REST Fest

REST Fest – Revolutionary Embodied Sovereignty Together
Live Music · Comedy · Immersive Art Installations · Dance · Fresh Food · Film · Master Classes

REST Fest is a free festival celebrating all Austinites, October 20-23, 2022 at the Carver Museum. The four-day-weekend in the heart of East Austin is curated by Denver Gonzales in collaboration with Fisterra Projects, XYZ Atlas & The Theorists. *ADA accessible & translation provided for deaf & blind attendees

Thursday kicks off the Fest with “Rest & Digest.” Revolution Spirits lifts our spirits with bold cocktails while we peruse a local artisan market. Community gardens feed our souls organic food, and we dive into dreamland led by Broadway vocalist, Sabrina Reitman, as our fairy guide. Immersive music & dance shows by The Theorists and Corps Multiple continue until DJ Schi the God ramps up the late night party.

Friday & Saturday, dive into dance master classes & improv comedy workshops, paint, social dance, daydream, cloud gaze, or nap to a sound bath in our hammock garden under “The Dreaming Tree.” Live music & dance shows begin at 6pm. At 8pm, On & Off the Stage & Boss Street Brass Band present their bold and brassy take on improv comedy – imagine SNL suffused with New Orleans jazz, with sketches performed by a licensed Behavioral Analyst & Drama Therapist. Their show, All Together Now, is an entertaining, hilarious, & healing therapy session wrapped in comedy, whose punchline doesn’t waste anyone’s time – All Together Now truly brings it all together.

Sunday closes with a sunset Rest in Peace ritual at 7pm. Fast-paced economic development has brought about gentrification & increased disparities in the rapidly changing streets of Austin. Since Proposition B was passed in 2021, Festival Director Denver Gonzales has lost hundreds of unhoused friends to extreme climate & humanitarian neglect, and it is now a criminal offense to sit or lay in Austin public areas. Gonzales’s installation with dadaLab artist Jamal Hussain will honor 700 Austin neighbors who now rest in peace. In remembrance of their lives, Denver invites attendees to legally lay themselves down & let dreams rise. We believe in RESTiprocity, solidarity through rest – because well-being & belonging are human rights.

It is vital to capture the voices of community members during this time of radical transformation; XYZ Atlas will gather Austinites’ stories through VR experiences & surveys each day in order to create maps and artworks which visualize belonging. XYZ Atlas was recently nominated for the National Endowment for the Arts Our Town grant with a letter of support from Mayor Alder. The Austin stories we collect will shape our next phases of community art programming & planning.

Why rest? “I am convinced that revolutions begin with play & rest.” -Angela Davis, at Austin’s Black Art Matters Festival hosted by Austin Justice Coalition. We echo activist Ayana Johnson’s question “What if we get this right?” We must practice what our mentor Deborah Hay calls the “deep, deep ethos of optimism” to survive. Inspired by The Nap Ministry & Emergent Strategies, join in on our love letter to Austin’s past, present, & future.

Why The Carver? George Washington Carver was the original “Organic Whole Foods” connoisseur. Executive Director Amy Morrow recalls, “my friend knew Carver as a child. He and his father shared handwritten letters after church. That childhood memory shaped his dream half a century later to become a doctor of Oriental Medicine.” REST Fest celebrates Carver’s legacy & passions: flowers, plants, soil regeneration that revolutionized agriculture during the Dust Bowl & Great Depression, & rest, which saved him from autoimmune illnesses while he was enslaved as a child. Over 100 years later, we again face the challenges of food insecurity, climate change, & pandemics. Health is not a privilege only for the elite – health is for everyone.

Who are the artists? VR Games by XYZ Atlas, Latinx Artisan Markets, Benevolent Instruction, Dance Films by The Theorists & Karen Langevin, Refreshments by Revolution Spirits & Free Lunch, Dance by Corps Multiple, Theorists, & Agora Artists, Improv Comedy by On & Off the Stage & Boss Street Band, Original Music by Key Whole, Schi the God, the Bard of 6th David Quick & Plantonics, Immersive Art by Denver Gonzales, Jamal Hussain, and Oakley Thigpen.

Austin’s XYZ Atlas: Mapping Belonging invites citizens to be co-cartographers in the development of our participatory public art project & digital hedonic mapping platform. XYZ Atlas asks where we feel a sense of belonging & maps the emotional experiences of the places that make us who we are. XYZ Atlas helps citizens navigate life’s complexities, mapping hot spots of community need, strengthening social ties & empowering our voices. Through 2022, the XYZ Atlas project has had iterations at 130 events in Texas that reached well over 700,500 people in person & over 9 million in the media. Led by citizens, we can plan for positive places by visualizing our collective highs & lows & every emotional experience in-between. XYZ Atlas has partnered with stakeholders, institutions, & municipal governments including the Austin Department of Museums & Cultural Services, Miriam Olivares of GIS firm ESRI & Yale University, the office of Austin Mayor Steve Adler, & Dell Medical School at the University of Texas.

The Theorists are artist/citizens collaborating internationally to create multi-disciplinary homegrown art in Austin – because people matter & places matter. Our cohort has included painters, physicists, poets, journalists, musicians, aerialists, rock climbers, nurses, cinematographers, mathematicians, database architects, & we are all quite fond of dancing. We bridge gaps by asking “What if” while we aim to inspire people of all backgrounds, ages, & cultures. Founder Amy Morrow travels internationally hosting Gaga & Toolbox Workshops. She has led professional development workshops with internationally lauded artists in over 85+ residencies, 18+ in partnership with The University of Texas & Texas Performing Arts Center, & five at Wood Haven ATX. Modules include training in Gaga, CounterTechnique®, Fighting Monkey®, Repertoire with Black Grace (New Zealand), and Media Labs with Jason Akira Somma, & Deborah Hay. “The Lady of” solo was selected by Nancy Wozny as Arts & Culture Standouts for 2015. Morrow was awarded Best Dancer by Austin Critic’s Table in 2017. From 2018-2021, Morrow attended International Exposure in Tel Aviv as a presenter. Current public programming Latinx artist residencies & seasonal performance installations at the ESB-MACC, video sessions at Travis County Correctional Complex, and Draw Together at Camp Esperanza & downtown in concert with The Other Ones Foundation, Austin Mutual Aid, Austin Urban League, Art from the Streets, & Street Forum.