A two day workshop with Brooklyn-based cultural worker Rosza Daniel Lang/Levitsky.
Tuesday, April 30*
6:00-9:00PM at Clouds in Water Zen Center (445 N Farrington St, St. Paul, 55103)
Wednesday, May 1
2:30PM: Meet at Western Sculpture Park (387 Marion St, St. Paul, 55103)
3:00-6:00PM: March for Immigrant & Workers' Rights, from University & Dale to the Capitol
6:00-6:30: Debrief (outdoors)
We will have an ASL interpreter at the 4/30 workshop.
While payment is not required to attend, in keeping with our free community workshop model, part of proceeds from donations will go to In the Heart of the Beast Theater.
What we know from the dancefloor - at parties and clubs, in the studio and on stage, or in ritual spaces - can be incredibly useful to work we do struggling for social justice. What happens when we take 'the choreography of social movements' seriously, and work to develop it as a way of getting concrete things done?
In the first session, we'll try out different structures for effective group action based on embodied dancing knowledge, with a focus on infectious tactics for confrontational street situations and safety strategies for a variety of situations. In the second, we'll prepare together and then join the May Day demonstration to experiment with moving together as a connected group within a crowd, communicating and making decisions together nonverbally, and acting as a tactical unit if the event gets confrontational.
Come in clothes and shoes you can move comfortably in. For the first session, bringing a water bottle and light snacks will likely make your day more pleasant.
This two-day workshop will be part indoor exploration, part outdoor application - we’ll connect with the May Day Labor & Immigrants Rights March on May 1st to put what we learn into action!
Rosza Daniel Lang/Levitsky is a cultural worker and organizer based at Brooklyn's Glitter House. Never learned how to make art for art's sake; rarely likes working alone. Can’t stop picking things up on the street and making other things out of them – outfits, collectives, performances, barricades, essays, meals... Just another multi-generationally radical and queer diasporist gendertreyf dyke who identifies with, not as.
Current projects include: JUST LIKE THAT, a militant research and tactical toolbox project on embodied knowledge and political movements, rooted in over two decades' experience as an on-stage dancer, a going-out-dancing dancer, and a participant in street actions; Critical Reperformance, re-bodying classic and neglected performance scores as an analytic practice and to maintain them as living repertoire; Koyt Far Dayn Fardakht, a Yiddish anarchist punk band; and ongoing participation in the work of the Aftselakhis Spectacle Committee (Jewish diasporist political spectacle theater), Survived & Punished NY (abolitionist support for criminalized survivors of gendered violence), and the Jewish Voice for Peace Artists & Cultural Workers Council (antizionist Jewish solidarity with Palestine).