November 2018

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We’re linking up with About Face Theater‘s queer youth theater ensemble on November 10th. We’ll be leading a brief Power & Privilege workshop coupled with a Queer & Trans Resistance to Policing workshop, focusing on queer history in the city of Chicago, as youth prepare to draft their own original play in celebration of AFT’s 20th anniversary this coming summer. We wish them luck!

We want to give a special love and appreciation shoutout to participants in our Vogue and the Prison Industrial Complex workshop for the ARTivism series at UIC’s Latino Cultural Center last month. During a painful week of anti-trans violence, we were floored by students’ commitment to trans liberation, and the connections they made between voguing and body positivity, free and accessible arts practices, and money bail abolition. It was a joyful and healing space we needed, and we hope it was for staff and students as well.

We’re taking the remainder of the year to rest and wrap up our current commitments, and so will not be taking on any new projects for the rest of 2018. Please feel free to hit us up if you would like to book us for workshops and projects in the coming year.

BH

October 2018

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October is a month of returns.

We’re back in Chicago after presenting our in-progress work World After This One at BRIC House in Brooklyn last week. We got lots of feedback that we’ll be taking to heart as the piece continues to grow and shift. Thank you to all the staff at BRIC, NIC Kay, Mary Mattingly, House Lives Matter, and everyone who came out and supported the event!

After a little time off, we’re returning this month to Assata’s Daughters for the kickoff of their fall programing, continuing to support teens from the Azubike cohort as they work towards becoming independent facilitators. AD is one of our political homes in Chicago, and we’re looking forward to being back!

We’ll also be returning to facilitate Love & Protect‘s semiannual retreat, and leading an Intro to Voguing workshop on October 24th at our alma mater UIC, for the Latino Cultural Center’s ARTivism series.

Stay posted for other performances and workshops as the fall continues!

BH

September 2018

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We’re finally coming down after a busy summer!

We’ve wrapped up our time with Engage Chicago at Northwestern University, and with Assata’s Daughters’ Azubike summer session. We’re proud of the ways young people in both these programs have pushed our own thinking around what community organizing can look like. We’ll be linking up with AD again soon!

An area of our practice we’re currently expanding is facilitation and circle keeping for grassroots collectives, specifically focused on organizational development and community healing. We led Love & Protect’s semi-annual retreat in the spring, and closed out our summer by facilitating a weekend-long retreat with For the People Artists Collective. In each of these, we addressed things like revising the collectives’ mission and vision statements, drafting working agreements for new members, and developing decision making processes for group consensus. Keep us in mind if outside facilitation is something from which your collective or organization might benefit.

We’re excited about the collaborations we have coming up at BRIC House in Brooklyn at the end of this month! RSVP here to participate in our Intro to Voguing workshop with Michael Roberson of House Lives Matter on September 21st. RSVP here to attend a short viewing of our in-progress solo piece World After This One, alongside new work from NIC Kay, in conjunction with Mary Mattingly’s exhibit What Happens After, on September 26th. If you’re in NY, we hope you can make it!

BH