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ART TO HEART TO ACTION

Inspired by art, we are creating stage performances to inspire and empower others through telling the incredible stories of the women who were the heroes of WWII through visual art, music, narration and dance.

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Based in Sarasota, we plan to grow WOR into WOW with your help and take our shows nationally and internationally! Thank you to all our guests and donors.

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Images, concept and stories by Co-Producer Vicki Chelf
Co-Producer, score and music direction, Warren Slim Williams

Board Chair, Brenda Boone

MC and narrator, Carolyn Michel

Choreography by James Jordan, Brentney J. Megha Vaid, Suzanne Caesar, and Tania Vergara Perez

Outreach and development, Suzanne Lucas.

Oct 20-22 WOR background Event Cover_edited.jpg

CELEBRATE

Thank you to everyone who came to celebrate the extraordinary women who became heroes in WWII at our live performance and dance party at Art Avenue Gallery!

Watch Performance Clips

Noor Inayat Khan | Josephine Baker

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Support Women of Resistance

To join our journey as a sponsor, make tax-deductable checks payable to: WOR2WOW Productions

Click to donate securely online.

For more information contact Vicki Chelf 941-928-3426 or John Lambie 941-323-8800

THE INSPIRATION

THE TEAM
Vicki Chelf
Warren Slim Williams
Brenda Boone
John Lambie
Carolyn Michel
James Jordan
Brentney J
Megha Vaid
Suzanne Caesar
Tania Vergara Perez

Team Bios

From artist Vicki Chelf

It all began in the basement of a 200-year-old house in Central France. I discovered a pile of soggy newspapers dating back to 1912. I realized that not only were they salvageable, but they were full of beautiful images. I knew I could somehow use them in my art.

Shortly afterward, I visited a Resistance Museum just down the street. The mother of the Museum director had been a resistance fighter. She was a beauty, but more impressively, she had risked her life fighting the Nazis. I was brought to tears. Here in this small-town museum, I learned how an ordinary woman made a difference that helped turn the tides of history.

Returning home, I delved into researching women who were WWII heroes in France. I looked not only for stories of bravery, but for beautiful photos that I could use as painting references.

Curiously, the war years were absent from my trove of newspapers. However, there were newspapers from the year 1935, when Nazis were already doing their dirty work. I began to select images that related to the stories of the women heroes I chose to paint and collaged them onto canvas. I then painted their portraits over the collage, in preparation for my gallery exhibition.

Visitors to the gallery loved hearing the stories of the Women of the Resistance, and were quite moved by the combination of their images with their personal stories. After seeing the reaction of hundreds of individuals to the stories, I imagined how they could be told with even more impact through multiple arts.

THE ART

Vicki Chelf's artwork honoring the brave women of WWII compelled her to bring the images and their stories to life. The idea grew to become a multi-disciplinary stage production.

THE HEART

The gallery displayed Vicki’s work, but visitors wanted the stories behind the women in the paintings. They were moved by the bravery and resilience of these women who fought Nazis and succeeded.

THE ACTION

Women of Resistance (WOR) become Women of the World (WOW) by inspiring and empowering audiences to take action in their communities.

THE WOMEN OF RESISTANCE

Nancy Wake

The Germans called her the White Mouse because she was so elusive. Nancy Wake became a free-lance journalist, moved to France, married a French Industrialist and became a socialite. Early on, after witnessing the Nazis in action in Austria, she understood the dangers, and did her best to alert the public. In wartime she escorted hundreds of Allied soldiers and downed airmen through occupied France into Spain. She also helped establish communication lines. She lived to the age of 98 and claimed to have once killed a Nazi with her bare hands.

Josephine Baker

The American expat was living in Paris when WWII broke out. She was the hottest performer in Europe. Everyone wanted to be near her, and no one suspected that the ebony beauty was anything other than a talented performer. She used her fame to be privy to conversations that were likely assumed to be over her head. Keeping her eyes and ears open, she took notes and became a valuable spy for the Resistance. She was also a Red Cross volunteer. After the war, she adopted 12 orphans of different races and religions in a quest to prove that all cultures can live together happily and peacefully.

Andree Peel

A hairdresser living in the port city of Brest in Brittany, Andree worked relentlessly to alert France to the danger posed by the Third Reich by distributing underground newspapers and aiding allied troops. Later, she led a team using flashlights to guide airmen to secret landing strips. She aided over 20,000 people and saved the lives of over 100 servicemen. She was arrested and sent to concentration camps. She nearly died of meningitis, was scheduled for the gas chambers twice and finally lined up before a firing squad to be shot. She was rescued at the last minute by American soldiers. She was deeply religious and after the war she became a healer. She lived to be 105.

Hedy Lamarr

This Austrian born actor was discovered by Louis B. Mayer and given a contract in Hollywood. She became a star and performed in several films, including Cecil B. De Mille’s, Samson and Delilah. She is lesser known as an inventor.

To help in the war effort she and composer George Antheil developed a radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes that used spread spectrum and frequency hopping technology. Unfortunately, the US Navy did not adopt the technology until the 1960’s. Nonetheless, she went on to raise $25 million in war bonds in 10 days by selling kisses.

Noor Inayat Khan

An Indian princess, Noor Inayat Khan’s father, Inayat Khan brought the wisdom of Sufism to the West starting in 1910. She was a dedicated Sufi, and a musician from a family of classical musicians. Noor was also a poet and an author of children’s books. She was a pacifist and lived her truth. She became the first wireless operator sent from London to France. It was one of the most dangerous jobs of the Resistance and radio operators usually lasted only about 6 weeks before they were captured and killed. After 6 months and a capture and escape, Noor was betrayed, for money, by her landlady and was sent to the Dachau concentration camp where she was executed at age 30. She never gave up any information to her torturers.

Lee Miller

Discontent with a highly successful career as a fashion model, Lee Miller left New York for Paris, to become a student of the famous Surrealist photographer Man Ray. Her social circle included Picasso, Jean Cocteau, Max Ernst, Paul Eluard and others. She could have easily sat out the war with her avant-garde friends, but instead she became a war correspondent and photographer. Her gritty photos of war, and the concentration camps are some of the most powerful visual documents of the horrors of her day. Perhaps the most famous of her war photographs is her self-portrait in Hitler’s bathtub taken just a couple of hours after his suicide.

Virginia Hall

Hailing from Baltimore, educated and brought up to become a proper lady, Virginia seems to have been, to her mother’s dismay, a born adventurer. In 1933 while hunting in Smyrna (now Turkey) she tripped on a barbed wire fence and shot herself in the leg, which had to be amputated at the knee. She studied several languages, and possessed an uncanny intuition to know who could be trusted. As the first woman SOE officer into Vichy, France she created a network that organized resistance movements, supplied agents with money, weapons and supplies and helped downed airmen escape. Later, she worked for the OSS as a radio operator, and more. At one point she escaped the Gestapo by trekking over a 7,500 ft pass in the Pyrenees, covering 50 miles in the snow in two days.

Help Tell Their Stories

Please support the Women of Resistance & Women of the World project. You can help us showcase inspiring stories and empower women through visual and performance art.

DONATE

To order prints or inquire about art available for purchase, please contact Paul Sykes at Art Avenue: 440-227-4592

The Inspiration Continues

Marina Ovsyannikova

Senior editor for Channel One in Russia, Marina Ovsyannikova, made international headlines when she walked onto a live news broadcast with a sign that said “No War, Don’t Believe the Lies.” She was fired, arrested and at the time of this writing is in hiding, facing 10 or more years of prison.

Megan Whitney Howell

Sarasota’s own Megan Whitney Howell is the founder of Second Heart Homes. At 34 years old, she has provided housing for 46 formerly homeless mentally ill individuals in beautiful art-filled homes where they feel safe and loved so they can begin to heal, and if possible, transition to independence.

THE WOMEN OF THE WORLD

Inspire & Empower

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Brenda Boone | Fred Bohlander | Christopher Downie | Albert Ford
Elizabeth Moore | Paul Sykes

Please support Women of the World project. You can help us showcase inspiring stories and empower women today through visual and performance art.

941-928-3426 | Contact Us

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