Queer History + Divine Booty Shaking + QTBIPoC community

Get Free @ Fab Lab is a SOL VIDA™ monthly conscious dance laboratory honoring queer ancestors in conjunction with Eye Zen Presents. 

"People need this!" - participant

Dance. Connection. Authentic Expression.

In these fabulous two-hour sessions, we will gain inspiration, thematic guidance and restoration retelling queer histories. Come prepared to take risks, explore acting, dance, voice, and holistic wellness through guided embodiment and story sharing.

Using form and freedom in movement we enter a fertile ground for fabrication to keep these legacies alive. This is a safe space where you get to be anything you need to be. 

Dance in divine time in supportive community- activate healthy sensuality, creativity, and body positivity. Release your mind, have fun, and get free in the body. 

Designed for emerging and established artists, artivists, revolutionaries and creatives who self-identify as queer, trans, black, indigenous, people of color (*QTBIPoC). All levels of movers are welcome. *Please reach out to Axé with any questions around identity and who this is for at iamsolvida@gmail.com

:::FAB LAB FLOW:::

Dress comfortably. Bring water. We dance with bare feet.

✨Enter the Space

✨Ancestor Invocation/Intention/Inspiration 

✨Form

✨Freedom

✨Heart Speak

Every third Fab Lab is for Errrybody- ALL ARE WELCOME

SELECT PAST FAB LAB SESSIONS:

Josephine Baker - (1906-1975) Queer, Bi-Sexual, Radical Performer, Civil Rights Activist. American-born dancer, singer, actress, and the toast of France, who became the first black international superstar, an activist, and a spy. Her parents were both vaudeville performers, and Baker grew up on the stage, but had little by way of food or money.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe - (1915-1973) The Godmother of Rock N' Roll. " Rock-n-Roll was invented by a queer Black woman born in 1915 Arkansas." - Erin White, Afro Punk. Gospel singer, flamboyant performer--pushed spiritual music into the mainstream. Inducted into the Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame. Learn more about Sister Rosetta Tharpe here. 

Marsha P. Johnson - (1945-1992) As a transgender woman of color who led riots and worked to care for people like her, Marsha P. Johnson is everything that the queer movement has tried to pretend doesn’t exist. She is everything we should be proud of.

Zack Thompson - (1935 - 1996) Legendary San Francisco-based African-American dancer and choreographer, Thompson became an internationally known jazz dancer, working with Katherine Dunham, Alvin Ailey, Johnny Mathis, Maya Angelou and Aretha Franklin. He died of AIDS at the age of 61 in 1996 at Laguna Honda in SF.

Gladys Bentley - (1906 - 1960) Famed Harlemite singer known as the Brown Bomber of Sophisticated Song wore a tuxedo just as she proudly wore the title “Bulldagger,” Gladys Bentley’s voice infused the room with excellence, carrying with it realities of an open lesbian policed for her masculine appearance.

Sylvester - (1944-1988) joined The Cockettes in the early 1970s and soon met his collaborator Patrick Cowley. Together, a magical combination, they unleashed two disco classics: You Make Me Feel, Mighty Real and Dance, Disco Heat. Known as The Queen of the Castro and San Francisco’s International Disco Diva, Sylvester died of AIDS in San Francisco at age 40.

Willie Ninja - (1961-2006) Ninja, known as the godfather of voguing, was a fixture of ball culture at Harlem's drag balls who took inspiration from sources as far-flung as Fred Astaire and the world of haute couture to develop a unique style of dance and movement. He caught the attention of Paris Is Burning director Jennie Livingston, who featured Ninja prominently in the film.

Lorraine Hansberry- (1930-1965) Hansberry was a playwright and writer. She was the first African-American female author to have a play performed on Broadway. Her best known work, the play A Raisin in the Sun, highlights the lives of Black Americans living under racial segregation in Chicago. She contributed writing to the magazine The Ladder published by theDaughters of Billitis, the San Francisco-based lesbian rights organization.

This series is led by Axé!

These experiences are led by April (Axé) Charmaine (ah-shay), the Nomadic Renaissance Woman, a world-renowned, award-winning holistic dance and performing arts educator, producer, artist, choreographer, author, and founder of Sol Vida Worldwide. Leading an embodied revolution for radical self-love and authentic expression. Axé has shared this love and light in the United States, Ghana, Guatemala, Brasil, Colombia, France and Spain. 

Sol Vida Worldwide is shifting normalcy leading empowering embodiment experiences for self-identified women and queer, trans, black, indigenous, people of color.

"SOL VIDA classes are vibrant, fun, and tap into ancient archetypal movements that leave you feeling connected to higher realms." -Omar Aena, Dance Lab /Ecstatic Dance NYC

Specializing in cross-cultural, contemporary and conscious dance fusions and embodied choreography that draw upon dances of the African Diaspora, Modern, SomaSource, 5 Rhythms, Ecstatic Dance, Ballet, Jazz, Musical Theatre, Guerilla Theatre, Performance Art, Yoga, Meditation, Improv and Creative Movement.

For more information visit: www.solvidaworldwide.com @solvidaworldwide