Sign up for ASSEMBLIES Fall 2020

Deadline: October 4 at 11:59PM

On August 30, 22 groups pitched their idea for ASSEMBLIES Fall 2020! Thank you to all who proposed groups for the Fall 2020 cycle.

NAVEL is proud to support five ASSEMBLIES which were selected via a vote by the NAVEL community, including residents, members, board, staff, past ASSEMBLIES leaders, as well as the organizers who proposed an ASSEMBLY.

The Fall 2020 ASSEMBLIES are:

afronowism ep III, organized by black beyond
#FuckTheSystem: Liberation Via Black QT Sex Magik, organized by Bee Coleman
Full-Bodied Expression as Public Health : A Focus on Hip Magic, organized by Anise S. Hines Theus + Naomi Mack
Health, Racism and Wellness with Miss Barbie-Q, organized by TRANScending Art
Queering Surrender: Expanding, Embodying, Remembering, organized by Jenevieve Ting & Jasmine Lin

Learn more about each group below, along with their tentative schedule for the fall.

Want to learn more about ASSEMBLIES? Check out the ASSEMBLIES section of our website.

NEW THIS FALL: Register to participate in ASSEMBLIES

Because ASSEMBLIES organizers are working to cultivate a braver space to facilitate important and sometimes sensitive discussions, the organizers have asked to be able to learn more from potential participants during the sign up process, as well as the chance to choose who can participate. Please review the updated instructions to register:

Look through the information about each ASSEMBLY below. Many groups explicitly state the community that they wish to center in their ASSEMBLY. If it feels like a group isn’t for you, it’s probably not. White folks, please pay particular attention to the space you are asking to join.
If you’d like to register to participate in an ASSEMBLY, click this link. You will be asked to fill out a short form that will be shared with the ASSEMBLIES organizers. If you’d like to participate in more than one ASSEMBLY, you can choose more than one on the form. Sign ups will close on Sunday, October 4 at the end of the day.
ASSEMBLIES organizers will review the people who signed up to participate and you will be notified if you’ve been selected the week of October 5 with more information on your first group meeting and what to expect.
There is no cost to participate in an ASSEMBLY. All group members are asked to consider what they can contribute ($$$, time, or otherwise) towards the completion of a final presentation at the end of the cycle.

Questions? Reach out to ASSEMBLIES@navel.la

ASSEMBLIES Fall 2020

afronowism ep III

organized by black beyond

Meeting Dates: 6-8 weekly production sessions leading up to a virtual event/workshop. Dates TBD. Virtual event projected for NYE.

Location: Online via Zoom

Sign up to participate here
Click here to watch this ASSEMBLY’s full pitch.

In afronowism ep III, participants will attend 6-8 weekly production sessions with the black beyond collective leading up to a workshop rooted in Black healing with 1-2 guest facilitators. We will explore the history of sound as technology to preserve and transcend the spirit of ancestors and the indigenous. During the workshop we will gain skills to morph and create sounds for a collective sound piece.

black beyond is a radical platform for artists and activists to speculate alternate realities for Blackness. black beyond disrupts space, allowing Black people and allies to decolonize social infrastructures. It interrogates understandings of Black subjectivity outside the limitations imposed on Blackness by the racist imaginary through: Afropessimism, afronowism, afrofuturism.

IG: @blackbeyond_
Website: https://blackbeyond.xyz/

Get in touch: enter@blackbeyond.xyz

Image credit: jazsalyn, Jeharrah Pearl, Livia Foldes, tee topor

#FuckTheSystem: Liberation via Black QT Sex Magik

organized by Bee Coleman

Meeting Dates: Within 48 hours every full and/or new moon starting Oct 16 on Zoom. Each meeting will be 90 min - 2 hours long. Participants are encouraged to attend, within their comfort, sans clothing, as this will be an intentional space for embracing and loving up on ourselves and that starts with getting comfortable in our bodies. This also cultivates a shared environment of powerful vulnerability.

Location: Online via Zoom

Sign up to participate here

Click here to access the full ASSEMBLY schedule & session details

Click here to watch this ASSEMBLY’s full pitch.

Intentions: proliferate a wave of personal sacral healing for Black QT folks, especially sex workers, that ultimately serves the collective good; educate Black QT folks on the principles and practices of sex magik/carnal alchemy; creating a coven of Black QTs who collectively direct energy toward a petition(s) that will facilitate liberation for black folk and thereafter all oppressed people. Pleasure activism for real.

If you really want to save the world,

You better heal yourself first

Grounding question: how can we #makeradicalsexy and use our energy in service of dismantling cisheteropatriarchal white supremacy?

Proposed petitions:

Protect Black womxn, NBs and femmes
Cancel rent
Abolish police/ice
Abolish prisons

Methodology:

- Incorporate cooperative/collective principles and practices

- Sex magic education by Tahnee (includes foundational magic overview, magic, ritual, sigils, herbs, oils, candle work; personal shadow work incorporated as a reflection of social shadow work the magik will effectively facilitate)

- Sacral healing (possible collaboration w/Hip Magic group)

- Bring in other facilitators as needed/available

- Collectively decide on group petition and sigil

- Creation of multimedia assets (music, video, audiobooks) embedded with chosen petition/sigil

- Eventually develop app or web platform for black queer erotic content (rival onlyfans/minivids)

- Dual project tracks: original music playlist and video project or audiobook recording/video project

- Music playlist: 3-4 tracks in the spirit of Sacral Healing playlist, composed by group members. Each member records accompanying erotic video. All videos are compiled into one final film/ritual.

- Audiobook: 3-4 texts recorded as audiobook with accompanying erotic video

- Reference Material: Bee’s Sacral healing playlist; Bee’s Hare Krishna/Self Love erotic video; “Carnal Alchemy,” “Pleasure Activism,” “Energy Anatomy,” “Cooperation Jackson,” “Collective Courage”

Click here to access the full ASSEMBLY schedule & session details

Get in touch: b.v.coleman@gmail.com

Image credit: Bee Coleman

Full-Bodied Expression as Public Health: A Focus on Hip Magic

organized by Anise S. Hines Theus + Naomi Mack

Meeting Dates: TBD by group following sign-ups

Location: Online via Zoom

Sign up to participate here

Click here to watch this ASSEMBLY’s full pitch.

We will be exploring one of the most oppressed & abused parts of the body: the hips. This area, often connected to the feminine spirit, is where creative energy is generated and supported, yet is simultaneously deeply neglected across genders. Uncovering & reclaiming the power of the sacral chakra in a holistic way through herbs, dance, and other tools to ignite full bodied expression. As black women, we have learned that shaming any part of ourselves works in direct opposition to the liberation we deeply desire. We are excited to explore different ways of freeing up space in the body and releasing stagnant energy with you all.

This assembly is a fuck u…

to internalized racial and patriarchal oppression that teaches us that moving hips are merely sexual and should be reserved for child rearing and the enjoyment of the male gaze only…
and to institutions and dance academia that delegitimize dance that centers the hips as an art form.

This is an unlearning, this is truth telling, and this is all about liberation and public health.

This will be a discussion based ASSEMBLY with guest offerings. Along with the research found, Assembly members will be encouraged to collaborate and share a short piece that reflects their personal history with their hips. Together we will develop a daily base routine/ritual to activate & check back in with our bodies.

Dates are open to change. If there is a strong conflict, let us know!

Anise S. Hines Theus loves to move. Move spirits, her body, & inspire freedom through moving. Her work centers establishing intimacy with oneself & amongst groups gathering. She choreographs for theater & film projects and weddings. She finds joy in teaching movement in community settings and in private lessons. As a current collective resident at NAVEL she is building her project Dis-place: Home through workshops and media pieces. Displace: Home explores the way folks re-claim elements of their culture that have been erased through colonial displacement & the wisdom in re-finding home within.
IG: @sapeach
Website: https://ashines.wixsite.com/mywork

Naomi Mack is a performance artist, pleasure activist + self proclaimed holistic healer in Atlanta, GA. Growing up in athletics and very physical theatre launched her study of the body and interest in wellness as a whole. She’s excited to explore with all of the ASSEMBLY attendees just how healing movement can be and how important full body alignment is when it comes to authentic expression.

IG: @naomi.mack

Website: https://linktr.ee/NaomiMack

Get in touch: BareRootUS@gmail.com

Image credit: BareRoot photo by @joshcleve_media

Health, Racism and Wellness with Miss Barbie-Q

organized by TRANScending Art

Meeting Dates: Exact dates TBD, 1-2 sessions per month

Location: Online via Zoom

Sign up to participate here

Click here to watch this ASSEMBLY’s full pitch.

With the onset of the Covidian, political and racial climate of 2020, there is a real correlation to how racism (systemic, potential violence etc) is related to health (physical, mental, etc) which affects a person’s whole wellness. We will explore these concepts in facilitated online monthly discussions with Everybody Gym (Highland Park, CA), TG/NB Project (Cypress Park, CA) and Gender Justice LA (GJLA) (Los Angeles, CA).

Please note: Certain events will be open to the public and others will be geared specifically to BIPOC people and members of these respective organizations. More information will be sent to those who sign up to participate.

MJ “Miss Barbie-Q” Brown (pronouns: they/she) - is a multi-faceted Drag Entertainer/Activist. They have been in entertainment/activism for over two decades and identify as a Trans Femme Non Binary, bringing more visibility through theatre, film, television and other mediums.

Affiliations and Certifications:

Founder of TRANScending Art (Los Angeles, CA)
Board member of Gender Justice Los Angeles (GJLA) (Los Angeles, CA)
Member of the Trans Chorus Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA)
Committee member of Flux-AHF Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA)
Advisory board member of The NBULA (Non Binary Union Los Angeles) (Los Angeles, CA)
Company member of the Sacred Fools Theatre Company (Hollywood, CA)
Board member of the LA LGBT Arts Alliance (Los Angeles, CA)
Member of Arts for LA
Member of Americans for the Arts

They have been a panelist at events like the 2019 Outfest Trans Summit, Trans Pride 2018/2019/2020 and This Way Out panel series. They were recently the keynote speaker for El Camino’s Pride 2020. They have been published in the SAGE matters publication speaking on LBGT elders and recently featured in book Queer Intentions: A (Personal) Journey Through LGBTQ + Culture along with being featured in Los Angeles Magazine’s June 2019 Pride issue.

IG: @MissBarbieQLA

Website: https://about.me/missbarbieqla/

Get in touch: missbnation@gmail.com

EVERYBODY is devoted to creating and supporting a brave and inclusive environment for all bodies to move, strengthen, and heal. We believe that health and wellness should be accessible, affordable and adaptive to all people regardless of their gender, size, age, ethnicity or ability.

IG: @EverybodyLosAngeles

Website: https://www.everybodylosangeles.com/

The TG/ENBY Project was launched in 2018 by Elliot Musgrave at Everybody Gym in Los Angeles. The by-trans-for-trans fitness initiative seeks to make exercise accessible to trans/nonbinary folks of all fitness levels and body types! Weekly sessions led by volunteer trainers range from intense cardio circuits to more technique-focused workshops. TG/ENBY field trips to climbing gyms, obstacle course training gyms, and hikes around Los Angeles add even more variety to the programming.

Website: https://www.tgenby.com/

Gender Justice LA is a grassroots organization that is building the the power of the transgender and gender non-conforming community here in LA. We use community organizing and leadership development to make concrete changes in the lives of all trans people, especially low-income trans people of color. We seek to build our community’s power to fight for racial, social and economic justice.

IG: @genderjusticela

Website: http://gjla.nationbuilder.com/

Image Credit: Jay Are

Queering Surrender: Expanding, Embodying, Remembering

organized by Jenevieve Ting & Jasmine Lin

Meeting Dates: Wednesdays from 11am–1pm PT or 6pm–8pm PT (we’ll send out a Doodle for mornings or nights to see what’s most accommodating), 10/14: First Workshop, 10/28: Second Workshop, 11/11: Third Workshop, 11/25: Fourth Workshop, 12/9: Fifth Workshop, 12/23: Sixth Workshop, 1/6: Final Workshop, 1/13: Feedback & Digestion Class (Optional)

Location: Online via Zoom

Sign up to participate here

Click here to watch this ASSEMBLY’s full pitch.

Queering Surrender: Expanding, Embodying, Remembering is a practice / sanctuary / gathering for QTBIPOC to reconnect with the agency, pleasure, possibility, and bigness of our bodies. To surrender is to give up, to give in, to allow. Queerness is a tender, passionate refusal — of straight time, linearity, binary, categorization. How do capitalism, colonialism, and cisheteronormativity inform the ways we live in, perceive, or erase our bodies? This ASSEMBLY places the QTBIPOC body at the center — acknowledging it as a dynamic place where potential and transformation can be actualized and felt, where we can re-learn our autonomy and re-member our possibility. Our individual movements are not at all separate from our collective movements, and building on mutual resistance, reciprocity, and protection becomes even more powerful in the context of a community, a Sangha, an assembly. Together, we can remember, embody, and imagine ourselves beyond — from being, to being more.

This ASSEMBLY will combine reflective reading, writing, and discussion prompts with action-based embodiment and movement practices that allow participants to have a more felt understanding of theoretical concepts, expanding our ability to think with the body and feel with the mind.

Jasmine Lin is a performance artist and movement facilitator committed to the life-long process of un-learning and un-teaching oppressive, Othering, and superficial ways of moving, being, sensing, and knowing. Jas is a NAVEL Collective Resident, and their choreographies and films have been shared at cultural spaces around the world, including REDCAT Theater, Power Station of Art Shanghai, Floating Projects HK, and British Museum. They also facilitate MORNING EXORCISE, a movement session dedicated to exorcising the body of oppressive socialized choreographies and decolonizing the internal and external surveillance cameras that suggest there is a Proper way to be and move in the world.
IG: @allthatjasss
Website: www.jasmine-lin.work/

Jenevieve Ting is a queer, non-binary Asian American writer, artist, facilitator, and world builder. They are the co-editor and co-founder of Loves Me | Loves Me Not, a yearly Valentine’s Day zine featuring work entirely by queer, trans, non-binary and women artists of color, and they’ve performed at various performance venues across LA and the Bay Area, including Tuesday Night Cafe, Our Mic, Junior High, The Hotel Cafe, the Upright Citizens Brigade, Human Resources, and Sabbatical Studio. They believe that every QTBIPOC person is a poem, and that we are all deserving of abundance, love, gender euphoria, spaciousness, joy, and pleasure.
IG: @tingrolls
Website: https://tingroll.space/

Get in touch: queeringsurrender@gmail.com

Image credit: Jay Are

What about the other proposed ASSEMBLIES?

We received 22 strong proposals for ASSEMBLIES Fall 2020, and we wish we had room to support all of them. If you are interested in any of the proposed topics, you will find the organizers’ contact information below so feel free to reach out! All groups are invited to propose again for Spring 2021.

CANCEL EVERYTHING: A Critique of Carceral Politics, Cancel Culture and Surveillance Technology

Proposed by Juli Odomo and Sean Huntley

You Belong in These Spaces

Proposed by Samuel Yang and Hea-Mi Kim

heamikim2@gmail.com / samuelyang1220@gmail.com

OPERATING SYSTEM FOR AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE: Cultivating new strategies and initiatives for resilience and transformation

Proposed by Veronique d’Entremont and Cole M. James

emailveronique@gmail.com

Emotional Intimacy is Sweet, Sweet Resistance

Proposed by Joelle Dupiton, Gari François and Kourtney Sweeney

gari.t.francois@gmail.com

Do It Yourself: Building Community Through Zines