email protected].

A storied child of Tucson's 5,000-year history turns 237 on Monday: El Presidio de San Agustín de Tucsón was established on August 20, 1775.

Lots of fun is planned to celebrate the event. The complete schedule is on the Pima County Website, and it's not too late to add your own party.

Here are some of our favorites:

Birds and Beer!
Pizza, local brew, live birds, bird photos and trivia on a big screen are featured from 5 to 7:30 p.m., tonight, Friday, Aug. 17, as part of the Tucson Bird and Wildlife Festival at the Riverpark Inn, 350 S. Freeway. It's $15, but there's also cake. Details are here.

Trains!
What a change trains made in Tucson's history! But you can learn about that any day at the Southern Arizona Transportation Museum. Saturday, Aug. 18, it's time to partay! From 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., there's cake, Tucson dignitaries and trains of all sizes to play with. Details are here. This event is part of an all-day celebration along Fourth Avenue and University Boulevard involving a beach party and 23.7 percent discounts (for the 237th birthday, get it?) and all kinds of other fun. Details are here.

Costumes!
One by one, the five flags that have flown over Tucson's history are presented by people dressed in the outfits of their era, starting at 7:30 p.m., Monday, Aug. 20, at the reconstructed portion of the birthday baby, the Presidio de Tucsón, corner of Washington St. and Church Ave. Kids especially love when the muskets blast and the cannon booms, but the whole family enjoys talking to historic figures in character and seeing what life was like in the fort. It's also one of the few places to learn about the importance of Apaches to our town's past. Tucson's official troubadour Ted Ramirez performs his Southern Arizona ballads and, naturally, there's cake. Details are here.

If you've been following the intense competition among local comics taking place on Thursday nights at Laff's, be aware that everyone's taking the night off to get schooled.

YouTube's star comic satirist and Tonight Show frequent giest Chris Bliss is in town for four shows, Friday and Saturday and 8 and 10:30 p.m. But tonight, he's doing a special show at 8, and you can only get in by making a reservation by calling 34-funny or filling in the blanks at the Laff's website: http://www.laffstucson.com/

(Pssst: It's FREE.)

Friday and Saturday tickets and more information are also available at the Laff's site. Those tickets range from $10 to $15.

Being an aging, cranky editor-type, I rarely get excited about visiting performers.

But I am excited about this one.

UApresents just announced the great Carol Burnett will be coming to town on Saturday, Jan. 26. Tickets will go on sale Monday, Aug. 20, at 10 a.m.

I remember the first time I saw Chris Summitt at a Tucson Unified School District board meeting. It was April 26, 2011, and a group of students from UNIDOS had just taken over the dais and prevented the school board meeting from continuing. It was standing room only, and the crowd that filled the board room went into the lobby and out the front doors of the the district's administration building.

Inside, students and a few MAS supporters took up most of the very front seating area of the board room, while community members packed into the rest of the room — many forced to stand on chairs and on tables in the back in order to see what was taking place. That's when I saw Summitt — his hair was long and a bit wild at the time and he sported a beard, which only made it more interesting to watch him jump over chairs for every angle he could get in that room.

Those pictures ended up being some of the best documentation of what took place that night, and if Summitt was working for a publication at the time, easy Pulitzer nomination.

• Chris Summitt
• UNIDOS students after taking over the dais during the April 26, 2011 TUSD school board meeting.

Summitt wasn't alone taking photos at school board meetings and other MAS actions. Diana Uribe has been there, too, most often sitting quietly waiting for those perfect opportunities that present themselves to a photographer. She took wonderful photos of the late Judy Burns, one in particular we featured in our cover story about her untimely passing is a story itself.

• Diana Uribe
• TUSD board members Mark Stegeman, left, and Alexandre Sugiyama, having a "discussion" during a board meeting.

This summer, Summitt and Uribe decided to create an exhibit that goes back to the early stages of the movement as a way to show support for the dismantled classes and program, and call attention to other photographers they've seen at school board meetings and MAS actions. Other photographers featured in the show include Charley Dejolie, Sarah Gonzales, Wesley Narro-Castro, Marla Pacheco, and Jose Carlos Lopez.

The show opens Saturday, Aug. 11, from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Fluxx Gallery off Fourth Avenue at 414 East 9th St. Donations collected at the opening go to Save Ethnic Studies and the Raza Defense Fund, but it's also a chance to see some beautiful photography that tell an amazing story from local photographers who continue to document history. The show opens with a welcome and introduction of the work by the photographers, followed by a panel discussion with MAS teachers and students Maria Federico-Brummer, Lorenzo Lopez, Juliana Leon, and Lupita Blancart.

Continue reading after the jump for an interview with Uribe and Summitt.

The very strange musical Hedwig & the Angry Inch is one of my favorite things ever, so even the announcement of a first draft of a sequel is just about the most exciting news I've heard in awhile. Sure, it'll probably be another decade or so before I actually see it live (and based on the limited box office success of the film version, I doubt it'll be on the big screen), but any Hedwig news is good news:

BREAKING CULTURAL NEWS: I’m not sure if this has been announced anywhere or not. I had coffee-and-conversation this morning here in Greenwich Village with my old friend John Cameron Mitchell, the creator of Hedwig and the Angry Inch. He is busy putting the finishing touches on his first draft of a Hedwig sequel and will be doing a reading and recreating the role of Hedwig on September 16th at a special performance at this year’s Afterglow Festival in Provincetown. “We spend so much of our early lives trying to figure out who we really are,” he said as a way to enigmatically sum up the new Hedwig plot line. “And we spend the rest of our lives preparing ourselves to let it go.”

He then went on to tell me in detail the narrative of the sequel for which Hedwig’s original composer Stephen Trask will write the music once more. There was such sweet excitement in his voice as he told me scene after scene, much like the sweetness and excitement he first had when so many years ago we sat in another coffee shop and he shyly admitted he was writing the role of a transgendered rock’n’roller so he could play it himself...

As for the sequel? Let’s just say it’s something that could only happen to Hedwig - a phantasmagoria with dollops of brutal reality interwoven into its multi-media narrative.

Hedwig lives!

There's no doubt that the folks at Batucaxe know how to throw a party, so their Monsoon Mania Summer Dance Jam sounds like a sure thing as far as fun and entertainment go this Saturday night. Tickets are $10, but basically that money allows the group to do all the great stuff they do all year long, including teaching kids and such. What else do you have going on, right?

The press release:

JOIN US for our 4th Annual MONSOON MANIA PARTY and FUNDRAISER!!!

For the fourth year in a row, Batucaxe, nominated by Critics and Readers in the World Music category for the 2012 Annual Tucson Weekly Tucson Area Music Awards (TAMMIES), will serve up some incredible family friendly summer fun at their MONSOON MANIA Summer Dance Jam! Each year the crowd has enjoyed dancing the evening away between Batucaxe performance sets, DJ sets by Batucaxe's co-director Cliff Berrien, and movement lead by dance director, Yarrow King!

When: Saturday, July 28, 7:00pm - 11:00pm
Where: Rhythm Industry Performance Factory, 1013 S. Tyndall Avenue (map)
Admission: **Only $10!**
What: Awesome MUSIC and DANCE sets by BATUCAXE! A rocking COMMUNITY DRUM JAM! Fabulous DJ SETS!

FANTASTIC FOOD available for sale! Get your Ayurvedic delights with Dish for Dosha (www.dishfordosha.com), and enjoy refreshing Mint Lemonade or cooling Cucumber Basil Juice along with Raw Summer Pad Thai bowl! We will welcome one of the Tucson Food Trucks, Foodie Fleet Mobile Eatery, for something completely different such as delicious pressed sandwiches, waffles, and fries (www.foodiefleet.com). And a steamy hot summer dance jam would be incomplete with Tucson's very own Eegee's! They will park the Eegee's truck serving up just those famous frozen delights unavailable anywhere else on the planet but Tucson!

We will also have raffle tickets available for a chance to win a TWO NIGHT fully upgraded stay at LOEW'S VENTANA CANYON RESORT, a full ONE YEAR MEMBERSHIP to BATUCAXE, and MORE! Raffle tickets will be $5 each and will be available at the door and throughout the evening.

• Courtesy of Raul Gonzalez

Tucson Freedom Summer, in collaboration with Raices Taller 222 Art Gallery and Workshop presents HUITZILOPOCHLI “the will to act, on Saturday, July 28, from 5 to 9 p.m. at 218 E. 6th St.

The fundraising event brings together performers and artists, and includes the work of Tucson artists David Tineo, Tanya Alvarez, Paco Velez, and others. Expect raffles, food, music and interactive art-making for the whole family, including a buffet courtesy of Las Cazuelitas. The event benefits the Save Ethnic Studies Raza Defense Fund.

From the press release:

On January 10th 2012, the Tucson Unified School District governing board voted to suspend the Mexican American Studies (MAS) department and classes. This was the culmination of a series of attacks by the state legislature dating back to 2006. As a response to this anti-intellectual, repressive act, a federal lawsuit has been filed. Nationally, a group of artists, activists, educators and scholars have converged in Tucson to support the local efforts to demand the reinstatement of MAS. This effort has been named Tucson Freedom Summer.

This convergence has been sparked by the national acknowledgement of the far reaching implications of this attack. Tucson Freedom Summer has manifested itself in a series of events to both educate the community and raise funds for the legal costs associated with the lawsuit. Events include community forums, educational “Encuentros”, Sunday Freedom School, demonstrations, political canvassing, poetry, and many artistic expressions of support. On July 28th, Tucson Freedom Summer, in collaboration with Raices Taller 222 Art Gallery and Workshop, will be hosting an event that will highlight the epic historic struggle for Chicano civil rights in Tucson.