REMEMBERING RIVERWAYS: A Ritual on Sensory Movement and Embodied Altars
Facilitated by Saysah
RE-MEMBERING RIVERWAYS
Registration Form
Date
MAY 6th (Rain-Date MAY 7th) | 10AM-1PM
Location
Old Mill Parkette - 5 Old Mill Rd, Etobicoke, ON M8X 1G5
Description
Re-membering Riverways: a ritual on sensory, movement and embodied altars:
We invite community members who identify as identify as two-spirit, queer, trans and/or gender-diverse as well as Black, Afro-Caribbean, African and/or Afro-Indigenous living in the GTHA to co-create a living archive by Gabekanaang-ziibi (Ojibwe-Anishinaabeg); the so-called Humber River.
Saysah will ground folks in the resilient power of the Humber River through an overview of the site-history of the Old Mill, then move through a community embodied altar offering.
Over the ritual session Saysah will hold space and guide participants through a series of playful prompts, movements and story sharing that invoke sensory and tactile activation and reflection as embodied altars.
This ritual will be happening on the first morning after the the full moon, the flower moon and lunar eclipse in May and is an offering to the queer and trans Black community, the river-water and the self.
What to bring:
Yourself - invitation to show up as your full self (in your mundane, your grief, your joy).
An offering to the river, yourself and/or community that you want to share (can be a poem, plant medicine, affirmation, artifact, spell, etc.)
Water bottle / any snacks
Writing materials (journal, paper, pen/pencil)
Comfortable and weather responsive clothes (it will be an outdoor session
Objects for self-soothing, grounding, comfort, fidgeting (such as blankets, chimes, flow toys, ear plugs, etc.)
What to expect:
Trauma informed practice
Somatic + embodiment informed practice
Ritual + ceremony
Medicine bundle
Access informed play and intimacy
Community engagement
Co-creation
To be archived through documentation (film, photography + audio)
Activation of body-mind-spirit connection
Facilitated by Saysah
SAYSAH
My name is Saysah and I am, first and foremost, trying to get free. I am a Black, queer, non-binary person that is ever-evolving and nurtured. I am a person who lives with chronic pain that I have only
found relief with through my ceremony and ritual practice of movement, dance and earthwork. I am divinely guided by my ancestors. I am a learner and maker. I am trying to be in right relationship with this body, land and community.
I am a multisensorial artist. I am a multidisciplinary mover, and maker rooted in the Black Radical Tradition andcommunity-building. I am tangled and (un)becoming. I am always decoloniz(ing). I live on the stolen land of Turtle Island, on the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee,Anishinabewaki ᐊᓂᔑᓈᐯᐗᑭ, Wendake-Nionwentsïo, and Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation, which is Treaty 13 territory and is land of Indigenous peoples from across Turtle Island since time immemorial.
I am always in solidarity with land defenders and water protectors and Black and Indigenous freedom fighters. For me, movement is an experimental reclamation of both personal and community nurturing through anembodied somatic exploration of ancestral teachings and knowledge. As a mover and maker, they use multi-sensorial mediums as a way to tell stories that centre a disruptive practice rooted in love-ethic.