In-Session | Root to Spirit Salon

A remix of the traditional lecture or panel, In-Session is a critical interdisciplinary salon that incorporates reading, conversation, and performance together. The salons are focused on a selection from a shared reading list which is compiled based on a theme. After the conversation on the selected works, it is activated by performance and participation—music, song, poetry, dance or movement. This season's theme is Bearing Witness.

We contemplate what it would mean to bear witness to that which makes our soul sing. How do we cultivate the courage to witness radical possibilities for others and ourselves? Through communal witnessing, how might we dream up practices and worlds that have yet to come into being? By bearing witness to that which is most authentic and life-giving to our humanity, we allow ourselves to remember what we always recognized to be true inside of us. We hold fast in knowing that thriving in the layeredness of everyday existence is, in itself, an act of resistance.

En-Sesión es una remezcla del conversatorio tradicional. Es una charla crítica e interdisciplinaria que incorpora lecturas, conversaciones y performance. Los conversatorios se enfocan en una selección de lecturas basadas en un tema específico. Después de una discusión sobre las lecturas, la charla es activada por un performance y la participación de les asistentes en forma de música, canción, poesía, danza o movimiento. El tema de esta temporada se llama “Atestiguando”.

Contemplamos lo que significaría el ser testigues de lo que hace canta a nuestra alma. ¿Cómo cultivamos el coraje para ser testigues de las posibilidades radicales para nosotres y otres? A través de el ser testigue en comunidad. ¿Cómo podemos soñar con prácticas y palabras que aún no existen? Siendo testigues de aquello que nos es más auténtico y que le da vida a nuestra humanidad, nos damos permiso para recordar lo que siempre hemos reconocido como verdadero dentro de nosotros. Nos aferramos en el saber que el prosperar en las muchas facetas de la vida cotidiana es un acto de resistencia en si mismo.

Join artists Laura Nicole Haldane and Pascale Ifé Williams for Root to Spirit : Collective Liberation Cosmologies.

We invite you to join us in engaging a practice of collective silence, deep observation, and dialogue. We will examine the work of Renee Stout through a process of diving deeper into the explorations of the elemental medicine(s) of fire, air/sky, earth, water, ether.

Accompanying us in this journey will be our collective Cultural Ancestor, Harriet Tubman whose story will guide us in deepening our collective liberation practice of bearing witness to these elements through the five senses: smell, taste, hear, see, and touch. We hope you leave attuned to a deepened reverence for our collective knowledge and an inner–understanding that you are the indelible expert of your own lived experience.

Laura Nicole Haldane, antiracist community organizer, studio artist and art historian, who also holds an MFA in studio practice from SAIC, creates from the foundation that everything is interconnected beyond subatomic levels. Their practice merges conceptual ideas around personal and community healing, proposing moments of rest/reflection within liminal PastPresent&Future spaces.

Pascale Ife Williams, PhD is a Black queer spirit-led cultural organizer, educator, scholar, and healing justice practitioner. Ife is a Chicago native with 15 years of experience in justice-driven arts and community-engaged work that explores racial, gender, and wellness equity. Her family and community are a constant source of humility, inspiration, and laughter.

In-Session Programming will be in hybrid format (presented in-person and on Zoom). There is limited capacity and we will utilize a waitlist to manage interest that exceeds our attendee count. Salons will recorded for archival purposes and photographed for documentation. Spanish interpretation will also be offered. Should someone need ASL interpretation, please contact us at [email protected].

I n-Session is supported by the Illinois Arts Council Agency.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Westside Justice Center, 601 South California Avenue, Chicago, United States