Kicking off SoRA’s monthlong residency at the National Academy of Design, join us for our opening party from 6 to 8pm on Tuesday, March 31st! We will reawaken various “attentional prosthetics” traditionally found in school environments, and transform their severity into severeness with fierce ballroom performers Rinor Zymberi, Caleb Thomas, and Prince Carhuajulca.
The traditional school environment can be a tool of discipline and normalization. Yet the unyielding diversity of our human attention transforms these limitations into play, humor, and collective memory—much like the joy shared by “houses” that function as alternative schools and chosen families of the ballroom world. We invite you to revel in this vision of renewed joy, enjoy our display of antique school objects, and learn more about SoRA’s upcoming events at the residency.
Light refreshments will be served.
About the performers:
Caleb Thomas is a Latinx west coast born choreographer/performance artist. His movement vocabulary has come from his diverse dance training in Hip Hop, Modern, Contemporary, Ballet, Jazz, and Vogue. Now based in NYC, his work is heavily rooted in queer club culture. @calebthomas
Prince Carhuajulca is an Afro-Indigenous Non-Binary Peruvian-Venezuelan multidisciplinary artist focused on dance, poetry, and community organizing, as well as one of the founders of the Ballroom scene in Peru. For the past seven years, she has been organizing balls, dance practices, fundraisers, poetry jams, music and art festivals, and sound-based projects. She always focuses her art into inviting diverse bodies—and especially the bodies of QTBIPOC migrants—to join in and explore the ritual of bodily exploration.@inti.laprince
Rinor Zymberi is an Albanian immigrant hailing from the Bronx. As a proud member of the International House of ELLE, Rinor walks New Way Vogue under the guidance of the International Icon and Pioneer, Stanley DeVaughn. Rinor has also been a vogue instructor at Gibney Dance, Broadway Dance Center, Alvin Ailey Extension, Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance (BAAD!), Lehman College, SUNY Purchase and Barnard College. Exploring the extremes of movement and contortion in relation to music in and out of the floors of NYC nightclubs. @fairyrinor
Photo credit: Courtesy of the National Academy of Design, photography by Argenis Apolinario.