Ritual Rhythms Chicago’s third annual Love is Lovefest is back at Elastic Arts in Logan Square!
Join us on Saturday, February 10, the weekend before Valentine’s Day, for our annual celebration of all things related to love, highlighting queer performers! This year’s show has a stunning array of dancers, musicians, vendors, and artists, with the kind of entertainment you’ve come to expect at Love is Lovefest! We have a night of live music, burlesque, bellydance, flow arts and more! Featuring the music of Kăi Zhi Hundred accompanied by dance sensation Dawn Xiana Moon, and a showcase with Drake Von Trapp, Venus Vesuvius, Lucid Dreams, and Freak Sinatra, live art by Robinlee Garber and an opening blessing by Stephanie Rae! Plus our open drum jam and a variety of fantastic vendors for the Valentine’s season, including tarot readers, healers, artwork, jewelry and clothing, and delicious empanadas!
The doors will open at 6:30 to browse our vendors. Open drum jam at 7pm. Performances at 8.
Elastic Arts is located at 3429 W. Diversey, on the second floor. The only available entrance is up a flight of stairs. If you have need help with accessibility, please contact us at drum@ritualrhythmschicago.com
Tickets are $25 in advance, $30 at the door. If you get your tickets by January 1st, you can get early bird tickets for only $15!
All ticket sales are final.
Ritual Rhythms Chicago is an organization that presents events throughout the year in Chicago, at various locations, focusing on the rhythm of the drum and live music, featuring dance performances from various genres, burlesque, and flow arts, along with a community vibe, with artists, healers and vendors.
OPENING BLESSING
Stephanie Rae
Stephanie is a Tantric Priestess who has studied the lineage for over two decades and identifies as a Love and Sex Witch. She is also a neuroscience nerd and loves blending cutting edge somatic healing in with ancient spiritual practices. She leads Tantra and Plant Medicine Retreats around the World and in her spare time can be found baking the world’s best cinnamon rolls in her kitchen for her two teen boys.
PERFORMERS
Kăi Zhi Hundred
Kai Elise is a queer Chinese-American pianist, vocalist, and MD. Her debut album called A Love Letter To My Self-ish was released on all platforms in Aries season of 2023. Her songwriting blends jazz and singer-songwriter sentiments. She uses live performance for comedy, storytelling and poetry woven amongst her songs.
Instagram: @kaionthekeys
Dawn Xiana Moon
Dawn Xiana Moon has appeared on Britain’s Got Talent and was named “Best Stage Performer” (twice), “Best Choreographer,” and “Best Dancer” (twice) by the Chicago Reader. She has performed in London, Toronto, and Washington, DC; WGN-TV called her “spectacular!”
Dawn is the Founder/Director of Raks Geek / Raks Inferno, a bellydance and fire company that was named the Chicago Reader’s “Best Dance Troupe” (runner up). Raks Geek has garnered international accolades through their commitment to blend a high degree of artistic and technical mastery with fun, creativity, and themes from geek culture; they were featured on UK Channel 4 TV’s “50 Funniest Moments,” and The Daily Mail hailed the group as “sci-fi seduction.”
In addition to her work as a dancer and fire performer, Dawn is a singer-songwriter who’s sung the National Anthem for the Chicago Bulls; she’s performed in 10 states and released two albums, fusing elements from traditional Chinese music with folk, pop, and jazz. She was named runner up for “Best Singer-Songwriter” (2019) and “Best World Music Act” (2020) by the Chicago Reader.
IG/Twitter/Bluesky: @DawnXianaMoon
Drake Von Trapp
Drake von Trapp is a Chicago-based interdisciplinary belly dance researcher and performer, recognized for his pioneering research about male belly dancers in the US. Drake’s educational journey led him to acquire both a BA and MA in Dance from Texas Woman’s University, along with a post-master’s in Multicultural Women’s and Gender Studies. His insights into the role of men and masculinity have sparked thoughtful discussions around gender, femmephobia, and Orientalism. When he’s not hitting the books, Drake currently tours internationally with Pomegranate Studios as a principal cast member, and co-owns Arcanum World Dance Studio with his dance and life partner, Kamrah.
Venus Vesuvius
Venus is burlesque dancer, fire spinner, circus artist, and stripper! She got into dance and movements arts in 2020 after Covid forced her to evacuate from her Peace Corps service. She exchanged her Tevas for Pleasers and never looked back, now favoring a life full of play. Venus thinks pleasure is revolutionary, the erotic is power, and baring it all to be witnessed is a radical act of self-love.
Hora Babylon
Have you heard the Good News….it’s Hora Babylon! The Mother of Harlots and the Abominations of the Earth is here to seduce you in the most god honoring of ways! This Harlot in Scarlet is a circus artist specializing in aerial lyra, aerial cube, contortion, and tumbling. As a burlesque artist, she incorporates her circus training, dance experience, and hotness to have you sweating like a Hora in church.
Freak Sinatra
Freak Sinatra brings a strange world of clownery and music to the stage for all to visit. Inspired by jazz standards, by way of punk and sketch comedy, this playful vaud-villain performs pieces about love, the occult, and other sweet mysteries.
Completely unrelated, there’s a Chicago artist named Em Haverty. They recently served as a head producer of InfiniFest, a weekend art festival of public programing where they facilitated a community yell. You can read their words on their Substack, Turtles All The Way Up.
LIVE ARTIST
Robinlee Garber
Robinlee Garber is a multi-media artist, musician, creative arts therapist and artist activist who resides presently in Chicago. Originally from Philadelphia, PA, Robinlee studied glass blowing,
drawing, painting and performance art as an undergraduate student at Carnegie Mellon University, and then later moved to Chicago in the early 90’s to earn a Masters degree in Art Therapy at University of Illinois at Chicago. For the last 30 years, Robinlee has been driven to balance and juggle her artistic energies in order to create drawings, paintings, and sculpture, as well as write and perform her own music. Most recently, Robinlee’s artistic focus has been to explore color and texture as it relates to themes of emotion and spirituality. For Robinlee, the process of art making is equally as important as the finished piece.
Whether the images are figurative or abstract in nature, vivid color and distinctive mark-making are meant to attract the viewer initially for the final purpose of exploring subject matter and narratives. Paint is thick, glass is asymmetric, and drawings are full of gesture and contrast. Layers of vivid color convey feeling and symbolic viewpoint. Lastly, Robinlee is inspired to make art about stories of everyday living for all sentient beings. As a clinical expressive therapist and activist, Robinlee has been a listener to and witness of countless human situations; the struggles in life are also what may lead to the greatest joys. It is with intention that viewers will feel more grounded and ultimately find connection and hope within themselves when experiencing Robinlee’s work.
VENDORS
Reciclarte Studio
Baked goods: empanadas (sweet and savory, cookies, and more), hot cosi non-alcoholic drink (hot chocolate and coffee).
Bliss Condition
Jewelry and accessories inspired by all things natural, unnatural, and mostly magical.
Emotional Body Mapping: Brook Woolf
Offering emotional body mapping bodywork and holistic support through kindness and compassion towards the pains in the body. Thai bodywork, ancestral healing, NLP, nutritional support, and physical exercises taught may all happen in a sample session.
Osythia
Original artworks, handmade jewelry.
Chicoatli
Handmade artisanal wire and leather jewelry adorned with various types of semi-precious stones such as obsidian, jade, and crystals, and fossils. Healing adornments for your temple.
Rhubarb and Ice
Rhubarb & Ice Ltd. Co. Is a gift boutique who “have a little of a lot”. From nose cuffs to lemonades, we have something for everyone. Our handcrafted jewelry is created with copper, brass, precious gemstones, Czech beads and love. We fashion our sun catchers, which double as pendulums, using beautiful crystals. We source our pins, patches and crystals. Our propagated water plants add decor to our pop up as well as your home. If you enjoy gifting, shop with us. We also care about the earth and our communities. Every month a portion of our proceeds go to a local school to provide resources for underserved youth. Additionally, we strive to make all of our packaging eco-friendly using compostable bottles and cloth bags.
Little Sparrow Readings
I will be offering mini Destiny Card readings, an ancient and powerful divination system based on your birthday that uses the 52 card playing card deck to give you information about your life path, karma, strengths, weaknesses, synastry with others and fated life events! It’s spookily accurate – you have to get a reading to see for yourself. I will also have my unique handmade oracle decks for sale and my “glimmers” – one of a kind resin talisman gems to take home a special piece of magic.
Sahve Greeff
Buttons, stickers, prints, greeting cards.
TEEL ONE
Canvases, prints, stickers, shirts.
Elsewhere Arts
Tarot Reader, Illustrator, and Comic Zine creator. For all matters esoteric and strange — come by and visit the table for art and the chance for your mind to go elsewhere.
Morbid Orchid
Morbid Orchid Co are taxidermy artists who honor and immortalize the magnificence of insects, arachnids, reptiles, amphibians, mammals, and other specimens in handmade display pieces. Our work is hand-tooled from acrylic, glass, wood, and bone.
Sustainability is hugely important to us. All of our specimens are captive bred wherein roughly 1/3 are sold for art/scientific/educational purposes, 1/3 is used for further captive breeding, and 1/3 are released into their native wilds. Supporting a market for captive bred taxidermy as artwork and educational specimens creates jobs in third world countries and an industry that is motivated by maintaining animal populations and their natural habitats, rather than their destruction. Your purchase helps prevent extinction and supports the fight against deforestation and habitat destruction worldwide.
A portion of all purchases at Morbid Orchid Co is donated to Xerces Society; an international non-profit organization, whose mission it is to protect wildlife through the conservation of invertebrates and their habitats. To learn more and further contribute to their cause, please visit them at www.xerces.org
Chetoni Designs
We are a mother-daughter duo of artists of many mediums. The universe has brought us together to work as a unit and bring light and creation into this world. We hope to inspire you to do the same from within on out.