Live From Leimert Park, Los Angeles: Sept 22-24
A neighborhood summit for a national audience to grieve our losses, celebrate our strength, and explore how we can face the hardest parts of life...together. Features the community wisdom of Leimert Park, workshops, musicians, and national leaders in healthcare, the arts, and D.E.I. (diversity, equity, and inclusion).
To create a big shift in how we approach serious illness, loss, grief, justice and equity, we will highlight the perspectives of one underrepresented, significant neighborhood--Leimert Park in L.A. Featuring both neighborhood leaders and nationally established presenters, we will co-create a journey through grief, growth, and action.
We will join together to gain a deeper empathy for and understanding of one another. Through creativity and conversation, we will explore real shifts we can make within ourselves and our own communities so that we might all respond to loss, adversity, and mortality in healthier, expansive ways.
Opening Night features performances and short-form keynote conversations from Reimagine and Leimert Park all-stars: national healthcare leaders, community leaders, DEI experts, actors, musicians, and comedians, all opening up a unique community dialogue on loss, life and love.
Community Workshops will be hosted online across the Leimert Park neighborhood, where you will be "invited in" via Zoom to connect with incredible local leaders, on a range of interesting topics. These include how we might better honor our ancestors, managing loss through gang violence, and improving senior advocacy.
The Virtual Street Festival is our grand celebration. Join Reimagine's engaging online hosts and Zoom into the People Street Stage, where we'll join comedians, speakers, and all-star musicians exploring loss and strength through four genres: gospel, jazz, blues/funk, and hip-hop. Or, choose from a series of online, community workshops!
Leimert Park is a neighborhood in South Los Angeles that will serve as the hub of the festival. Leimart Park Village is the heart of historical and contemporary African-American art, music and culture in the city of L.A. It embodies deep wisdom pertaining to the relationship between loss, strength, and beauty, which is expressed in many diverse forms. From jazz, to hip-hop, to funk, to gospel, to art, to food, to its entrepreneurial spirit, its creativity has always been a vibrant source of healing and love.
Reimagine is a nonprofit organization that aims to help all people face adversity, loss, and mortality and transform the hard parts of life into positive growth and action. Through this mission we hope to create a more compassionate world where everyone has the opportunity to make the most of this wild and precious life. Prior to the pandemic, our arts & culture festivals in San Francisco and New York became the largest end-of-life themed convenings in the U.S.
Thank you to Providence's Institute for Human Caring, The Plum Foundation, and the John and Wauna Harman Foundation for making the Loss, Life & Love festival possible, accessible, and affordable/free for Leimert Park and the broader community.
To learn how you can be part of the Core Circle of Loss, Life & Love supporters moving forward, please contact chris@letsreimagine.org.
Masthead and festival flyer graphics by Kayla Shelton
About Leimert Park photo by Tim "Hydreams" Coleman (KISO media)
