For a quarter-century, Honey Pot Performance(HPP)—an interdisciplinary beacon for Black women at a variety of intersections—has been educating, entertaining and enthralling audiences, telling stories that are rooted in pleasure, memory and radical imagination. In addition, Honey Pot Performance is celebrating its ongoing partnership with the historic First Church of the Brethren in Chicago’s East Garfield Park neighborhood; the church itself is celebrating 100 years as a multicultural community sanctuary.
Providing further insight into Honey Pot Performance and the church, Windy City Time stalked with key individuals of the collective and First Church of the Brethren.
Note: Conversations were edited for clarity and length.
Dr. Meida Teresa McNeal, Honey Pot Performance artistic and managing director
“There were four women who started Honey Pot: myself, Aisha Jean-Baptiste, Abra Johnson and Felicia Holman,” McNeal said. “That was our first circle of makers. Everybody had different creative talents and we decided to be creative together.”
“We have grown; we have evolved,” McNeal replied when asked about the biggest change she’s seen since the collective’s inception. “One of the things I love is that we continue to iterate ourselves. It’s always felt organic and we’re not pushing ourselves to become this big institution. We set the pace that feels right to us, and we have been able to widen our circle. We have about 13 people who work with us consistently and we’re intergenerational.”
One of the facets that characterizes Honey Pot Performance is fearlessness. According to McNeal, “there’s never been hesitation, and I think that’s because we’re all critical thinkers and educators. So we’ve always thought of our work as critical performances. We bring the hard questions but we also question what we’re curious about.” She added that the collective is also constantly thinking about upcoming generations, including ideas about programming that can reach those demographics. We want spaces and options for developing options.
“We’re also thinking about having a permanent location. This summer, we did one-day festival formats that were beautiful and we’re going to do those again next year; they were just beautiful—and intergenerational. We also had a workshop, and there were 35 mostly Black women who [ranged from] their teens to their 70s; people were laughing and singing together.”
Regarding one of her favorite memories, McNeal said it goes back to when the collective was known as Thick Routes (pronounced “roots”) Performance Collage, its name before Honey Pot Performance—and it was a performance that co-founder Aisha Josina Jean-Baptiste also recalled:Bag Ladies:carrying a diaspora colored black(2002), which incorporated the works of Erykah Badu. “At that time, I was in grad school so I was reading a lot about the Black diaspora, performance theory and critical race theory,” McNeal said. “One of my favorite memories was taking those conversations and editing them to a track that we created.” (McNeal also said she adoredWays of Knowing, saying, “I just loved that process—exploring the ways people come to knowledge.”)
And when asked about the collective’s legacy, McNeal responded, “It’s hard because we’re still in it. We want to create something that’s an artistic and cultural space that incorporates knowledge and that preserves Black history and culture—and we want to work with people who will want to continue to lead that charge.”
Aisha Josina Jean-Baptiste, Honey Pot Performance marketing and communications director
According to Jean-Baptiste (who is based in Baltimore and now mostly connects with the collective virtually, save for in-person appearances at performances), Honey Pot Performance “started off as a group of friends—four Black feminist women artists. We each had these artistic and community-based experiences, and we were reading the same [authors] at that time, like Audre Lorde and bell hooks. And we felt a deep need to make something.
“I think the early 2000s were deeply transformative—not just artistically, but also politically and culturally. We really wanted this collective to reflect certain values: We love our people and we really wanted to honor our ancestors. But we also wanted to create a space where we could express joy, grief, laughter, rebellion, sanctuary and healing, without apology.”
Jean-Baptiste added that a call was then put out “to women and femmes [saying that] we want to build something, and these were folks who were part of our larger circle. Our first production was calledHome Story, and I think there were seven of us; by 2001, it came back to the four of us [who founded Honey Pot Performance].”
The collective’s breakout performance, she said, wasBag Ladies: “That was the time, I think, that people noticed us and our work.”
Asked to reflect on what she felt has been the biggest change regarding Honey Pot Performance, Jean-Baptiste said, “There was this sense of urgency [when we started]. Everything was grassroots but, at the center, there was always collaboration. We just tried to show up in as many places as possible. But I think our voices deepened over time; the world around us was changing and we changed as we were becoming adult women. There has always been this need to respond to the urgency of Black lives, and we moved from performance to the interdisciplinary. We’ve always wanted to be an institution—not just creating pieces of work and performing, but we want to continue to grow.”
And with Honey Pot Performance being multicultural, the queer identity has always been a part of the collective. “We incorporate intersections, including Black queer identity,” according to Jean-Baptiste. “It’s part of us, like how we challenge hierarchy and how we center care, pleasure and even consent in our creative process—and it includes sexuality, gender, class, race and even geography, and how we tell these stories.”
Jo De Presser (aka Marlon Billups), Honey Pot Performance music curator and collaborator [McNeal said that he “brings that needed perspective. He can be in a mix of women demonstrating sheer power and force, and he can work in collectivity.”]
Jo—who’s been a DJ with Chicago’s house-music scene since 1987—discovered Honey Pot Performance through the organization’s multimedia dance theater, Sweet Goddess. “I was DJ’ing for them and I started changing it up during the performances to keep it fresh,” he said. He later became involved in the creation of performances, eventually leading to him being the collective’s music curator.
And to those who might be surprised to see Jo as part of Honey Pot Performance, he replied, “The organization is very open. When I first became a part of Honey Pot, I was respectful of the space; the [audiences] who were coming were very open to what the ladies were bringing and I didn’t want to intrude on their space. … It was never anything, like, ‘Oh, why ishehere?’” A conversation about politics also underscored the fact that men can be feminists, as Jo said at one point, “Some men don’t like women, including Black women, to be in power,” recalling how he called out another man (who backed the current U.S. president) about the issue.
As for his favorite memories with Honey Pot Performance, Jo mentioned the Chicago Black Social Culture Map (CBSCM), saying, “The projects there have been very enlightening, and they’re needed; they fill in the holes and blanks of what happened in a particular space—and they’re things that weshouldknow. You know things but when you hear these beautiful stories that connect community, it’s wonderful. Some of these conversations—you just never thought they would happen.” (CBSCM documents the lived experiences of Black Chicagoans from the Great Migration through the rise of house music.)
And Jo sees a lot of hope with upcoming generations continuing Honey Pot Performance’s mission while putting on performances seen through their own lenses. “I’m already seeing signs of action,” he said. “That’s the question, anyway—’How can we pass this on?’ Now, we have everyone from DJs to documenters who are doing their thing. The good thing is that they’re not trying to get into the Goodman Theatre or Steppenwolf; they’re saying, ‘We can do this on our own’—and they’ve been very successful.”
Mary Scott-Boria, member of the Servant Leadership Board at First Church of the Brethren and a Honey Pot Performance program participant
First Church of the Brethren in Garfield Park has an impressive history, including serving as the base of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) efforts in Chicago in the ’60s. Scott-Boria happily provided additional context.
“Over the years, there have been a lot of changes in our church,” she said. “But it’s a certified peace church. I think it has conscientious objector status. When the church moved into East Garfield, the community was predominantly white. In the ‘50s, the seminary moved to Oak Brook and Bethany Hospital remained in the community until it closed about 20 years ago. Meanwhile, the community was changing as well [and it is predominantly Black today]—but the church decided to stay. So the church has become much more multicultural today.
”The middle churches are struggling these days against the megachurches. There are actually three churches in our building [at 425 S Central Park Ave.] and all of us have, basically, the same theological beliefs.”
According to Scott-Boria, the partnership with Honey Pot Performance happened through word of mouth. “Actually, a friend of mine who’s a Quaker had gone to a Honey Pot performance by Meida [McNeal] several years ago,” she began. “That performance was really focused on her life, memories and impressions of East Garfield Park, having lived there. My friend said, ‘Hey! This theater group did a performance about East Garfield Park and King’s time there.’ So a friend and I went to a performance in Hyde Park. We wanted to see the Garfield Park performance—and they happened to be looking for a place.”
And the rest, as they say, isherstory. “It was the perfect opportunity for both of us to expand our missions,” Scott-Boria said. “In fact, churches are opening their spaces for other endeavors. It’s such a good match because there are so many artists [who] need space as well as communities that need art.”
Moreover, First Church of the Brethren didn’t balk even though some of Honey Pot Performance’s experiences can be rawer in terms of sexuality, language and other elements. “Nope,” Scott-Boria responded if the church hesitated. “[Honey Pot Performance] was gracious enough to come to us and say, ‘This is what our performance is and these are the topics. What are your concerns?’
“There were no concerns.”
To find out more about Honey Pot Performance, its upcoming events and more, visitthis link.