dreaming our futures + embodying our dreams
come dream your most glorious dreams into existence in mutual support with a gorgeous crip community of friends and soon-to-be friends <3
created + led by alexa dexa
presented by RestFest
dreaming our futures + embodying our dreams is a year-long crip ritual opera made by, with, and for disabled folks dreaming together from bed. rooted in disability justice, dreaming our futures centers processes of community co-creation, responsive accessibility, and radical inclusion in a live participatory remote setting that prioritizes our collective safety through ongoing pandemic.
channeling interdependence and community care, dreaming our futures encompasses the transformation that takes place in our lives throughout one year as we dream our most glorious dreams into existence. blurring the distinctions between opera, our dreams, and our lived realities, the year-long nature of the performance recontextualizes our daily lives as sites of magic/opera, a ritual we continuously perform, dreams we perpetually manifest.
together, we’re dreaming futures with us in them in direct resistance to ableist systems of oppression and eugenics that celebrate our disabled deaths.
join us comfy + cozy from bed online over zoom on the first saturday of every month from 3pm to 5pm eastern time from november of 2025 through october of 2026.
accessibility artistry for dreaming our futures + embodying our dreams includes:
- american sign language and song-signing
- cart captioning and open creative captioning
- audio description, sharing the visual landscape via oration
- open sound description, sharing the mood, instrumentation, and melodic / rhythmic content of our opera via written text
- accessibility artists, caring for access needs, answering questions, and providing support for us all
- a 1 hour pre-ritual accessibility drop-in period, welcoming you to arrive early, ask questions, and join us in preparing for our time dreaming together
- a 1 hour post-ritual processing period, welcoming you to continue sharing space with us, share about your dreams and plans, and receive affirmation, validation, and care
- a recording and transcript of our time together, shared with all who rsvp as a form of asynchronous access honoring crip time
- an open invitation to participate in “real time” +/or crip time as is possible for you throughout our year together; perfect attendance is ableist. flux is part of the process.
on dreaming our futures, alexa dexa says “i love the possibility for meaningfully being able to experience the trajectories of people’s dreams over time and for folks to be able to find each other and share supports along the way. and i think space to dream is so important to building the communities of care we want to nurture and be nurtured by. very anti-productivity, anti-capitalism, anti-eugenics, anti-nihilism and pro-showing-up-for-your-neighbors-and-digital-friends because that’s a real life-affirming thing we can do. and who knows how it ripples out?”
RestFest is an artist-run, online community arts gathering space and virtual film & video art festival created by/for the Queer, Trans, Disabled, Deaf, chronically ill, Neurodivergent, mentally ill, and/or mad community.
