Statement of SolidaritY
Honey Pot Performance unequivocally condemns and demands an end to, the daily acts of terror, perpetrated against Black people. We stand in solidarity, with and for our entire Black community of queer, trans, gender nonconforming, and cis people. We mourn the losses of not only George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and Amauhd Arbery, some of the more recent (known) victims of racist police, but of the countless Black people who are injured, traumatized, incarcerated, and killed, every day, in the name of white supremacy.
We are outraged. We are hurting. Yet, we are brave and filled with our ancestral spirit of justice, equity, and resilience.
As a creative Afro-diasporic feminist collaborative, and through critical performance, ethical documentation, and deep community engagement, we are committed to continuing our work of dismantling the white supremacist and patriarchal systems that seek to bury us. As we shift from an organic collective to a nonprofit working to build deep roots and relationships with Chicago’s Black communities on the West and South sides, we commit to utilizing our platforms as artists, administrators, professionals, educators, academics, and healers to work tirelessly to amplify the work, stories, and voices of the many who are too often silenced and disempowered.
We are in support of those engaged in daily frontline work, and those who are providing support safely from home, during this pandemic. As we collectively strategize toward security, access, power, healing, and liberation, we ask that you utilize your energies and voices toward due diligence, researching and following daily organizing work, and engaging in some of the continuing action items designed by organizations such as Grassroots Law Project, The Movement For Black Lives and your local Black Lives Matter chapters. We also ask that you follow the pod-mapping and mutual aid work being done nationwide, and donate your time and/or dollars to those resources.
Other Chicago Organizations to Support
RAW (Resident Association of the Westside)
RAGE (Resident Association of Greater Englewood)
NLCCC (North Lawndale Community Coordinating Council)
Garfield Park Community Council
Sacred Keepers Sustainability Lab
“When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.” - Audre Lorde
EST
2001
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PHILOSOPHY
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Honey Pot Performance is a creative Afro-feminist nonprofit that evolved from an organic collective. We create multiform performance projects, participatory public humanities programming, and act as an incubator for the development of new works by artists of color aligned with our commitment to performance, storytelling, and the Black experience in all its diasporic variation.
Since 2001, HPP has cultivated an approach to performance integrating movement, theater, and first-voice to examine the nuanced ways people negotiate identity, belonging, and difference in their lives and cultural memberships. Dismantling the vestiges of oppressive social relationships is part of the work. Through critical performance, public humanities programming, and deep community engagement, we emphasize everyday ways of valuing the human.