Benji Hart
This public program takes place in collaboration with Mary Mattingly's exhibition What Happens After, at BRIC House.
PLEASE NOTE: This is a participatory workshop and is not meant to be observed. Admittance to this event is FIRST COME, FIRST ADMITTED, and will be capped at 30 people.
This workshop led by Benji Hart and Michael Roberson of House Lives Matter introduces the street dance style of vogue to participants at all levels of dance experience, grounding the form as a tool for resistance and queer liberation. Participants will learn a brief history of the dance form, then practice mixing its elements with the motions from their daily lives, transforming their own movement into an improvised phrase of vogue. Participants will come away from this workshop with a working knowledge of the roots of voguing, and an understanding of physical movement as a form of both personal empowerment and a vehicle for collective resistance.This movement workshop is wheelchair accessible.
The act of collaboratively changing the form of an object with a violent and complex history, can be a powerful one. Can it become ritual? Healing? Through the transformation of a massive military vehicle used in the Gulf and Afghan wars, nine performance artists created instead a bridge for communication and a stage for re-visioning a future for public spaces in an increasingly militarized world.
Participants of the redesign included: Rosie Bruno, Nicole Cheng, Emily Bluck Chow, Angela-Renee Coakley, Fred Fleisher, Yunchi Huang, Maria Hupfield, Sto Len, Paul Middendorf, David Hamilton Thomson, Shelley Senter, and Renae Reynolds.
BIOS:
Benji Hart is a Black, queer, femme artist and educator from Amherst, MA, currently living in Chicago. They have taught voguing to trans and queer youth at Black & Pink’s National Convening, the Chicago Cultural Center, and the Broadway Youth Center. Their original solo piece Dancer As Insurgent—which explores vogue as a form of radical resistance—has been performed for the Elements of Vogue exhibit opening at CA2M, INCITE!‘s conference Color of Violence 4, and the Jane Addams Hull House. They are the recipient of the Rauschenberg Residency, Chicago Women and Femmes to Celebrate, and the 3Arts Award in the Teaching Arts.
House Lives Matter Convening is the only public education forum in NYC that focuses on the House Ballroom Community (HBC). The disproportionate impact of HIV/AIDS, as well as other intersectional economically rooted issues that impact the HBC makes it a vital time to address the health inequities and disparities that face our community. Mobilizing those around the country and world through a Human Rights and Social Justice lens provides larger opportunities to unify around an advocacy agenda that by region can assist HBC members with doing work in their local areas.
Venue Information:
The Stoop at BRIC House is a public cultural gathering space featuring free, drop-in programming, and offering a place to sit, observe, and participate in multi-disciplinary work.
Beginning Nov. 1, 2022, attendees of any BRIC House programming will no longer have to show proof of vaccination or a negative test to enter the building. Masks are encouraged but not required in all BRIC operated spaces. If you have questions regarding this protocol, please email Safety@bricartsmedia.org