Deviant Plays: A Play Smart Event

Deviant Plays: A Play Smart Event

Sometimes to play smart, you have to deviate from the norm.

Deviant Plays is a public discussion about sex, art, community and taking health and representation into one's own hands. Starting with performances and presentations from Kia Labejia, Timothy DuWhite, and Chaplin Christopher Jones, the night will progress into an open forum for people under-served, not served, and/or not relying on traditional means of health promotion, AIDS awareness, and other life enhancing information and education. Created and facilitated by Zachary Frater and Ted Kerr for Visual AIDS

Proving a foundation for the night is Play Smart, a series of safer sex trading cards produced by Visual AIDS that uses an honest and straightforward approach to promote harm reduction and HIV awareness. On the back of each card is information about HIV testing, pre and post exposure prophylaxis (PEP & PrEP), HIV criminalization, and the unjustly use of condoms as evidence. Play Smart features fun and creative artwork by contemporary artists and is packaged with condoms and lube. They are distributed for free in NYC through Visual AIDS - contact Ted Kerr at tkerr@visualAIDS.org for more info.

ABOUT THE INTERVENTIONISTS:

Breaking down existing communication barriers, interventionists deviate from the the common means of health promotion. Kia vogues, exhibits her work, and creates community in clubs and on dance floors. Timothy writes, performs and teaches poetry. Christopher preaches, collaborates and writes, reaching those he needs to by speaking with them where ever they happen to be at. All three do this work while talking about their bodies, passion, life, and HIV/AIDS.

BIOS:

Kia Labeija is a multi-disciplinary artist working in photography, performance and installation. A native New Yorker, she is an alumni of the Juilliard School and the Ailey School, where she trained in music and dance. Benbow is a member of the iconic House of LaBeija, a platform she uses to continue her love of the intersections of performance, nightlife and community. As an activist her work focuses on raising awareness of issues surrounding HIV/AIDS -specifically in relation to youth- by educating and creating space for new conversations through art. Currently, she is finishing her degree at The New School, NYC.

Timothy DuWhite likes to describe himself as simply one raucous heart just trying to unlearn all of the noise he has made. Through mistakes, short-comings, and failures Timothy has been able to fashion himself a body of work that speaks directly to the value of transparency and self-accountability. Timothy works as the newest Program Coordinator at Urban Word NYC; a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting literacy in the youth through the use of writing workshops and Hip Hop as a means of pedagogy. Timothy has dedicated his journey of both artist-hood as well as person-hood to the preservation of story, to our stories. Timothy believes that by sharing our individual experiences and maintaining a dialogue of honesty amongst ourselves we can better navigate this behemoth we call life.

Christopher Jones, aka Chaplain Jones, is a faith leader, writer, thinker and arts activist committed to creating conversation around sexuality and spirituality, and HIV/AIDS and faith. As a clinically trained chaplain, he is the founder of Griot Works Pastoral Service and a member of the College of Pastoral Supervision and Psychotherapy. In 2013 he collaborated with Ted Kerr to create, "Inflamed" a work for AIDS ACTION NOW's posterVIRUS campaign.

7-9 PM, May 22 2014
Project Reach, 39 Eldridge Street, NYC