the unlearning retreat 2022: the way we be. 

Saturday April 2, 2022 11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. 

At the IFC (58 Winthrop, Medford MA)

what is your truth? how do you tap into the worth of knowing? let us journey together, as we reorient our personhood and imagine ourselves unearthing the quiet confidence within. in this Unlearning Retreat, join storäe michele and Jé Exodus Hooper in a practice of personal and communal freedom-making.

The second annual Unlearning Retreat is hosted this year by the Tufts Humanist Chaplaincy and the Tufts Hindu Chaplaincy. This year's theme the way we be will ask what you what your truth is, and bring storäe michele and Jé Hooper to the Interfaith Center on Saturday, February 12. You can RSVP here and reach out to Hindu Advisor Preeta Banerjee with any questions or accessibility needs.

This gathering will be guided through a series of mini-workshops featuring storytelling through poetry, film, song, folklore, communal soundscapes and participant’s creation of short speculative rituals. this is a retreat for any spectrum of individuals who identify as BIPOC and are undergrad or master students. 

we are Jé Hooper + storäe michele—creative, free thinking theological and congregation-based organizers.

our areas of study are inclusive of community-based performance,  multi-media production, + wordsmithing. our research integrates critical race + queer theory,  ritual theatre, and decolonizing language + embodiment, which lends to our community-based art  practice.

prior to this, we attained master degrees from Union Theological Seminary. these  theological pursuits began nearly fifteen years after careers as educators and it was through public charter pedagogies that we met + started this love-work together.  unknowingly, we both graduated from Pratt Institute, each with a Master of Professional Studies: storäe in Creative Arts Therapy and Jé in Arts Administration. these  educational milestones affirm our embodied practice and professionalism as it relates to our  commitment to human service, community organizing, and congregational development.

storäe michele (they/she) is a black queer, shape-shifting, non-binary femme, afro-futurist performer + storäe-teller. their creative practice integrates intergenerational healing and flourishing of black femmes with a turn to intuitive, communal, informal, and speculative methods. they engage these strategies as tools towards building a present and embodied archive for black femme futures, enacting a process they name “a practice in black femme freedom-making.”

their first film, [the listening heart], was officially selected for film festivals internationally + domestically. her upcoming piece, [claustrophobia], is supported by Columbia University’s Center on African American Religion, Sexual Politics & Social Justice. storäe, a Pratt Institute alum (MPS, ‘08; MFA, ‘21), is heavily inspired by badass femmes of the funk era + may be spotted in big hair, leopard print + bright, kaleidoscopic, fuzzy garments.

Jé (they/them) teaches Theatre History at School of Theater at Ohio University and Ethical Humanist clergy. Jé is a performative preacher, producer and provocator for justice. Exemplifying a commitment to equity and inclusion within our movement, Jé’s works use performance-based practices to decolonize Humanist lectures and conventions of Intellectual Thought.

With a love for orality, Black folx-talk becomes their contribution to humanist rhetoric — one of imagination as meaning-making. Their most recent production, Keep Liv’n, expresses the importance of cultural care and self-care. To witness Jé is to experience an unapologetic site of human freedom and interconnectedness that is deeply embodied, visceral, creative, and radical.

These kinds of transdisciplinary approaches console and agitate communities in re-imagining and re-claiming narratives that honor the inherited worth and dignity within all people– a love-work that Jé is committed to!

Agenda

11 am | early afternoon session.

grounding ritual, introductions, community norms and responsibilities. 

excavating with a new lens.

1pm | lunch.

| mama [rose.] screening + folx talk.

3 pm | late afternoon session.

listening to your intuition.

practicing freedom-making.

 5:30pm |evening session.

prophetic pillows.

7pm | dinner.

reflections.