UCLA Sex Squad’s performance aims to spread sexual health awareness through humor
The UCLA Sex Squad is a part of the UCLA Art & Global Health Center—a reserch center on campus that seeks to nurture a global network of artists and advocates working in the realm of public health. Harnessing the communicative power of the arts, the Center creates public health interventions that celebrate life, buttressed by principles of human rights and social justice. Now through January 1, the UCLA Art & Global Health Center is running a crowdfunding campaign to take the Sex Squad on tour. Their hope is to to bring their arts-based sex ed program to UCLA students and high school youth in Los Angeles. Click here to find out more and support the 2019 Sex Squad Tour.
"A crowded room in Glorya Kaufman Hall will erupt into an improvised chorus during UCLA Sex Squad’s show, singing about the six bodily fluids that transmit AIDS.
UCLA Sex Squad will celebrate its 10th anniversary and the 30th anniversary of World AIDS Day on Thursday with a performance in Glorya Kaufman Hall. They will perform songs and skits focused on sexual health, including one piece that imagines a future without AIDS. The anniversary show will also feature alumni and representatives from The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation. (Jenna Nicole Smith/Daily Bruin)
UCLA Sex Squad’s 10th anniversary, which coincides with the 30th anniversary of World AIDS Day, will culminate Thursday night in a humor-driven performance meant to spread awareness about sexual health, said co-director Veline Mojarro. Working with co-directors Mojarro and Robert Gordon, the group is a collective of undergraduate students enrolled in “Performing Sexual Health: UCLA Sex Squad,” a class that uses an arts-based approach – including theater, song, dance and scriptwriting – to discuss taboo topics within sexual education. The advent of World AIDS Day focuses on an idealistic future in certain skits, with the closing act imagining a world without AIDS. To achieve such feats, UCLA Sex Squad envisions a world benefited by comprehensive sex education unhindered by institutional barriers, Mojarro said.
“A lot of people don’t realize that sexual health includes everything from putting on a condom to healthy relationships. Sometimes people have a hard time seeing the full spectrum,” Mojarro said. “Anything that informs you making a decision about your body is spoken about in Sex Squad.”
The anniversary show, in addition to student performances, will also feature guest acts including UCLA Sex Squad alumni, campus drag queen Lorelai and representatives from The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation, who will be speaking on World AIDS Day. The students themselves will engage in theater and personal storytelling, in which the students take the audience through phases of their lives using vignettes supplemented by castmates’ performances. They also plan to perform both monologues and spoken poetry.
“Sex Squad is about creating a space where we can express our truth and ask ourselves questions that we might not always feel comfortable asking ourselves.” Gordon said. “We’re learning how to navigate these topics inside systems of power that make it harder for people to learn about sexual health."— Kaia Sherry, Nov. 28, 2018
This post is an excerpt. Read the full article on the Daily Bruin website.
Stay engaged. Use #UCLAarts to stay connected.
