Save the Last Dance: Muse 360’s Fundraiser for a New Home

On a journey with her learners to St. Helena Island, South Carolina, Christmas was influenced by the resilience of the Gullah individuals, African American descendants of persons liberated from slavery who have managed to sustain a exclusive creole culture and tight-knit enclave via a very long background of property ownership and accords involving neighbors. Citing the deficiency of suburban sprawl, gentrification, and chain stores that mar so much of the New South, the local community struck her as a product that should be imported up north.

In a way, she sees Muse 360’s separation from its very long-time Howard Street house as a serendipitous stage towards the aim of completely possessing and directing her personal place that can be passed down to future generations of creatives.

“I feel about possession in approaches that will produce less complicated pathways for the upcoming, because ideal now—renting from this position and that place, you gotta do what you can,” Xmas states. “But if you can actually get on the challenge of owning a room and you have the skillset to do so, or you have the support to do so, I’d say that that’s the way for us to go. It’s not that I consider in capitalism to that extent—but I imagine that for me, proudly owning area right now is not about building quadruple amounts of income off folks that genuinely cannot afford to pay for it. But if we all shift our frame of mind to possessing, then who can kick us out? Us currently being creatives, and us currently being cultural employees and artists, that’s magnificent! We adore that! We love remaining creative. We appreciate it, but that is not gonna get us anyplace if we really don’t feel about areas to plant our roots.” 

As an important phase in creating this new foreseeable future for Muse 360, Christmas is optimistic her local community will turn out this weekend to help the move to a lasting house, all while celebrating every thing that has been attained in their previous a person.

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WE DID THAT! kicks off at 6 p.m. on Saturday, June 11, with a cocktail reception, followed by a 7 p.m. screening of the event’s eponymous hour-extended documentary. The night will close out with reside performances, tunes, and dance until finally 11 p.m. Sliding-scale tickets are offered on Eventbrite.

The Eubie Blake Cultural Centre is situated at 847 N. Howard Avenue in the Bromo Seltzer Arts District.