︎

MEN OF MELANIN MAGIC


We are community engineers who specialize in creating safe and enjoyable events for queer life in the greater Boston area.

Website: www.menofmelaninmagic.com

Work Samples


These are pictures of our Pride day party, hosted this year at Encore. Over 600 people, mostly those who are of BIPOC communities, were in attendance.

Arist Statement

Our main motivating factor is joy. The reason for this is because joy encompasses freedom, liberation, and the audacity to be one’s authentic self –– everything we believe people, especially those in BIPOC communities, deserve to experience. The world in which we live does a good job of making joy a hard thing to find, even in the context of a progressive, cobblestone town called Boston. Therefore, our ambition is to ensure that with each project that we curate, we are doing our part to make joy an easier thing to find.

Project Description:

Our preliminary concept explores the intersections of community, well-being, and identity, particularly centering identities that are queer, trans, and/or BIPOC. Starting in January and culminating in the Pride celebration month of June, we aim to offer a 6 month series of communal workout sessions led exclusively by queer and trans fitness experts. Appropriately called Bussdown Fitness, these workout sessions will mix hot dance trends with powerful strength-training to create an ultimate workout experience that simultaneously promotes well-being and having a good time. Most of all, Bussdown Fitness will be free and open to the public, easily accessible by public transportation, and located in areas that are predominantly populated by BIPOC communities.

The final session of Bussdown Fitness is planned to be a huge, outdoor event to celebrate Pride and to fully display joy in motion. It will include music, prizes, and other fun activities, all for the purpose of building community.

We are keen on developing events that are relevant and meet the needs of our audience, which is composed mostly of those who are of BIPOC communities. We believe that Bussdown Fitness fits this description for three reasons: it promotes self and community care, it is rooted in solidarity and a judgement-free philosophy, and it is an opportunity to have a good time without alcohol or other substances being a part of the equation. These three components combine to create an experience that demonstrates personal and communal resiliency in a way that encourages positivity and centers joy –– one that will certainly resonate with BIPOC communities.