What’s sampson up to?
Brazen Bandits is taking over space gallery
Sampson is a founding member of Brazen Bandits, a trans artist collective based in Portland.
Mission: We operate from a belief that creative practice builds community care through socially conscious art; centering pleasure, celebration of revolution, and trans-cendance of our current world.
For the month of January, we’ll be turning SPACE Gallery into a community art space, a talisman for trans liberation and connection through creative practice. Learn more and follow us here.
Poetic Movements Workshop with Acorn Productions
Poetic Movements is an invitation for poetry to inspire dance and movement to punctuate spoken word. In this workshop, Sampson will share their knowledge and practice in combining movement with poetry. In 120 minutes, participants will write their own words and phrases and devise movements that meet the present moment.
This workshop is for poets who want to move, dancers who want to write, artists who want something new or to deepen their practice, and people who are none or all of those things.
When: Saturday, February 1st, 12-2PM
Where: Casco Bay Movers, 517 Forest Ave, Portland, ME 04101
Showing up to a Free Palestine Protest?
Here’s a song!
I wrote a protest song! Please, use it at your protest. Teach it to your friends. Sing it when you need your voice to be heard.
About Sampson
Sampson Spadafore (they/them) is a white, neurodivergent, queer and trans person currently living on unceded Wabanaki tribal land. Sampson works as a poet, writer, and theatre artist around themes of trans identity, queer and trans joy, relationship to family, romantic partners, and community, grief, spirituality, and self expression. They hold a BFA in Musical Theatre from Nazareth University of Rochester. They are the recipient of the 2022 Bodwell Fellowship through the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance and Hewnoaks Artist Residency. They were nominated as Portland Poet Laureate. They proudly a founding member of Brazen Bandits Conspiring Creatives.
Artist Statement
I work and play in the realm of liberatory movement. My writing and performance is based in my own personal experience and identity, and while not representative of the whole of the trans experience, is a piece of the larger consciousness raising movement that has spanned hundreds of years through trans cultural icons, trans innovators and advocates, and the average every-day, working-class trans person. I create for my community, and for everyone else. For those who love me and hate me, because I believe in their liberation too.
Theatre is a spiritual space for me and it is where I find myself the most comfortable and energized. Just as ancient humans once used the stage to tell the stories of and honor the gods, we humans today play as a way to see the divine in one another. My humanity is on full display when I’m on stage. I use song, dance, poetry and speech to engage, confront, and challenge audiences. I like to hold a mirror to society and ask them questions that may scare them but lead to their freedom.