Black & Free: Pleasure Histories

@ On June 4, Black & Free: Pleasure Histories comes to Weeksville Heritage Center for an evening of film and live performance honoring Black queer and trans legacies of pleasure that are too often excluded from dominant narratives. As one of the nation’s earliest free Black communities, Weeksville offers a space to reflect on the present through histories of self-determination. Through moving image, storytelling, and burlesque, the evening highlights those who expanded the boundaries of gender, sexuality, and embodiment in New York and beyond. The program features a screening of Mary of Ill Fame (2020–21) by Tourmaline, a fictional narrative grounded in the life of Mary Jones, a Black trans woman and sex worker in 1830s New York. The screening is paired with excerpts from We Been Here, a showcase honoring Black burlesque legends Sahji (1940s) and Jean Idelle (1950s–60s), alongside live performances by two of New York’s leading Black burlesque artists, Queerly Femmetastic and Aurora Boobrealis. This event was curated by Kirya Traber, and produced by Kelly Greenlight. Film and Performance Series Descriptions Mary of Ill Fame (2020–2021) shapes a fictional story around Mary Jones (played by Rowin Amone), a Black trans woman and sex worker who was part of a community of “girls of ill fame” and eventually incarcerated in the 1830s for stealing a man’s wallet. Mary of Ill Fame imagines Jones in Seneca Village, an autonomous New York City community of free Black and Irish immigrants located on the land occupied today by Central Park. Splicing between images of Jones in brutal confinement and in a gracious, picturesque Seneca Village home, Tourmaline builds a fantasy space of power, freedom, and pleasure that the actual Jones deserved.  Runtime: 17min 14sec We Been Here:  Hot-cha girls. Strip tease darlings. Exotic dancers. Shake dancers. Hoochie coochie girls. Black women have always been a part of the building and rebuilding of burlesque in America, but are often left out of the history books. Our unique way of storytelling through movement, costuming, props, and performance is an integral part of the legacy of classic burlesque in the 30s, 40s, and 50s as well as the revival of the art form through neo-burlesque in the 90s. The We Been Here showcase pays tribute to Black burlesque legends by presenting their histories through TedX-style presentations, and features acts from New York’s current vibrant Black burlesque scene. Event Schedule 6:30pm Doors open ( Enjoy offerings from community partners, including The Free Black Women’s Library, chair massages by Chauvet Bishop, and more!) 7:30pm Show Begins  8:45pm: Show Ends  9pm: Doors Close  Artist Bios: Photo by Jaycen Brooks Brooklyn Bred bombshell Queerly Femmetastic is a nerdy connoisseur of Blackness. Her pronouns are she, her, and ma’am. This Patron Saint of Multiple Orgasms is inspired by Black shake-dancers, strippers, and hoochie-coochie girls across generations. Known for snat...