aug21-- SILENT topfree dancing in Dolores Park, SF

SUN thanks the three Bay Area women who stepped up,
at the last moment, to lead the Bay Area portion of
national Go Topless Day 2011..
The event was scheduled from 12 noon to 3pm in Dolores Park, a traditional site for progressive and queer protests. I arrived late, around 12:45pm.
By then, SF parks police/rangers had decided to tolerate [or ignore] the gathering.
On a hillside, three women and several men were sitting on the grass, in a circle.
Only one of the women leaders was bare-breasted. She said that being a bare-chested woman is legal in San Francisco, but that many women still feel strong social pressures against exercising their rights. [Likewise in New York state, and the Canadian province of Ontario, where female topless-ness is clearly legal, but remains rare.]
Aside from laws, she also mentioned eco-feminist and artistic/expressive themes.
I commented that the San Francisco SlutWalk had very recently
assembled at this same place, Dolores Park; and that one of the SlutWalk leaders
had marched topfree, inspiring the crowd.
Then she and a second woman outlined a project to promote silent dancing,
where each dancer hears the same music at the same time,
through linked headphones.
Less than half of the audience wanted to dance. The leaders loaned a headphone to each dancer, free. During the dancing, the second woman eventually went topfree, for a while. The silent dancing seemed [to this onlooker] to last for hours.
Afterwards, the dancers sat together on the grass and silently
meditated.
Having attended protests since the Kennedy presidency,
I think this is one of the
*QUIETEST* outdoor demos I've ever experienced.

-- Tortuga Bi LIBERTY,
for Senior Unlimited Nudes of San Francisco
[SUN, PO Box 426937-SUN, SF, CA 94142-6937]
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PS-- A woman phrtographer from
SF WEEKLY was present. Perhaps there will be a story there.