BAC Wellness Festival at MoCADA

Come celebrate wellness with Brooklyn Arts Council and MoCADA on June 25 from 12 PM – 6 PM at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts! The festival will feature live music from renowned musicians and performers that represent the diverse creative community of Brooklyn.

Join us for a day of healing pop-up activities, learn about healing traditions through BAC Sonic Clinic pop-up exhibition featuring digital art by David Gumbs, and engage in health-based conversations and health screenings with Brooklyn Plaza Medical Center.

Featured musicians include Riva Nyri Precil & Maxine Montilus; Martin Vejarano & La Cumbiamba Eneye band; the Tai Allen band; The Resistance Revival Chorus; DJ Ushka & DJ Shamal.

Pop-up wellness activities facilitated by Sunder Ashni from MINKA Brooklyn, Brooklyn Plaza Medical Center, and Kaisokah Moko Jumbies USA, Inc.

Throughout the day, Trama Unit Entertainment will be DJ’ing: Whether you’re looking for a DJ, private event production or full concert production, Trama Unit Entertainment can provide what you need. 

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PROGRAM SCHEDULE

12:30 PM – 1:30 PM | Beauty, Love, & Resistance

This performance by Riva Precil and Maxine Montilus pulls from inspiration of the songs and dances from the Haitian Vodou spiritual tradition to highlight how healing can be gained from tradition, body, and spirit.

1:45 PM – 2:15 PM | Meditation Workshop: Ground & Groove

Join Sunder Ashni from MINKA Brooklyn for a 30-minute moving meditation to support a sense of stability and flow in the body. The session will include a guided meditation, impulse based movement practice, and space for group reflection. Be prepared to connect with your body and the space with curiosity and care. 
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2:30 PM – 3:15 PM | La Cumbiamba Eneye

Join La Cumbiamba Eneye for healing through Cumbia music. The powerfully rhythmic and melodic Afro-Indigenous-Colombian music recreates the traditional open-air Cumbia gatherings known as cumbiambas, the ensemble’s namesake. With traditional instruments such as the indigenous Gaita flutes and the Afro-Colombian drums the group, led by multi-instrumentalist, composer and educator Martin Vejarano, has established itself as one of the finest Cumbia ensembles in the US. 

3:30 PM – 4:00 PM | Native Tongue: Poetry & Jazz

Join Tai Allen's band who will perform poetry on wellness over jazz inspired by Hip-hop music.

4:15 PM – 5 PM | The Dance Floor is Resistance with DJ Ushka

Thanushka (Thanu) Yakupitiyage is a DJ and activist. Ushka's genre-blending approach to music seeks to instill connection and joy as an essential part of mindfulness within our bodies and within ourselves. We're living in a time of deep crisis and anxiety, and it's easy to get caught up in never-ending catastrophic news cycles, paralyzed with fear, and feeling hopeless. Yet, it's the small moments of connections, like on dance floors, that can bring us back to our sense of self. As an artist-activist, Ushka believes we must be in a daily practice of joy creation despite the chaos and that it is essential for our wellness and ability to shape ourselves, each other, and the world.

5 PM – 5:30 PM | Resistance Revival Chorus Performance

The Resistance Revival Chorus (RRC) is a collective of more than 60 women and non-binary singers who join together to breathe joy and song into the resistance and to uplift and center womxn's voices. The great artist and activist Harry Belafonte once said, “when the movement is strong, the music is strong” and the RRC attempts to live up to that challenge, calling for justice and equity across racial, ethnic, economic, sexual identity and religious lines. They aim to be intersectional in their feminism and embrace poet Toi Derricotte's idea that, in the face of systemic violence and oppression that seeks to crush the spirits of vibrant communities, "joy is an act of resistance."
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5:30 PM – 6:00 PM | Moko Jumbie Performance

Join Kaisokah Moko Jumbies USA, Inc. for a celebratory performance. This company of Moko Jumbies is a stilt dancing group that educates children and adults about the art form of stilt walking. The Moko Jumbie derives its name from a tradition in West Africa. The Moko is an Orisha (God) of Retribution. Post-slavery, the term "Jumbie" was adopted. The tradition of Moko Jumbies is viewed as a means of warding off evil and negativity. The performance ties into this healing tradition.

12 PM – 6 PM | Brooklyn Plaza Medical Center, Health Screenings Booth