Since the creation of SageSeeker Productions, Jasmin Agosto has been creating imaginative spaces with her series La Sala Femme whose purpose is in “centering the artistry of Black womxn, womxn of color, non-binary, trans, and queer folx of color”. La sala (or the living room) has often been a space for community building. Since its inception on May 12th, 2018, La Sala Femme has been based in Hartford, CT, but Saturday, May 16th, would have been the first time it changed locations into New Haven, CT. However, given the restrictions on social distancing, this was the first iteration of the series in a virtual setting, conducted both via Zoom and Facebook LIVE.
After I moved back to Hartford, CT in 2015, I felt the urge to start building my own queer community. I hadn’t felt the sense of belonging in queer spaces until I attended my first La Sala Femme on February 16, 2019 at another community sanctuary I had found in Hartford, Tainted Inc. I had the opportunity to interview Jasmin after the first virtual event of La Sala Femme on Saturday, May 16th. La Sala Femme is set to be on the road (even in a possible virtual setting), with plans to go to Brooklyn’s MetaDen on August 29th, and Los Angeles on November 21st.
Interview edited for brevity and clarity. Photos provided by SageSeeker Productions, images courtesy of Maza Rey, and Ashley LaRue, respectively.
For those that are learning about SageSeeker Productions and La Sala Femme for the first time, could you tell us what is your intention around creating safe and welcoming spaces for queer communities of color?
I would like to tell the origin story and why it’s very much a queer space. Since high school I was a spoken word artist. I attended both Conard High School in West Hartford, CT and the Academy of the Arts in Hartford, CT. I had always been trying to find myself and my people. Early on I was code switching and adapting between my suburban high school and my church community. My mother was born in Puerto Rico and moved to Brooklyn when she was 18 years old, and that’s where she met my father, whose parents were born in Puerto Rico but he grew up in the Bronx and Brooklyn. My mother has always been an educator working with English language learners and my father has been a theologian, and in 1995 he got an opportunity to work in the Hartford Seminary as a Professor of New Testament. From early on I had the foundation of the church, but I never felt I fully fit in. I was questioning everything from very young and I feel that has always carried on with me. As years progressed, my parents went farther away from conservative and went to the United Church of Christ denomination which was an open and affirming denomination. So there was always a sense of having to live in a multi-racial society and in a society that is accepting of the queer community. As someone who was going into high school as a poet, and who was passionate about civil rights, this idea that we have to love people and build bridges was present early on. I feel there was this formation of understanding that I wanted to give love, to bring people together, and to have people share their stories. My choice to then go to Trinity College was about wanting to stay connected to my Hartford artists and activists. My cultural organizing came from an earlier age, and as soon as I got to Trinity I started being a student organizer for the Trinity International Hip Hop Festival. This past year would have been the 15th Annual International Hip Hop Festival, and I have stayed connected with student organizing, and connecting artistry with politics. I continued to work with cultural arts organizing after I left Trinity, I later went to grad school at NYU and studied Artist Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Community Development, and I built a whole business plan around creating a Hartford artist co-op. I was very interested in cooperative economics and learning more about that and how to build together. I came back to Hartford and started working in the Hartford History Center. Developing SageSeeker Productions was for me stating that I am a cultural producer, I am a curator, this is the work that I do, and it is always going to be communal and collective in my vision for it. The queer piece of this is that I’ve always been queer. Before starting La Sala Femme I was in a relationship for 5 years that was toxic, and it was my black and brown women, and queer folks that helped me see that my light was dimming. And this is how La Sala Femme came to me. In this process of me scraping my way to liberate and return to myself, I could also bring all my people to this process to celebrate and honor each other.
There is a sense of social justice, and a sense of belonging at La Sala Femme. The way that you create and welcome a space for not just the artists but for the community, and bringing in organizations. When I first went to La Sala Femme it felt like home, and I see your story integral to what you’ve created. In all the years you have started this series, and as you mentioned during Saturday’s event, La Sala Femme has not repeated an artist to feature or collaborate, which shows the richness in talent that exists in our state. How do you plan to continue to highlight this both as the pandemic affects event planning, and as you take La Sala Femme on the road?
Part of this has been a lot of planning and part of this has also been “when I get there I will figure it out.” I had no idea the pandemic would happen, and the tour was set and I felt I needed to level up. It’s not just about La Sala Femme, or just connecting with artists and all of these other cities, it’s also setting roots and connecting as a producer and a curator to venues, partners, artists, community organizers from these cities that already have their villages, their community building spaces, that then Connecticut artists can also see and tap into. I think that the abundance is in seeing ourselves all around the world. Connecting with artists and organizers who are developing these kinds of projects already all around the world, and for them to also see Connecticut as a viable place and partnering with us. The touring piece is just as important as the developing and evolving of our roots in Connecticut. So for me the tour was just a tiny step to connect and build with artists, venues, and spaces in these different cities. Even though there is this pandemic we proved we have a virtual space with La Sala Femme. It still had the intention, and the love, and the spirit of La Sala Femme. So I’m thinking right now, that even though we may have to continue to stay in a virtual space, possibly through 2020, that we are still going to do the tour but as a virtual tour. I think I will always have Connecticut as a targeted area because I want us to stay connected to wherever this thing goes. I think the biggest challenge will be making sure that we can pay everybody and finding funding partners. 
What were some challenges in bringing the event into a virtual setting on Saturday?
Most of the challenge was fear of the unknown. It was so much more of a psychological thing. And I will say that the technological piece was the biggest challenge, because I had never done it. We were coming from all of our different locations. Lighting, sound, people having different kinds of devices, and I was mostly concerned with the musicians. I would say it was 30 minutes before we went live that I even figured out how to go from Zoom to a Facebook Live. But I think tech was definitely the largest challenge by far, and gave me the most anxiety.
Obviously there is a difference between the live events and the virtual. Right now, we are craving connection and I want to know what differences you saw as far as connection is concerned (attendance, interaction with one another)?
It’s so interesting. I would love to know how the audience received the difference between the live and the virtual because it’s very different being the organizer. From what I saw and what I experienced, obviously it’s different when you are in the physical space because you might just bump into somebody, and connect with people in a very natural way. Because people are so hungry to connect, being able to live comment on the experience in a way is something that you can’t really do in the live La Sala Femme, because you are watching it and you are not necessarily talking during the performance. But there’s still this intimacy that’s happening that is very interesting. Seeing live DJ sets and performances with artists on Instagram Live, you don’t get to ever see them that up close. To see them in their spaces, there is a different level of intimacy that is happening in the virtual world. That’s why I felt I needed to get more personal because I felt “you are in my living room right now.” The amount of physical energy and hours that goes into setting up a live La Sala Femme event, is a lot and is exhausting. For the virtual, I was in my sweatpants in my living room and it was super refreshing. And I could immediately watch the performance. Having it immediately saved as a full live experience on Facebook Live was great, because I never get to do that. So I was able to see how it looked to audiences.
You mentioned on Saturday, “La Sala Femme … has been about village building.” Your work within the Hartford community and the importance to continue to organize and support each other is palpable at La Sala Femme events; for example, as all donations went to CT CORE from this past event. How do you see the importance of “village building” around performative spaces necessary for community building/healing? And how will you do this as La Sala Femme ventures out of Hartford, CT?
For me, I love being able to experience major concerts and shows, but also more in a smaller venue where you feel more up close with the performers. The first hip hop festival I went to, it felt like the church that I had always been seeking. The energy in the crowd was in itself a healing experience. So for La Sala Femme is about reflecting on our stories, through song and movement. I feel art, music, dance is at the core of who we are as people and is a reflection of our humanity. We have to struggle so much in this life, and we feel so alone sometimes because white supremacy has divided us. That is it, it is to make us not feel human, it is to completely try and separate us from our humanity, from each other. You are in hypervigilance mode all the time, trying to figure out how to exist, how to say the things that you are saying so the people can hear you, because otherwise they’re just going to write you off. I feel like performative spaces and village spaces are those where we can just unravel and reconnect with our humanity. I feel like it is critical to our society in imagining the worlds that we want to live in. I have faith that we are everywhere. No matter where I go, I trust that I am going to reach out to and further connect with the people that are also seeking those kinds of spaces. 
What would you like to see in our black and brown Latinx queer communities of color as we navigate the effects of COVID-19, both in general and in relation to performative spaces?
I feel like COVID is just revealing what has been here. It is further exposing people that have had so much privilege to never see it, to see it and to see all these layers of oppression. I feel like it’s a real opportunity for us to tap into more redistribution possibilities. I would love to see how we take this momentum of this energy right now, to further push the kind of societies that we really want to live in. And for me, the spaces where I felt the most myself have been in black and brown queer spaces. This month being a celebration of queer life, is like, well I live this all year long. That’s why La Sala Femme is a series because it doesn’t matter what time of the year it is, this is always a space. My larger vision is rooting in cities, literally a physical venue space, where it is a collective. Where we are co-producing, co-creating, different things for the needs of our community that is always centered in joy, in love, and in spirit. But it is a creative space, where people can also gather and organize meetings, and we can do things that are also basic needs – art is a basic need. Every village has celebrations, has ceremonies, and that’s very much a part of a healthy community. Part of the reason why La Sala Femme was so receptive and people were hungry for it, is that we’ve lost a lot of our physical queer spaces in Hartford.
What advice do you have for those in other states who may be looking to start a space of their own or who are seeking similar space for community?
I think number one is finding your people. I say people because when we feel really isolated sometimes we don’t recognize what we bring to the table. And we sometimes need our people to recognize and see us to even begin to imagine how to contribute. Starting to look, and now with our virtual world, there’s so much online to figure out what groups, organizations are out there. There are so many Facebook groups that are more and more defined towards who you are looking for, the ideologies that reflect your own values. And also, recognizing who you already know, people who you are drawn to already just to begin having conversations about some of your ideas, some of your dreams, some of your hopes. And in building something genuine is all about relationship building. The other thing I would say is, and these are tips from Trudi Lebron, envisioning the life you want to live while living the life you have – what are the small ways that you can begin to implement your own things that will liberate your family and your community in everyday practices. Also, when you go to try an idea, try it. Take a small version of your whole world vision, and just test it out. And if there is money involved, consider who in your network would want to support. I feel like anything that comes from a place of love, and genuinely wanting to build a more equitable community, you are going to attract people that are also seeking that.