In this Table Talk, members of the House | Ballroom Community (HBC) share their insights into the role of art in strengthening family and transforming grief into healing.
House | Ballroom, a community consisting primarily of Black and brown transgender and gender-nonconforming people, have used performance at balls--whether in person or virtual--as a tool for resistance and spiritual expression. Facing multiple oppressions, HBC have demonstrated their prophetic gift of truth-telling, celebration, and intimacy with death. COVID-19 has provided a pause for the HBC community to reflect and regenerate. Questions have shifted from who has the right to die well to the following:
“Who has the right to live?”
“Who do we want to be now?”
“How can we love more expansively?”
This conversation will highlight the creativity of the community’s survival skills, new definitions of family, regional networks of caregiving coalitions, and the production of virtual balls as tools for de-isolation and community-building.
To learn more about Ballroom, please read this recent Time article by Benji Hart and Michael Roberson.
This Table Talk is co-hosted by SAGE, House Lives Matter, Arbert Santana Ballroom Freedom School Project and Health & Education Alternatives for Teens (HEAT).
About Table Talk
A Table Talk is an honest, lively, and unscripted conversation among health professionals, spiritual and faith-based leaders, artists and other creative individuals to address this central question: "What does it mean to live and die well in our respective communities?" Every community and culture -- Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian American, Disabled, LGBTQ+, etc. -- has its own unique perspective and shared truth. We face tremendous challenges in dealing with serious illness, dying, grief, discrimination, and inequity. At the same time we search for space to connect, flourish, remember, and celebrate.
Many of us describe more than one of these groups as home, and many of us have experienced oppression based on multiple aspects of our intersecting identities: race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and more. At present, we have few spaces to talk about these questions freely, in ways that make sense for who we are. That’s why Reimagine launched Table Talk. While this ongoing series is explicitly created by and for underrepresented communities, we invite people of all backgrounds to join us to witness, listen and learn. Ultimately we are creating space rooted in the principles of Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion in order for everyoneto thrive.
The LGBTQ+ Table Talk series, led by Reimagine’s Senior Programmer Andrew Ingall in consultation with staff and community collaborators, is a multi-hued, multi-disciplinary series that amplifies queer voices in healthy aging, mental health, and end-of-life practices. It honors the queer community’s full spectrum of racial, ethnic, and spiritual backgrounds, and celebrates artistic expression, innovation, and leadership in a time of crisis. Programming will spotlight intergenerational initiatives, new visions for elder housing, and the historical arc of caregiving from the early AIDS epidemic to current mutual aid networks developed by queer and trans people of color. Co-hosted by SAGE, the LGBTQ+ Table Talk series includes the following programs: Make This House a Home: SGL/LGBTQ+ Aging Together (May 25), De Ambiente: Grief, Faith, and the LGBTQ+ Boricua Diaspora (June 1), and Ballroom Has Something to Say...About Art, Justice & Healing (June 8).