BAAD launches Courageous Conversations 2019 an Arts/Talk Series for LGBTQ people and allies

Award-winning Cartoonists/Artivists Ivan Velez, Jr. & Jennifer Camper kick off BAAD!’s 2019 series Courageous Conversations: Strategies for Living and Loving in America

BAAD! - The Bronx Academy of Arts & Dance reignites its newest series called Courageous Conversations: Strategies for Living and Loving in America, a free mix of topical talks and resilience workshops led by leading thinkers and doers from the arts, media and politics, followed by a facilitated/open community forum for queer people and allies on how to navigate and thrive in the current political climate. The series kick-off will be on Tuesday, July 23. 2019 at 7pm at BAAD! 2474 Westchester Avenue in the Westchester Square section of the Bronx, and features the award-winning cartoonists, Jennifer Camper and Ivan Velez, Jr.  These two powerhouses have fostered change through their art, activism and professional practice. The event is free and open to the public. Call 718-918-2110 or visit website: www.BAADBronx.org for info and additional directions. Courageous Conversations is supported by The Rubin Foundation and the NYC Dept of Cultural Affairs.

For the past 20 years, BAAD! has held consistent space for the Bronx’s LGBTQ community presenting live performance, community forums and social/civic engagement. BAAD! has also stepped into a leadership role linking LGBTQ community organizing efforts to performances when the art and activism share a theme. The Courageous Conversations series convenes LGBTQ people and allies to develop strategies to navigate social and political challenges to achieve success, wellness and thriveability. 

The first event of the 2019 series features Bronx-born Boricua cartoonist, Ivan Velez, Jr., who used cartooning to help create social change. His comic book series, Tales of the Closet, created in 1987, was first used as a popular educational tool and was one of the first interventions for LGBTQ youth. Velez later joined Milestone to create multicultural superheroes. He wrote comics for Marvel and DC and has shown his work in museums and galleries from the Bronx to Taipei. His work has been included in several award-winning anthologies including Gay Comix and Qu33r, and he has edited graphic novels for Dutton Books which received recognition from the American Library Association. Among his many grants is a Creative Capital grant in 2015 to support his publishing imprint Planet Bronx. Velez hosts art workshops and is a popular teaching artist for the New York Public Library and the Bronx Museum of the Arts. 

Jennifer Camper is a cartoonist and graphic artist whose art examines life from a perspective that is irreverent, female, queer, and mongrel (Lebanese American). Her work often explores gender, race, class, and politics, as well as sexuality, mermaids, and robots. She’s a cartoon editor, a teacher, and the creator of the biennial Queers & Comics Conference, an international and inter-generational gathering of queer cartoonists. Her books include Rude Girls and Dangerous Women, a collection of her cartoons, and subGURLZ, a graphic novella following the adventures of three women living in abandoned subway tunnels. She also edited two Juicy Mother comics anthologies. Her cartoons and illustrations have appeared in numerous publications and have been exhibited internationally.

Courageous Conversations continues through November 2019 and will include a diverse cross section of artists and thinkers including author Darnell Moore, artist Lola Flash, comic Devi Peacock.

Crowned “a funky and welcoming performance space” by The New York Times, BAAD! is a performance and workshop space that presents cutting-edge works in dance and all creative disciplines empowering to women, Latinos and people of color and the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) community. BAAD! is home to Arthur Aviles Typical Theatre (AATT), the Bronx Dance Coalition and the AATT Academy, and was founded by dancer/choreographer Arthur Aviles and writer/activist Charles Rice-Gonzalez in 1998 in Hunts Point. BAAD! moved to Westchester Square in October 2013 to a gothic revivalist building on the grounds of St. Peter’s Church.

BAAD!/AATT receive support from The Ford Foundation, The SHS Foundation, The NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, The Howard Gilman Foundation, The Lincoln Center Cultural Innovation Fund supported by The Rockefeller Foundation and administered by Lincoln Center, The Mertz Gilmore Foundation, The Emma A. Sheafer Charitable Trust, The Rubin Foundation, The Jerome Foundation, The Dance/NYC Dance Advancement Fund supported by the Ford Foundation, The Harkness Foundation for Dance, The New York State Regional Economic Development Corporation, the New York State Council on the Arts, and Councilmember Mark Gjonaj, and private donations.