Pleasure Power Portal
PLEASURE IS NOT FRIVOLOUS, IT IS POWER.
September 26-October 25, 2026
Creative Research & Design Team
Design Team
The Prelude/Pleasure Parade
Saturday, September 26th, 2026
5pm @First Church of the Brethren (425 S. Central Park Blvd)
Duration: 3 hours
The Pleasure Parade, a Second Line for the Westside. Staged in First Church’s outdoor space and garden, this procession will act as the opening performance moment, heralding a month of pleasure explorations to follow it. A movement and sound procession with a street party vibe will segue into a long table dinner experience. This experience of collectivity invites artists and community to come together for a shared moment of gathering where pleasure is teased out and declared.
Lead Creative Team: Kimeco Roberson & Aisha Jean-Baptiste
Collaborating Performers & Artists
The Aperitif
Saturday, October 3rd & Sunday, October 4th
1pm @Location to be disclosed
Duration: 3 hours
A three-hour, boudoir-styled, choose-your-own-adventure in pleasure, play & connection. Join us for an afternoon delight of pleasureful explorations.
Step into a tactile, art-filled environment designed for human connection, relationship tending, and creative play. Explore five Pleasure Power Portal sources and self-guided realms featuring rest, mutual handwashing & feeding, consensual bondage play, erotic storytelling, spiritually rooted art-making, and other mind-body activations.
A burlesque performance moves throughout the space, carrying pleasure, consensual intimacy, and play into every corner.
Come for the joy. Stay for the daring. Leave more connected.
Lead Creative Team: Ruby Simmons & Aisha Jean-Baptiste
Collaborating Performers & Artists
Pre Fixe Performance
Saturday, October 17th
Sunday, October 18th
Saturday, October 24th
Sunday, October 25th
7:30pm @First Church of the Brethren
(425 S. Central Park Blvd)
Runtime: approx 75 min
The Pre Fixe Performance is a colorful, joyous, and buoyant dance theater performance rooted in the sensual aesthetic of disco, a key predecessor to Chicago house’s emergence. The work is a shifting exploration of pleasure, mining the stories, images, and sounds collected in the first phase of the Pleasure Power Portal project. Enter an an immersive environment where the documented archive converges to paint a rich, textured picture of what pleasure looks, feels, sounds, and acts like when people come together to experience it, both individually and collectively.
Lead Creative Team: Meida McNeal & Jo de Presser
Collaborating Performers & Artists
In 2025, Honey Pot Performance designed a series of creative engagements to gather stories, images, and inspiration focused on pleasure as a form of agency, power, and transformation. HPP used this rich archive of responses as the foundation to construct Pleasure Power Portal’s three phases of activation. This progressive experience shifts across collective gathering, intimate connection, and creative expression to demonstrate the power of pleasure in its many forms.
The Meet & Greet
A Royal Affair
JUNETEENTH
Adult Tea
Fifth City Festival
THE Closing Dinner
