Walk the Walk

A brave, imaginative space for trans, nonbinary, genderqueer, and intersex folks to collaborate!

Walk the Walk premieres September 23-24!

Support the future of Walk the Walk by contributing to our crowdfunding campaign – or bidding on the fabulous auction items! Join us in empowering our talented artists with fair wages and a sensational venue where they can fully unleash their stories. Let’s unite and transform their artistic dreams into reality!

A few words from K. Bradford, Director of Walk the Walk:

We are in a time. A trans time. As an umbrella community, trans and nonbinary people are receiving wider attention in society and mass media. And a violent cyclone of hate has followed.

But we are not a trans trend. We are not a target to be used and discarded.

We are creators.
We are culture makers.
We are human beings.

In 2023 alone, more than 500 anti-trans bills have been filed for legislation. Trans kids are being targeted and weaponized in hostile agendas. And violence against BIPOC trans folks, especially Black trans women and men, is on the rise. Every year.

It is a strange and vulnerable thing. To move from the margins and into the spotlight. Our story is revealing itself, step by step. And our voices, finally, taking the mic.

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“It is revolutionary for any trans person to choose to be seen and visible in a world that tells us we should not exist.”

― LAVERNE COX, ACTRESS & LGBTQ+ ADVOCATE

Want a sneak peak?

Walk the Walk will be at WeHo Pride on Sunday, June 25, 2023 at 2pm! We’ll be joined by a few of our fellow dance makers for an afternoon sharing at the WeHo Aquatics Center.

More info here!

Artist Team:

Save The Date for the World Premiere of Walk the Walk

September 23-24, 2023

at LA Dance Project
2245 E Washington Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90021

Check out past iterations, dialogues, and happenings in the world of Walk the Walk!

Videographer: Glyn Gray

Read about an artists’ experience with Walk the Walk

Blog by Chavia Blankenship

The Walk the Walk Zine is now live!

Walk The Walk Zine 2022

Walk the Walk: Zine Edition
Photographer: Cedric Tai

Check out even more photos in our Facebook Album!

SING. SHOUT. STRUT. WALK THE WALK.

Invertigo Dance Theatre presents the Walk the Walk Zine Release Party with live storytelling, poetry, and performance by Walk the Walk artists, culminating in joyful reflections in honor of Transgender Day of Remembrance and a community dance party.

Artist readings from the new Walk the Walk Zine will include K.Bradford (they/them), D.Hill (he/him), and Cody Brunelle-Potter (they/them), Leo Aquino (he/they) and Chavia Blankenship (he/him), and other trans, nonbinary, gendernonconforming and/or intersex collaborators.

This program is supported in part by an arts grant from the City of West Hollywood.

THE CREATIVE & PRODUCTION TEAM

K. Bradford Lead Artist

Bradford is an interdisciplinary artist, educator and cultural innovator whose public practice has spawned projects and programs in Austin, Chicago and Los Angeles. Most recently, K. launched The Qosmos Projects – a post-drag performance spectacle and an LGBTQIA+ youth world-building series, Qumanity. This fall, Qumanity rolls out as an interdisciplinary art lab for LAUSD students in a new Virtual Enrichment Program. K. has taught at Antioch University, CalArts, and for eight years at Columbia College, where they were the head of the LGBTQ Office of Culture & Community. K. has directed and co-founded: Gender Fusions, a large-scale annual queer spectacle + cultural dialogue (Chicago), The Raw Works, a story and performance program for low-income and homeless LGBTQIA youth (Chicago), It’s a She-Shoot a film and story program for women and girls (Austin) and One Mile, an arts + social justice program that poetically re-imagines the challenges of our times through immersive public art installations (Los Angeles). K. has performed across the U.S., and their writing has appeared in publications such as the LA Review of Books, Viralnet.net, Gulf Coast, Trop and more. K. has received scholarships from the Fulbright Foundation, Tin House Writers Workshop, Bread Loaf Writers Conference, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Hailing from New England originally, K. holds an MFA in Writing and in Art + Technology from CalArts.

D.Hill is a west coast artist who works in photography, performance and video art. His work purposefully sets up a framework for conversations dealing with race, gender, class and sexuality. Hill looks at how socialization and statuses impact our intra/inter-personal experiences. Many of his works explore or inject post-constructionist practices to how image-construction is digested in contemporary spaces. His photographs, videos and performances challenge our stagnant positions of linguistics/meaning in regard to experience. This is what makes his work impactful and infused with antithetical moments.

D. Hill Guest Artist

Cody Brunelle-Potter

Resident Company Dancer

Cody is a non-binary dance artist currently performing and creating in Los Angeles. They began their dance and performance career in NYC, where they were a dancer and Assistant Director for In-Sight Dance Company, a nonprofit service organization based in Queens. Since moving to Los Angeles, they have had the pleasure of working with many local companies and choreographers in the concert dance world which include Invertigo Dance Theater, WhyteBerg, Mollie Wolf, Luke Zender, Heidi Duckler, Iris Company, Acts of Matter, FABE and Rosanna Gamson World Wide.

They have also worked in the commercial dance world with Teresa (Toogie) Barcelo, William Ylvisaker, Ashley (ROBI) Robicheaux, Matty Peacock and Amy O’Neal. They have performed in work for artists like Reggie Watts, Billie Eilish, FYOHNA, Ben De La Creme, Jinx Monsoon and more.

Cody’s personal work explores the boundaries of being wild and delicate while balancing the honesty of the emotional impetus for each movement. They are interested fiber sculpture as well and are working to incorporate moving fibers sculptures into their work. They have partnered with Fiber Artist Mimi Haddon on many occasions and lead workshops in using fiber sculpture partnered with movement to explore how we can understand ourselves better as emotional beings through the putting on and use of costume.

COLLABORATION & COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

WHAT IS WALK THE WALK?

Walk the Walk is Invertigo’s newest dance theatre project with a twist. A trans twist.

At the core of this project is the question: what is your daily walk as trans, nonbinary, gender-nonconforming and/or intersex person in this world? What do you feel emotionally and in your body when you walk out your door? What do you face as you walk down the street? What do you hope to manifest, in public and private? What is your strut? What shadows or burdens might you hold? What lineages might you carry? Who and what do you channel for resilience and pride?

Conceived by Lead Artist K. Bradford (Creative Engagement Director of Invertigo), Walk the Walk was created as a brave, imaginative space where trans, gnc, nonbinary and intersex folks can come together as co-creators in weaving a collective story of our powerful yet vulnerbale daily walks through the world. As the spotlight of visibility has started to turn toward — and upon — us, it feels extra important to connect in and cultivate non-cis space to share stories, real talk, and creative vision.

WHAT DID WE JUST WRAP UP?

A series of explorative workshops throughout 2021 invited participants into a lively, interdisciplinary space of making and community-building for trans, nonbinary, gender-nonconforming, and intersex communities.

An online immersive series celebrating Transgender Day of Visibility (TDOV) to spotlight trans/ nonbinary/ intersex/ gnc artists. A series of workshops offered in March and June with a presentation in Fall 2021 titled Walk the Walk: ignite on November 17th @ 7 PM/Pacific.

An interactive, interdisciplinary workshop process filled with: Real talk. Storytelling. Queer dancing. Creative collaboration. Community building. Movement tapped from your daily life. Room to be yourself. Space to meet new folks. A chance to channel expression & art.

This two-part workshop series is facilitated by:

Lead Artist K. Bradford (Creative Engagement Director)
Cody Brunelle-Potter (Dancer-in-Residence)
D.Hill (Guest Artist)

A brave & vulnerable space to fill up with joy, pride, and community!

IS THIS FOR YOU?

Are you trans, gnc, nonbinary, and/or intersex and looking to connect and create within our community? Join us.

We’re excited for new participants to step into our workshop process. We seek a range of expressions, ideas, art forms & ways of being in community.

No dance or arts experience necessary.

BIPOC, disabled folks, and elders are encouraged to apply.

If you want to be in community, share your stories, get real, have some fun, find ways to explore your creativity, or bring your art into a collaborative space where the daily lives of trans / gnc / nonbinary / intersex are at the center — Walk the Walk is a place for you.

WHAT’S THE BIG PICTURE?

Walk the Walk is a series of workshops offered in March and November with a presentation in Spring 2023.

You can join us for one workshop, or join us for all of them. And if you stick with us, you can become a part of a collaborative cohort creating work in community collaboration.

Walk the Walk’s first workshop was held on March 31, 2021, for Transgender Day of Visibility. It was tender, playful, and deep — and reminded us how powerful it is to be in a space solely for and with our community.

The long-term goal is to create a rousing, light-shedding community theatre performance, presented at a main stage, that weaves and incorporates the voices, art, and interdisciplinary contributions of the Walk the Walk cohort within the vision of Invertigo’s artistic leadership.

WHAT’S THE BACKSTORY?

We open this unique, creative community space at a time when trans and gender-nonconforming communities have become more visible in media, legislation, cultural production, and society at large. This spotlight brings resources, attention, awareness, and more — and it also brings the harsh light of transphobia, and too often increased attacks on our communities, especially BOPIC transfemmes.

Conceived by Lead Artist K. Bradford (Creative Engagement Director of Invertigo), Walk the Walk was imagined as a community-based practice where the workshop participants are co-creators, and the future of the project is shaped by the collaborative synergy of community as we digest what this moment is for our communities.

WALK THE WALK : IGNITE 2021 ARTIST

Bon/Bruce

Bruce/Bon is a filmmaker, actor and mover in love with trans joy and devoted to giving us all more opportunities to shine. Bruce has just wrapped filming a project titled “24 Frames Lalla”, a film by Joy Marzec about the filmmaker’s spirit healing during covid. They are currently seeking representation while writing new projects and building creative dreams with fellow trans movers and breathers.

Poetry: Bruce on 3_10_2022

Shanita Blunt

Shanita Blunt is an interdisciplinary multimedia artist and performer. Mostly known for her costume design, performances in the LA drag scene and graphic design. She’s worked on Hollywood sets, nightclubs clubs, theaters and queer events all over the LA area. She loves to create things with her hands and is constantly writing and sketching her next creation and is looking forward to collaborating with likeminded artist in the future.

Cinnamon Rivera

Cinnamon Rivera is a Queer Gender Fluid Twin spirited artists born and raised in Los Angeles. Her work began in Chicanas, Cholas, y Chisme in 2016 and since then has grown to expand into more theater spaces and is now entering the world of filmmaking with full force. A lover of Diana Ross and all good music, inspiration comes from her roots in feeling different and growing up gay and punk in the 80’s. She is proud to share “Reflections Of…” with the Walk the Walk community. For more information follow Cinnamon Rivera on Instagram at www.instagram.com/rivcinnamon.

D. Hill

presenting “disclosure”

D.Hill is a west coast artist who works in photography, performance and video art. His work purposefully sets up a framework for conversations dealing with race, gender, class and sexuality. Hill looks at how socialization and statuses impact our intra/inter-personal experiences. Many of his works explore or inject post-constructionist practices to how image-construction is digested in contemporary spaces. His photographs, videos and performances challenge our stagnant positions of linguistics/meaning in regard to experience. This is what makes his work impactful and infused with antithetical moments.