The Night We Became People Again Guarionex

Gavilán Rayna Russom has spent most of her life in the nightlife scene. Nightlife is how she has found community, refined her politics, earned a living as a musician and a DJ, and gained a deeper agreement of herself as an embodied existence. Her work "fuses theory with expression, nightlife with academia and spirituality with everyday life." She not simply uses synthesizers merely likewise uses synthesis as a structuring principle of her piece of work, "weaving together highly differentiated strands of information and creative textile into cogent expressive wholes."

When nightlife in New York City (and elsewhere) ended overnight in March, Rayna saw an opportunity amongst the loss. She saw an opportunity for people for whom nightlife is meaningful to take a "sacred pause" together, to get together and talk about what it is that they get out of the scenes they're a part of, and what they can build to better meet commonage needs.

Over Halloween weekend, she is organizing a colloquium through her label Voluminous Arts–appropriately called a Halloquium–to encourage conversation, connection, and shared unearthing of cognition. Halloquium 2020: Breathing the Worlds that Are, Dreaming the Worlds to Come, Weaving the Bridges Between, the queer- and trans-led gathering will combine give-and-take, performance, and ritual.

Dissimilar other conferences, the Halloquium volition prioritize knowledge every bit a shared process of unearthing through chat.

Rayna shares the inspiration backside the Halloquium, what she hopes it volition reach, and why it matters that it's going to be held over Halloween weekend.

Photo Credit: Guarionex Rodriguez Jr.

Tell me about the inspiration behind the Halloquium.

The Halloquium was inspired by two different threads, one of which is my own biography and my own evolving trajectory and the other i is COVID and quarantine. I'k a person who for a very, very long fourth dimension, since I was probably 13 or fourteen years old (I'thou 47 at present) found nightlife spaces to be really meaningful in lots of ways. I've institute myself gravitating towards them equally a place to connect with people, to build customs, to understand who I am, to unearth my identity and innovate. When that basically disappeared (more than or less overnight) in terms of being able to physically be in space with each other, information technology really hit me quite hard.

And I also got COVID very early, which was a humbling experience for certain. I only started to actually reflect and recollect a lot near why was I gravitating towards nightlife? What was I getting out of it? And pretty apace [realized information technology was because] I had a lot of unmet needs: as a trans person, as a queer person, but also just as a person, every bit a homo being, walking effectually in this sort of very warped globe that we alive in. I had a lot of needs that were just not met by what life in the daytime looked similar. And I brought those to nightlife.

At that place [was] this big repository of unmet needs that I've been bringing to nightlife and [quarantine] gave me the opportunity to really retrieve a little bit more about that. And also call back about how well was it actually meeting my needs? How well was that actually addressing these things?

This experience with having COVID and realizing just how critical like a community network really is. Because I [couldn't] do anything, I needed somebody to bring me food. And at the same fourth dimension, I was watching the Ridgewood Tenants Spousal relationship transform into the Ridgewood Common Aid Network. That was lifting my spirits every solar day to lookout man the style that they were coordinating. I was able to also participate in a lot of that every bit a volunteer. That was the ground.

And then I was also really, really saddened because so many, especially younger folks in the nightlife scene we're posting this stuff [near], "I can't expect til we're all back together once again." And I was like, I don't think that's what nosotros're doing hither. And even if we are, this presents such an incredible opportunity to take a sacred pause together.

I was having such incredible conversations one-on-one. There were people like I'd seen for years in clubs, through the brume. I was just like, oh yeah, I love that person. But we'd never really talked. And then in the quarantine, we [would] go sit half dozen anxiety autonomously in a park or we talk on the phone for like 90 minutes, 2 hours. And it was just and then powerful.

I have ever believed in similar the conversation as a very powerful matter or powerful mode of cosmos. And of class, it's then much what happens in clubs; these sort of conversations that we get to have off in a trivial space that's far enough from the speakers. So the Halloquium was really a fashion to facilitate being able to practice that in this time where it's non happening in that natural style that got handed downwardly to us.

Nosotros're all really creative. [In the] xxx, 32, 33 years that I've been involved in nightlife, [the] inventiveness and styles of music and technologies? It'southward unbelievable. So that was part of the idea, too, is to like be able to apply that inventiveness of building something for ourselves. Corporations have increasingly infiltrated nightlife infinite. That's led to a lot of real flattening, a lot of homogenization, a lot of whitening and a lot eradication of the things that are then fertile and important about it.

For people that aren't involved in nightlife, information technology's a existent shift in perspective only to start to recollect well-nigh it as a space that can be healing and generated and customs-based. I think at that place's this perception that information technology'south just putting on your tiniest wearing apparel and getting absolutely drunk out of your listen. What does nightlife offer?

Oh, wow, okay, yes! People have had different experiences than I have and have dissimilar perspectives on this! And one thing that I similar almost nightlife is that information technology's a lot of different things at the same time. And it is putting on your tiniest dress and getting every bit drunkard every bit yous can. You know, that exists within this framework. And putting on your tiniest dress, in my personal experience, is as well a very healing experience and a very important experience.

Honestly, same.

Nightlife illuminates and so many things that are really heavily dysfunctional about our culture. And that's i. That type of misogyny and patriarchy that says that'due south hedonistic or cocky-indulgent. That'southward the very kind of thing that gets upended in nightlife where you take a physical embodied experience that things just piece of work differently than the overarching structures that we live under say they practise. For me, that's deep feminism.

I call back ane thing that is simple, but information technology illuminates a lot of it is that things are really different at nighttime. Just in a visual manner. You know, the edges betwixt things mistiness, if you accept a walk at night, it's a little harder to see where the tree ends and the heaven begins. Everything gets a little more blurry and that also happens in social frameworks. You tin be in a gild at night and exist interacting with people who might not interact with each other during the daytime. Across racial lines and gender lines and economic lines. And generational lines.

Especially as a immature person, I had this incredible experience of really beingness continued to lots of older generations and mentorship and knowledge that was getting passed down in these social frameworks that happen in clubs. Information technology wasn't happening in work. It wasn't happening in school. Those things really happened for me in clubs. That's where I learned how to be in the world. And what was important. That's where my politics got refined.

There's moving your body to music in a space that's permissive and oriented towards that. For me—equally a queer person and as a trans person—that was very of import because there were understandings that I had in my body. Our culture's very gendered and I was constantly bumping into that. And again, that nightlife space, in the dark, things get a little more than blurry. There was a structure of permission where on the dance floor I could move my trunk and motion my body to sound. And when I began to move my body, information began to come up. And I began to sympathise things. And also other people began to understand things about me because of the way that I moved my body.

I think information technology's part of the commodification of nightlife that often gets framed in this very Eurocentric transcendence model of [going] into this infinite and then [losing] our identities and becoming one. That just isn't my experience. What I experienced is actually I became much more continued to myself, much more in my trunk. Much more enlightened of my identity. My identity developed because of what I was understanding in those spaces. And then it was much less transcendence of the ego and much more similar a existent affidavit that these things like that I knew and felt were really real and could exist in a physical space with other people.

I think that'due south the power; that all these things happening at the aforementioned time. A lot of them are not slap-up. And I recollect that'south function of the Halloquium's idea. For somebody like me, I've been bringing these needs to nightlife. And it did an okay job, but in this moment where we don't take that, what a cool thing to enquire how well was it doing? And are in that location new structures that nosotros can introduce that might practise that even better, come across those needs meliorate or remove some of the liabilities and the sort of general unsafety?

What I've realized for myself is nightlife actually structures rest into my life. Yous lay depression the twenty-four hours of, and and then the times that you're out and about, nobody needs anything from you. You're non looking at your telephone. It's probably turned off anyways. And then you have a mean solar day of recovery. And so yous actually build in the residue that y'all need. That's what'southward hard for me to replicate right now!

What are some of the ways that you desire to come across nightlife moving forrard or ways that you think that we can proceed to push button our communities to better support ourselves and each other?

Possibly the well-nigh important thing is that I don't know and I don't retrieve any individual person knows. And if they did, I think that would be a problem. Ane of the things that happened for me in the quarantine [was I was] observing and looking at like social media and stuff is when somebody would similar post or say [with] really articulate perspective, this is what's going on, this is what we should be doing, this is what astrologically is happening. That is totally uninteresting to me. I had zero interest in that. But the people with perspectives of wow, I feel scared and I'm confused and I don't know what's happening, is anybody else going through it? That's actually rich.

I have some thoughts and ideas, just my main idea is that I know that people in conversation with each other is how new structures get congenital. People beingness honest about what their needs are and what their experiences are. That'southward how change happens. That'south how revolutions happen. And that'south how innovation happens. Information technology'southward through chat. Conversation is such a powerful mode of creating, an incredible creative act. It'southward an unearthing deed. I hateful, we're having it now—the discovery through conversation of, what do I really think what's of import to me?

I recall the conversational model is woven throughout every aspect of my life. The all-time music to trip the light fantastic toe to works on a conversational model. The kick drum is talking to the bass line. That conversational model that actually comes out of black trans-Atlantic traditions. And you also take that sort of conversational model on the dance flooring. A dance flooring where everybody is facing the DJ and all moving together, it'south not an interesting trip the light fantastic toe flooring to me. A dance that's conversational with everyone sort of moving in unlike ways...That'southward an interesting trip the light fantastic floor. An interesting DJ set is a DJ set that's conversational and a bartender that I desire to go on going back to the place where they work is a bartender that's conversational. A conversational model, just actually is everywhere in what'south been meaningful to me about my life. And then that's the sort of starting bespeak for me, is, y'all know, to really move into the conversational.

It also forces us to decenter figureheads and talking heads. To build together, to get together.

That'south an opportunity that for me really existed in nightlife spaces. During the daytime, it's mostly similar to pay attention to this one person. At night and in nightlife space, there's a lot of different things going on here. There's a DJ playing and you could potentially brand that person into the one person to listen to. Only it'south not the most interesting pick.

One thing I've certainly witnessed is that every bit corporate interests take infiltrated nightlife spaces, there has been this shift towards like that singular focus, that figurehead of similar, this is an amazing DJ, you take to see them. At worst, anybody's filming the DJ.

And one conversation [that] I call back is of import is the manner that that duplicates a fascist model. Considering folks are having fun and partying, one sort of doesn't quite realize what's happening or the structural model that one'southward reinforcing and participating in. But it's a fascist model that everybody faces the DJ and everybody moves as 1 thing and this idea of [tapping] into this group mind and we all become i affair. I think it's critical to move away from that and to really, first of all, be aware of it. And too, really prioritize building structures that don't fall prey to that tendency.

Back to the Halloquium, every bit you're thinking most facilitating these conversations, what has that process of curation or invitation or programming looked like?

I'd similar to get people talking. And I know that when it's night and you're in a room total of fog and there's lasers and there's loud music playing, sometimes information technology's like shooting fish in a barrel to talk because you lot can't quite be heard. It'southward dark. And then those edges are blurring. And that, you know, in my feel it'due south facilitated some pretty absurd conversations over the years. But I know that in a framework where conversation is really sort of the primary matter, like a conference, it can sometimes exist difficult. And when it becomes hard, it'due south sure voices that drop out of the conversation for whatever reason, because their voices of people who are, you know, not represented on a wider calibration or because, you know, people are shy. People are anxious. People feel like [they] don't actually know what to say. So that was one real impetus; to create a space where people really feel comfortable talking to each other. Just I know that that's not going to just happen if I simply say allow's get together for two days and I'll talk nigh nightlife. Information technology needs a lot more care.

And it grew a little bit out of when I took my film, No More White Presidents on tour because the main reason I fabricated that film was to stimulate a conversation. When I did that film, when I taught that moving-picture show, what I ended upwards doing was bringing together people (usually people who had very strong activist backgrounds, but as well were very rooted in the creative arts) to just have a conversation with me later the pic.

To some caste, like a console, just not really a panel, more than just like people talking. To model for people like this is an option. There'south this possibility for united states of america to sit down, talk, not really have a bunch of astonishing points, but unearth a lot of really amazing points. And that worked really well. It was really absurd. And it did bring people who came to seem to motion picture into conversations. And so based on that model, I thought, well, it would be cool to have some folks that I want to hear from, that I desire to talk to model some conversations and create some themes and create some ideas of what are some of these conversations that would be absurd to have?

I drew from really like my own feel. Who are the people I've been really engaged by when they post something? When they put something out on their label? When I become come across them play? [I] actually tried to remove the idea of a genre-based arroyo or even a depict-based approach. [I] made a lot of lists. A lot of lists of people I'd similar to get involved. I started planning information technology back in April, and information technology was only that over and over again, making a list, revising it, trying to think of who could be a cool combination. Then starting to get some focused themes.

And then this autumn, this volunteer commission came together and that was really productive. We began to run into once a calendar week and really model the thing that I'1000 talking about. We just had conversations and from those conversations emerged a much more than focused version of what this thing is.

And Loma Donnell came on as banana curator. First of all, they were an incredible sounding board for the ideas that I had, but also brought a couple of the crews that were part of it. They brought in Ascendance which Gypsi and Aaron are gonna exist on the first panel and a couple other people too.

And one of the critical things is that there needs to be similar not but state acquittance simply actually, actually comprehensive state acknowledgment. Partly considering I call up that'southward just baseline important. Only I think in particular, we all party in these contested spaces. For generations we've been partying on this state that non only has a history, just has a present and has an Indigenous presence. And that'south really critical, again, especially in taking a sacred pause. In that framework of night, opening things up in the trunk, that's where the energy of the dead actually starts to go a concrete and palpable reality. And again, in terms of things that are sort of inadequately dealt with in the nightlife infinite. I think that's a big one. [At that place'southward] this really unreconciled ancestral free energy that exists in the present. Information technology's non something that happened in the past. I retrieve it's very of import to outset reconciling it and dealing with it.

When people do country acknowledgments, it'due south as though there was like one monolithic people that lived in a physical location before and I think that that really disregards both history and the present.

Then often people do state acknowledgment from this thought of "this country belongs to the Lenape," which is, you know, that'southward a colonizing argument. Because until the Dawes Act of 1887, the land didn't belong to anybody. People are really forced through violence and genocide into land buying. What existed before was a actually dissimilar concept of what it meant to live on land. And I recollect, you know, when it'southward cast in terms of ownership, information technology's reinvigorating this capitalist model of things.

If every event starts with not but country acknowledgment, but really comprehensive land acknowledgment that engages some of these things that you lot but mentioned, then how does information technology build from there?

How do you desire people to go out this Halloquium and what yous hope they leave with?

In the short term, I think it's almost building connectedness and community. This has been an extremely intense time. Because of the heavily minimized way that nosotros're able to collaborate with each other, at that place hasn't been a ton of opportunity to just talk about what'south been happening. Particularly around nightlife. What is it like to lose the vessel in 24 hours? To exist able to connect effectually that and to use that conversational model to unearth stuff.

It'south non like a traditional panel. What it is, is some people that I think are interesting and that, hopefully, other people recollect are interesting talking to each other and simply modeling what information technology's similar to accept a conversation and what accept they been thinking about. There's non a Q&A. There's not everybody asking the adept what they call back. What nosotros're gonna practice is working groups. We're going to motility from those moderated conversations, directly into here's some stuff that came upward, hither's a few questions that came up during this panel.

And that'south why we're using Remo rather than Zoom or another platform, because Remo is a very visual platform. It allows people to meet together in small-scale groups in a really easy mode and to move from tabular array to tabular array. It doesn't work in this hierarchical way of I heard that experts speak on the panel and I'm going to enquire them questions to bear witness off to them how much I know.

It'southward really congenital on like people really getting to connect to each other and talk to each other and encounter each other and also run into people that they don't know, and notice that they accept no common interests with somebody and really build community.

Then in the longer shot, my hope is that this creates a way that folks for whom nightlife is meaningful tin can genuinely build some new self-adamant, bottom-upward structures for ourselves that aren't beholden to the corporate juggernaut.

So, why fiscal sponsorship? What has Fractured Atlas supported this project?

Ane of the things that happened early on was understanding that it is a big effect and it takes money to put on and non wanting to do any kind of corporate sponsorship. Voluminous Arts is a label and to some degree a brand. But information technology's a label that is built with the idea of finding a different approach than the branding arroyo, really based on this conversational model. Talk about the infiltration of corporate interests into nightlife. Directly corporate sponsorship is a huge part of what I've seen grow over time. And it'southward really sinister; it goes far beyond just the fact that in that location'due south a logo on the flyer or sometimes even a logo on the club. Information technology sits there in the construction and information technology infects information technology in these ways. And for me, those have been very problematic. And sometimes information technology's necessary. And I've certainly done things which relied on corporate sponsorship sometimes. Merely in building this and also looking at this opportunity of taking a sacred pause together. It was critical that there'southward non a bunch of logos; there's non a corporate sponsor. And so that required building an alternative manner to fund it.

Nosotros were able to build a different model where essentially we were able to fundraise from individuals, from queer individuals of means. Fractured Atlas is what really enabled us to do that, because through a fiscal sponsor, we were able to have those donations be tax-deductible. And also those donations are all facilitated in a single place.

We built the host committee, which has been amazing. Inferno Party, which has moved online, did a fundraiser also, and then [Fractured Atlas] was a fundamental place where nosotros could only directly people to say, if you lot'd like to support this outcome, here'due south where you get and the donation is tax-deductible.

That continues to exist really powerful considering ane of the really important things is that this event is accessible to everyone, regardless of how much they are able to pay. If you accept the means, purchase a full-price ticket, it'due south absolutely worth it. It'southward necessary to buy a full-price ticket. Merely, this is a conversation and that conversation actually can't happen unless information technology's accessible to everybody.

Fractured Atlas besides gave us the opportunity to say, here'southward a sliding calibration; tickets are available. No questions asked. Regardless of your fiscal state of affairs, you can get a ticket. If you're a person of means who wants to buy a full-toll ticket and pay a little more, go to Fractured Atlas, make a donation, balance out the sliding scale tickets. Then that was a lot of what nosotros're able to build using fiscal sponsorship. And again, to only have it all be revenue enhancement-deductible, accept information technology happen in a unmarried place and have it be easy and streamlined.

Did you plan it to be over Halloween or Samhain? Does that take an energetic pull on you in some way?

I'm a witch. I'1000 born on Beltane. Samhain is the far side of the agenda for me. It was a moment of inspiration and I'd just gotten over COVID. I'd just written a couple different texts, one for Honey Injection about having and the necessity of customs building and nightlife. And ane about commodification and techno and genres. And then this stuff was very fresh in my heed and on the surface. In that location was just a spark of inspiration, similar I want to do something where nosotros can get together and talk about this, considering from what I know, like something actually crude simply happened.

Initially, I thought that might be something that happened this summertime. And as I thought most it, I was like, this is going to accept some time to put together and October'due south about a minimum amount of time I demand to put this together. And I thought, well, damn, y'all know, Halloween can sometimes exist really disappointing. If you lot like clubs, Halloween, it's like New Year's. [There's] a lot of expectation. Sometimes it can be amazing. It's a holiday I really dear. And, this year there's not a lot going on. I think a lot of people would like to do something, merely they're non really doing stuff. Because [the Halloquium] is virtual, information technology's an international consequence. There's places where COVID is really high right at present and presents an opportunity for people in those places to practise something.

Just also, it'southward a time when the veil is sparse. It'due south akin to that stuff I was talking about, about nighttime, where the edges do mistiness the sort of realms of possibility. The dead are very present in our waking life. This stuff that nosotros exercise in nightlife is so ancestrally relevant. It really is well-nigh lineages especially for queer people. And it is built on people who have passed on and information technology'due south built on a lot of contested spaces. At that place is and then much of the ancestral that's upfront in what we do including the fact that these sounds that we and so savour moving to take been passed downwards through sampling; reused, reinvigorated. At that place's so much of the ancestral that I think bears non merely honoring but engaging with. And doing it on Halloween and All Souls 24-hour interval...these are resonant dates. These are important dates and. Then, of form, when I realized that you can take the word colloquium, cram together with the word Halloween and it would be a Halloquium. The bargain was sealed.

Is there anything yous desire to add that I didn't already ask that you want to make room for? I can't tell you lot how good this conversation is for my centre.

That'due south beautiful. I mean, that's 1 matter. Since this started, every time I've had a conversation with somebody about it, there'southward been a proof of concept that it'south similar this really does work; people talking to each other especially people talking to each other in this time and people talking to each other for whom, for whatever reason, it'due south been meaningful to be out there in the middle of the night breathing in fog. The lasers, getting pounded with base, you know, similar something happens and it is actually healing for the heart

Come. That's what I want to say to everyone, you know, come and be part of this. If you can buy a total-price ticket, not bad. It'due south really not so much well-nigh the coin as information technology is about having as many voices in the room as possible doing this thing together so that we can connect.

When I saturday down and started to talk to the committee members, one affair that came out was like, what was I really seeking out? What did I go along to seek out going to clubs? And it really came downwardly to this connection with my body. And in a deep way, connection with myself as an embodied being. Connectedness with my sexuality in its authenticity and connection with other people that was able to unfold in really radical and really queer in really interesting ways in the club. And that's what is sort of on a little flake of interruption right now. And that presents this cool opportunity to just share that with other people and find different means to make those connections.

And the other matter is just to say that this is queer- and trans-led. Not everyone that is speaking identifies as a queer person or trans person. And that's really of import considering it's of import to have a lot of dissimilar voices. All of the people speaking are people who take washed actually meaningful work in my customs, even though they may identify every bit part of that community. Information technology'southward so resonant and meaningful as a queer and trans person to atomic number 82 an event, but too to participate in that. Queer and trans folks see things that other people miss. Because we have to. And also, nosotros've had to innovate a lot simply in our everyday lives just to survive. I've had this amazing privilege of being able to do this, you know, being able to build something. And I'thousand excited for it to be a building block to greater and deeper things.

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You can buy tickets to the Halloquium and support the Halloquium on its Fractured Atlas fundraising folio. Follow Voluminous Arts on its website and on Instagram.

More posts by Nina Berman

Nigh Nina Berman

Nina Berman is an arts manufacture worker and ceramicist based in New York City, currently working as Associate Director, Communications and Content at Fractured Atlas. She holds an MA in English language from Loyola University Chicago. At Fractured Atlas, she shares tips and strategies for navigating the art world, interviews artists, and writes virtually creating a more equitable arts ecosystem. Before joining Fractured Atlas, she covered the book publishing industry for an audience of publishers at NetGalley. When she's non writing, she's making ceramics at Centerpoint Ceramics in Brooklyn.

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Source: https://blog.fracturedatlas.org/member-spotlight-voluminous-arts-halloquium

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