Healing and Wellness Series - TDOV Weekend: Saturday

Chicago Therapy Collective's 13-Week Healing & Wellness Series is a weekly space for trans, non-binary and queer community members to tune inwards, explore a variety of healing modalities, and build community. Two classes will be held every Saturday at Cheetah Gym in Andersonville starting March 2nd and ending May 25th. All classes will be facilitated by our team of talented trans, non-binary, and queer teachers. See Saturday March 30th classes below. A full class schedule and teacher roster will be available soon.

[SOMETHING ABOUT TDOV CLASS SCHEDULE]

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• 2pm-3:15pm: Mobility with Sam K.
• 3:30pm-4:45pm: Body is an Orchestra with Darling Shear

*Sign up for one or both classes. You must reserve your spot. Capacity is capped at 15 students for each class.

Program Vision:

Our intention for this Healing and Wellness Series is to offer our community curated healing and wellness practices across various modalities that collectively nurture us amid the tumultuous times we find ourselves in. Our goal is to disrupt the status quo of stress, isolation, and limited resources for accessible, inclusive health, wellness, and care by providing a wealth of sorely needed offerings. Through the series, we will strive to create an immersive multisensory experience that rebuilds connections between the mind, body, and soul, and bridges between one another.

2:00-3:15 PM

Feeling pain in your joints or muscles? Stiff from sitting all day? Just want to learn some helpful movements? Take an hour to unwind (literally) with a combination of active mobility exercises and passive stretching.

This is a moderate workout, even thought we won’t do cardio or strength training. Bring a water bottle.

Sam (they/them) is a white, transmasc, queer trainer specializing in pain-free training and working with folks in the LGBTQ+ community. They have years of experience training queer and trans folks, and aim to queer the fitness industry through their work. They offer 1:1 personal training, virtual sessions, programming, and more.

Certifications: NASM-CPT, PPSC - Pain-Free Performance Specialist Certification, Foundations in Trauma Informed Weight Lifting, CPR & AED.

3:00-4:45 PM

[CLASS DESCRIPTION]

Darling is a Chicago Native but has roots in Atlanta where Darling started dance training. Darling attended North Springs Charter School of the performing arts, began dancing professionally right out of high school and in that time worked with many great choreographers. The highlights were working with Bubba Carr choreographer/artistic director to Cher for 12 plus years, Rhonda Henriksen soloist with Hubbard Street and Twyla Tharp, Tracy Vogt former Philadanco dancer, Lauri Stallings Hubbard street soloist and founder/artistic director of gloATL.

Darling moved back to Chicago the summer of 2011 to start as a freelance dancer/choreographer. Darling has worked with The Fly Honeys of the The Inconvenience, Links Hall, Victoria Bradford, Ayako Kato, chances dances, no small plan productions, Slo’ Mo, the Public hotel, Soho House Chicago, Growing Power inc., EXPO Chicago, Queen at Smart Bar, SAIC, Depaul museum, University of Chicago, University of Illinois in Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago Film Archive, Salonathon, and Open TV beta.

In 2018 Darling was chosen as the cover model and also quoted in Micah Salkind's Oxford published book 'Do you remember house? Chicago's queer of color underground'. Followed by receiving the Between Gestures scholarship to Austria to attend Impulstanz in Vienna also the Chicago Dancemakers Forum fellowship and Links Hall CoMission Fellowship along with a 3Arts nomination in 2019 and 2022 and 2020 Darling became a cohort to Hubbard Street Dance. In September of 2023 Darling performance alongside Grammy winning artist Corrine Bailey Rae for B.A.R(Black Artist Retreat) created by Theaster Gates and performed in the Stoney Island Art's Bank.

To close out, Darling Made history co-producing and performance with Slo'mo Queer dance party and NBC Chicago airing a live broadcast cast for NYE for at the newly renovated Ramova Theater in Bridgeport. Darling's mission has been one with a strong spiritual center and allowance of universal well-being.

Host or Publisher Chicago Therapy Collective