As Honey Pot Performance marks its 25th anniversary, the West Side arts organization is reflecting on a quarter-century of using performance, storytelling and public humanities projects to preserve Black cultural history and foster community.
What began in 2001 as a small collective of artists and friends has grown into a cultural institution whose work spans archival initiatives, neighborhood programming and performances rooted in Afro-feminist and Black diasporic traditions.
Meida Teresa McNeal is the artistic and managing director of Honey Pot Performance and has spent over two decades producing a wide range of creative projects as both a solo artist and in collaboration with the company.
“Honey Pot Performance uses performance as a tool to build collectivity and as a fellowship. It is through invitations to create and build together and through play, risk, and experimentation, that healing happens. This is where the alchemy of intimacy, vulnerability and trust comes together to build a practice of caretaking; how we guide and facilitate one another through the work matters,” McNeal said.
Their work moves between intimate, personal stories and broader societal and collective narratives. McNeal describes the storytelling as a kind of talisman for collective healing, one that honors what came before, what has been hidden and what is being newly valued through performance.
Aisha Josina Jean-Baptiste, the group’s marketing and communications director and co-founding member of Honey Pot Performance, said the organization began in 2001 as a small grassroots performance collective of four friends with limited resources and an evolving vision. She noted that it has since grown into a public humanities and cultural organizing practice that includes archival projects like the Chicago Black Social Culture Map and community-based programs bringing together artists, scholars, and residents.
“We’ve remained consistent in our commitment to Afro-feminist inquiry and Black diasporic storytelling. From the beginning, we’ve centered lived experience, collective memory and everyday cultural knowledge as forms of intellectual and creative production. While the scale of our work has expanded, our core focus stays the same: honoring the complexity and creativity of Black life through performance and public engagement,” Jean-Baptiste said.
Kimeco Roberson, a board member of Honey Pot Performance, said it is especially important right now to create spaces where Black people are not only responding to crises or surviving, but also actively experiencing joy, connection, and self-determination in public.
“So much of the narrative around Black communities is rooted in struggle and while that history is real, it is not the whole story. For Honey Pot Performance, this season is about making room for celebration, movement, pleasure, creativity and memory as forms of cultural preservation and resistance,” Roberson said.
Jean-Baptiste said the West Side is more than just a geographic focus for Honey Pot Performance; it is also a cultural and historical foundation for much of the organization’s work. She said many members are rooted in the area and aim to challenge negative narratives by highlighting the West Side as a site of creativity, resilience, and cultural production, while also acknowledging the impact of ongoing structural disinvestment on local communities.
“For Honey Pot Performance, staying rooted there is about our deep commitment to accountability and relationship-building. Our work is shaped in collaboration with local artists, organizers and residents, and we want to ensure that our programming reflects community priorities and is not extractive,” Jean-Baptiste said.
When asked what the next 25 years of Honey Pot Performance might look like for both the organization and Chicago’s broader cultural landscape, McNeal said she wants to see their systems for supporting artists develop and grow.
“I want to continue to draw more creatives and communities to the space to help us imagine what our arts, culture and public humanities can look like as a hub in the neighborhood for our city and for the West Side,” McNeal said. “When we commit or surrender to being all in, we open up possibilities to make something happen: a spark, a charge, an elevation. We are activating energies and making meaning and worlds that reflect us, embrace us, celebrate us and make room for us to be our full selves.”
Honey Pot Performance will host its second annual Juneteenth Celebration on June 19 at First Church of the Brethren, featuring games, vendors, food trucks, wellness workshops and live performances.
The church is located at 425 S. Central Park Ave.
