Queer Mvmnt Fest: FREE Workshops

Thursday, June 4, 2026 - Saturday, June 6, 2026

DISCO RIOT Kettner Studio (1100 Kettner Blvd.)

These FREE workshops are a true highlight of Queer Mvmnt Fest every year! We are so looking forward for these talented and mindful practitioners to share this diversity of offerings with you. Read the details below and check out the schedule!

Learn more about Queer Mvmnt Fest 2026 here: https://discoriot.org/qmf2026/

Access

In alignment with the values of DISCO RIOT, these workshops center access, bodily autonomy, consent, and the cultivation of safe(r) community space in an ADA accessible studio. During the RSVP process, there will be a chance to share any access needs you may have. Please reach out to Marty at queermvmntfest@discoriot.org for further accommodation inquiries or requests.

Location: The studio is located on the second floor of 1100 Kettner Blvd (accessible by elevator). The entrance to the building is through the glass doors on the corner of Kettner and B St. (in front of the street light). There will be a DISCO RIOT team member at the entrance to let you in. There is a 15 minute grace period from the start of the event. 15 minutes after, there will be no admittance into the building unless communicated in advance. Please email Nicole at education@discoriot.org if you are running late.

Public Transit: We highly recommend taking public transit. The studio is directly accessible by trolley, bus, and coaster. We hope you'll consider taking advantage of this infrastructure! MTS Trip Planner

Parking: Downtown parking can take time! Please reserve 15-20 extra minutes of your commute to find parking and make your way to the building. If you are able to, consider carpooling. There is 2 hour street parking ($2.50/hour) around the building.

 Thursday, June 4, 2026 @ 1100 Kettner Blvd. 

 ☆ 5 - 6:30pm  The Rhythm of the Heartbeat with Azul Lopez

I will center the movement that keeps us alive, our heartbeat, and represent it by playing my medicine drum. I will facilitate breathwork, guided gentle movement that can be done sitting, laying, or standing. I will invite people to move intuitively towards the end of class. This class doesn't require any previous experience or specific abilities. Everything I guide will be offered as invitations and the ultimate encouragement is for participants to sense for guidance from their bodies. I will also invite people to connect to their ancestry, as many cultures have connected to the medicine of the drum.

This workshop is for queer people of all ages, intersectional identities, experiences, and levels. An ASL interpreter will be present for this workshop. Please note that this workshop is face-mask mandatory (masks will be provided onsite by DISCO RIOT).

Azul Lopez (they/them) is a queer, gender expansive, Indigenous, deathworker, artist, somatic practitioner, and facilitator. Azul hopes to create art that reminds people of the infinite nature of their soul and mortal nature of their body, and to inspire them to be themselves and fulfill their desires. Azul desires to empower their community members through their workshops and offerings.

Azul engages in movement practices intentionally as a way to connect to their Indigenous Yoeme roots and spirituality. Azul was born and raised in Sonora, Mexico and this informs a great part of their identity and how they express themself artistically. Azul comes from a long line of cowboys and people who dance by stomping their feet to the earth. Azul prays for blessings to rain on their queer community every time they dance.

@mariposxhealing mariposxhealing.com

 Friday, June 5, 2026 @ 1100 Kettner Blvd. 

 ☆ 10am - 12pm  MORNING EXORCISE with Jas Lin and musical accompaniment by Hearthealer

MORNING as in awakening– to our senses, our agency, our infinite possibility.
EXORCISE as in ritual and practice– for purging the body of internalized scripts and socialized expectations.

MORNING EXORCISE is an open movement workshop for all levels of experience, accompanying Jas Lin and Hearthealer’s Prayer Pillow performance for Queer Mvmt Fest. Through qigong breathwork, movement meditation, and embodiment tasks, we exorcise choreographies of the learned body, shedding ingrained patterns to make space for new ways of moving through, being with, and dreaming into. Participants are invited to release any expectation that there is a “proper” way to move or be, and instead follow feeling, sensation, and instinct. Together, we co-create a sanctuary for experimentation, mutual presence, and collective transformation.

This workshop is open to all.

Jas Lin (LA) is a choreographer, teacher, and performer working across experimental performance, contemporary art, and commercial dance. Lin stages exorcisms and tantrums for purging choreographies of the learned body, interrupting internalized and external surveillance mechanisms that contribute to bodily policing. Their practice of deep feeling is invested in re-membering what the body has been manipulated into forgetting. Through performance and pedagogy, they construct fugitive worlds and live in them– choreographies that function simultaneously as rehearsals for the future and archives of alternative possibility that facilitate embodied connection.

Their movement workshops have been shared with Art Basel (Hong Kong), Danshallerne (Copenhagen), AN(8)X Festival (Berlin), UC Santa Barbara Department of Theatre & Dance, DiverseWorks (Houston), NAVEL ASSEMBLIES (LA), among others. They have movement coached and directed artists including Mitski (featured in NYT, i-D, A24Zine), Melanie Martinez, Jamila Woods, Phoebe Bridgers, Thao Nguygen, and Post-Organic Bauplan. Jas believes movement to be a manifestation of potentiality– that together, we can dance the possible into being.

@allthatjasss www.jas-lin.work/   

Hearthealer (LA) is a queer, Lebanese DJ, producer, and writer known for narrative world-building, intentional emotional arcs, and unruly genre blends. They’ve performed their ambient and club sets internationally, in venues such as OIL (Shenzhen), Creamcake (Berlin), System (Shanghai), Final (Taipei), Cakeshop (Seoul), Loopy (Hangzhou), Orbitware (Bali), and more.

@heartheal3r Soundcloud

 ☆ 12:30 - 2 pm  Ballet For All Bodies with Alyah Baker

Ballet For All Bodies re-imagines the ballet class as a radically inclusive and supportive environment for a diverse range of movers. In the workshop, we will center the joy of dancing as we explore the traditional principles of ballet technique in a fun and affirming environment, set to an inspiring playlist of pop hits.

This workshop is queer centered but open to the general public. Adult movers of all levels, backgrounds, and identities are welcome and encouraged to join. We will offer a variety of modifications to adapt class combinations for a wide range of abilities. Participants should wear comfortable clothes, flat dance shoes, or socks.

Alyah Baker is a dance artist, scholar, and choreographer working at the intersection of art and embodied activism. She is an Assistant Professor of Dance at UNC Charlotte, where her research focuses on queer aesthetics, Black feminist praxis, and community building through dance. Her pedagogical and choreographic research has been featured in local and national media, including Dance Teacher Magazine and the New York Times, and published in The Oxford Handbook of Ballet Pedagogy and Anti-Racism in Ballet Teaching. Baker earned her MFA in Dance(’21) and a B.A. in Sociology (’03) from Duke University. She has trained and performed professionally with companies including Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, Oakland Ballet, and Carolina Ballet. The American Dance Festival, Choreography Project, Queering Dance Festival, North Carolina Dance Festival, Elon University, and Oakland Ballet are among the platforms that have featured Baker’s choreographic works. Baker and her company, AB Contemporary Dance, were recipients of the 2023-2024 National Performance Network Creation and Development Fund and have received additional awards from the Kenan Institute of Ethics, the Center for Cultural Innovation, and the North Carolina Arts Council.

@blackandbrownballet www.alyahbaker.com/dance

 Saturday, June 6, 2026 @ 1100 Kettner Blvd. 

 ☆ 11am - 12:30pm  DragXDance with Rowan Janusiak

The year is 2008, hedonistic high-energy recession pop blasts through your dance studio speakers as sweat drips down your face, your body isolates rhythmically, and your worries disappear. dXD is a return to youthful jazz class glory, built to elevate drag performance, destined to release authenticity.

Class will include a comprehensive warmup, choreography, free form movement, and more! This class is for all bodies and identities with accommodations for disabled movers!

Rowan Janusiak is a queer, interdisciplinary artist creating work that stimulates audiences to question societal standards imposed around pleasure and play. Recent endeavors include drag performances with Chappel Roan and Alaska Thunderfuck; choreography residencies with Aimed Dance, Young Dancers Initiative and the Croft; and leading Dance Church classes in Chicago.

@howdyrowan https://rowanjanusiak.wixsite.com/howdyrowan

 ☆ 1 - 2:30pm  The Art of Kunt-Fu: Becoming The Queer Warrior with Devante Love

Ballroom has shown us how dance can resist white cis-heteropatriarchy. Continuing that spirit, this workshop draws on vogue, martial arts, and Afroindigenous spirituality to build a queer warrior dance. The practice centers cunty femme expressivity over machismo, and ritual healing over technical perfection. Come find the courage to shine in a world that wants to dim you. All bodies, abilities, and experience levels welcome with modifications offered throughout.

This is a queer only offering given that the movements are designed with the queer experience in mind and the workshop aims to help bolster courageousness in one’s expression of their queerness and healing from the ways societal norms have harmed us.

DeVante Love (they/them) is a queer dance scholar/artist, Olympic martial artist, and two spirit medicinewoman on a mission to spread inner peace through movement. They are a PhD candidate in Performance Studies exploring how vogue dance serves as a means of worldbuilding and liberation for queer people of color.

Through their Inner Peace Dojo, DeVante hosts performances and workshops demonstrating the healing and liberatory potential within dance, meditation, and poetry. Their debut choreoplay, Healing the Father Wound, received glowing reviews and community acclaim. They are currently developing Healing the Brokenheart, a new piece about embracing queerness and finding liberation by reconnecting with the elements.

DeVante is codifying a kung fu dance system that helps queer people connect with and express their true nature while teaching self-protection skills. They have studied, taught, and performed healing movement practices internationally, including in China, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Egypt, Greece, France, and Mexico, and have had their work featured on TEDx, CBS News, SF Chronicle, Out Magazine, Amazon Prime, The Trevor Project, Creating Change, and more.

@avatardevante

 ☆ 3 - 4:30pm  Primal Physics with Meesh Herd and Toni Brianna Guida Wendel

Primal Physics intertwines the physics of rope and dance, developed with the intention of connecting you to your most grounded & feral expression.

This workshop begins with participants being gently guided from their DanceOfSelf to the DanceOfConnection throughout the workshop. As we connect with our bodies, we will integrate rope as an anchor and amplifier, enhancing sensation and creativity. Through exploration of a multi-wear chest harness, "The MicroDance", isolations & intuitively guided movement, we will cultivate feelings of aliveness, impulsivity, and presence and physically strengthen and increase mobility of our bodies, to give way to our most primal expression!

A wide variety of music genres will be explored as we move energy. The dance and rope will be your lifelines, as we magnity your internal world and remove the masks of social conditioning. Our practice will collectively evolve as we build presence within the whole space, creating a throughline for one cooperative dance.

This class will include skills to take with you:
• Rudimentary rope safety and building blocks
• Simple chest harness
• Individual and group movement practices

Primal Physics is suitable for ALL LEVELS of dance + rope experience. Modifications and variations will be provided and encouraged. This is an offering of SuryaSoul.

Toni Brianna Guida Wendel (@tonibriannaguidawendel) (she/her) is a writer, mixed media creator and somatic artist with over a decade of experience as a practitioner of shibari and founder of the educational and performance organization The Rope Collective – where she found Meesh Herd / Minx (@meeshthehuman) (they/them), a life-long performance artist, poet, classically trained dancer and modern philosopher with over another decade in teaching and movement building experience. Together they found the freedom of movement, within the discipline of binding, to build workshops and performances that shake the bodies , ideas, and rooms they are in together. Bringing the multi-faceted talents of their many artistries to every production, they offer deep soul transformation to participants and an invitation to come home to the magic of our bodies through friendship, art and presence.

@tonibriannaguidawendel @meeshthehuman