Announcing the Artist Lineup for ENCOREGANIZED! Plus Scattered Shine
In my last newsletter, I announced and invited you to attend or donate to
ENCOREGANIZED: a night of performance by Chicago artist-organizers
+ fundraiser for Rossana Rodríguez and Graciela Guzmán’s 2024 campaigns for local office
Sunday, March 3 at Cole’s Bar in Logan Square, Chicago
doors at 5pm, show ~6-8pm
And now, I’m so thrilled to now be able to share the official artist lineup!
RICH WALLACE
DAVE MAHER
BINDU POROORI
BENJI HART
GRACIELA + ROSSANA, THE CANDIDATES THEMSELVES
CO-HOSTED BY CANDY + YOURS TRULY
If you read on you are going to see we have some serious superstars in the house. Do not hesitate to come the fuck through. Even if you don’t live in town but you want to support the cause, buy a ticket to save my anxiety love me love my event production contribute to the fundraiser goal and cover attendance for someone else (no one will be turned away for lack of funds).
Read on for bios of each performer (plus scattered shine further down)!
In her first term, Alderwoman Rossana Rodríguez, now running for additional role as 33rd Ward Democratic Committeeperson, won improvements to neighborhood schools, brought affordable housing to the 33rd Ward, championed Treatment Not Trauma (a model to respond to mental health crises with clinicians instead of police), and secured funding for violence interrupters. In the community, she has increased democracy by giving neighbors a voice in zoning decisions and, through Participatory Budgeting, she invited residents to propose and vote on improvements in the 33rd Ward’s parks, streets, and green spaces. At City Hall, Rossana introduced and passed legislation to protect abortion and gender affirming care, worked to codify Chicago as a sanctuary city for immigrants, and co-led the passage of the resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Rossana is a mother, youth educator, and lifelong community activist. She is currently completing her Masters in Social Work from Northeastern Illinois University. Originally from Puerto Rico, she attended her first demonstration at the age of six, when her neighborhood of Mariana waged a successful battle for public access to drinking water. Her career as an educator includes being a drama teacher in Puerto Rico along with eight years as a director and mentor at the nationally acclaimed Albany Park Theater Project, where she guided high school students to fulfill their artistic and academic potential.
Graciela Guzmán is an organizer for the Chicago Teachers Union and longtime community leader. Her work has included piloting outreach strategies helping hard-to-reach communities sign up for Medicaid; founding the Chicago Affordable Care Act Consortium that led to the enrollment of over 53,000 Illinoisans; defending healthcare from cuts during the Trump Administration; and helping pass state legislation to expand Medicaid to all seniors over 55, regardless of their immigration status. When the pandemic struck, she helped form the Belmont Cragin Mutual Aid and Northwest Mutual Aid hub, where she helped coordinate a network of volunteers delivering food, medicine distribution, and supplies to thousands of families across the city. She also helped establish a three-year contract for a mutual aid hub to stabilize this work. She continues this partnership with mutual aid organizations directly working with asylum seekers in police stations and shelters throughout the city. In her current role as an organizer at the Chicago Teachers Union, she has helped children from police stations into school enrollment and organized members around student, teacher, and school needs to support a newcomer student community. On top of all of that, she’s a talented musician, thrilling Chicago audiences on a regular circuit with her band La Obra.
Benji Hart is an interdisciplinary artist, author, and educator whose work centers Black radicalism, queer liberation, and prison abolition. Their words have appeared or are forthcoming in anthologies from Oxford University Press, Beacon Press, Haymarket Books, Pluto Press, and have been published at Time, Teen Vogue, The Advocate, The Funambulist Magazine, and elsewhere. They have led popular education and arts-based workshops for organizations internationally, including Project NIA, Forward Together, SisterSong, and Dissenters, and presented at the Barnard Center for Research on Women, the American Repertory Theater, the National Museum of African American History & Culture, and the Chicago Architecture Biennial. Their performances have been featured at the Poetry Foundation, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Den Frie, and Museo del Chopo. They have received fellowships from Yaddo, MacDowell, Chicago Dancemakers Forum, and are a Kistenbroker Family Artist in Residence at the Lab School.
Bindu Poroori (they/she) is originally from Chennai, India, but has called Chicago home for over a decade. Bindu's artistic and political practice is rooted in youth justice, hyperlocal community care, and prison+police abolition. Find them organizing with Chicago Desi Youth Rising, performing with surf-punk-vintage-Bollywood-cover-band Do The Needful, and dayjobbing at Arts Alliance Illinois. Bindu enjoys green mangoes and doing the crossword with as many people as possible at once. Palestine will be free in our lifetimes.
Dave Maher is a comedian whose credits include This American Life and "The Bear." He explores death, community, and pop culture in his one-man shows and two podcasts, This Is Your Afterlife and Genre Reveal Party! As an organizer, he has worked with campaigns to defund CPD, stop ShotSpotter, and create COVID-safer live shows. His political home is Lucy Parsons Labs, an organization fighting against surveillance and for police accountability.
Richard Wallace, Founder of Equity And Transformation is dually an organizer and an artist. Before his career as an organizer, he and his band BBU won Independent Album of the Year for their album ‘bell hooks’. Richard went on to graduate from Roosevelt University, where he received the prestigious Matthew Freeman Social Justice Award and founded Roosevelt University’s student chapter of the Stop Mass Incarceration Network. As an organizer, He has championed campaigns to end police violence in Black communities and advance drug war reparations in IL.
Last but not least, I’ll be joined on the mic with co-host/co-emcee CANDY!
Candy is the pop persona of Martin Levy. Martin is a singer/songwriter, actor, and filmmaker. His new EP “Candy in The House of a Thousand Hearts” is out now - a mix of gender queer and dystopian pop infused with theatre, performance art, and fashion. In his own work and support of fellow artists, Martin is an advocate for communal and artist-centered facilitation and care, particularly for young queer artists.
I KNOW, RIGHT?? And you get to see all of them ON THE SAME BILL ON THE SAME NIGHT!
Get your tickets here today!
See you March 3 at Cole's!
I also wanted to take a minute to give some scattered shine to people, events, and opportunities in my broader network.
First, a handful of performances by artist genius human friends that are coming up in Chicago next month and and aren’t sold out yet:
Anjal Chande’s The Next Cup of Tea at Steppenwolf LookOut, co-presented with the MCA, March 8-9 and 14-16. I’ve been looking forward to this work for AGES. Anjal is smart as hell and a thrill to watch, and tickets are sliding-scale. Join me closing night or whenever you can make it.
Irene Hsiao’s If the Sky Could Dream at the Heritage Museum of Asian Art, throughout 2024 but with dates upcoming in February and March. It’s been far too long since I’ve this prolific, powerful artist’s work, and it’s high time that changed, perhaps for you as well! I'm gonna plan to hit both a performance + workshop in mid March.
Anna Martine Whitehead’s FORCE! an opera in three acts at the MCA, March 28-30. I’ve been hearing about FORCE! for years, ever since Martine told me the first seeds of ideas for it one time I stopped by a solo rehearsal in 2019, and then heard more about the process from composer/co-music director Ayanna Woods when we were roomies podded up during quarantine. The cast is STACKED and I’m excited to see the full premiere.
Other things to share:
My CDF Lab Artist cohort fellow Helen Lee just announced the Julie Jinhee Lee Dance Fund (deadline to apply 2/29), a $1200 award for a Chicago-based 18+ BIPOC dancer to cover classes and/or mental health care, named in honor and remembrance of Helen’s cousin Julie Jinhee Lee. If you’ve seen Helen’s work over the past couple years you may have seen her talk/share about Julie. I find this resource-share incredibly moving and hope folks will apply and/or spread the word.
Dancers for Palestine, Queer Artists for Palestine, and Artists Against Apartheid are all engaged in ongoing organizing in support of a ceasefire in Gaza and much more beyond. In addition to supporting or participating in the work of orgs like Adalah, USCPR, Jewish Voice for Peace, Shoresh, and many others, I’ve appreciated this work specific to the creative sector and recommend checking out/following if relevant to you.
If you learned about Cecila Gentili from her passing and/or the celebration of her life and impact since, now is a great time to read her book Faltas: Letters to Everyone in My Hometown Who Isn't My Rapist from Little Puss Press. I didn’t know Cecilia personally but she loved and cared for people I love, and her writing, performance, and advocacy made a great impact on me over the past couple years. May she rest in peace and in power.
It's not too late to knock doors for Bring Chicago Home before the March 19 election. Homelessness and housing advocates worked so hard to get us this on the ballot - let's make sure that effort wasn't in vain! (And if you think there's no way this wouldn't pass, trust me that the propaganda inferno is putting more coals on its fire as we speak, and just remember what happened with the statewide Fair Tax amendment in 2020. Many people can be persuaded that it's bad to tax the rich - but YOU can show up at their door, share some details, listen to and address their uncertainties, and let them know it's very very good.)
And that's enough for now. I hope to see you March 3 at ENCOREGANIZED or another time soon. Big love, big ups, thanks for doing what you're doing, see you out there.