Paneled by Saharra Dixon, Krista Nelson & Shavon Jones
Pay-What-You-Wish
Laurel Hill West, Conservatory
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Aging in Black communities is often framed through crises—health disparities, economic insecurity, systemic neglect, and premature death. But what if we reframe the conversation to center the power of Black eldership, the artistry of intergenerational wisdom-sharing, and the radical act of preparing for a good death? This panel brings together Black death doulas, aging scholars, and artists who explore the intersection of mortality, culture, and creative expression.
Through storytelling, research, and lived experience, panelists will examine the Combined Axes of Personal and Collective Grief in African Americans, the ways grief shapes Black futures, and how creative expression (specifically, Afrofuturism) can transform our understanding of aging and mortality. This conversation will challenge dominant narratives of death and grief in Black communities, and emphasize Black agency in shaping holistic, intentional, and liberated approaches to death, grief, and legacy to pave ways for more intentional, healthful futures. -
Saharra Dixon is a Black, queer Health Education Specialist, digital and performance-based storyteller, health equity researcher, and nonprofit leader dedicated to decolonizing public health. With a passion for mental health, chronic illness, and reproductive justice in minoritized communities, she weaves creativity and narrative into her work—unearthing the fundamental causes of health inequity and imagining healthful futures. A PhD Candidate in Public Health at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Saharra also holds an MA in Educational Theatre from New York University and a BS in Health Behavior Science from the University of Delaware. She is trained in psychodrama, sociodrama, Theatre of the Oppressed, and death doula care, using these methods to explore mental health, grief, identity, and liberation. Saharra is a board member of the Collective for Radical Death Studies and serves as the organization’s Education and Outreach Co-Chair.
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Krista Nelson bridges the gap between people and the natural world through ritual, language, and deep listening. As founder of Nature as Lover, she invites participants to speak with trees, listen to water, and enter in relationship with the living earth. Krista is a kikehwèt hitkwike, a healer among the trees or ecotherapist with the Philadelphia Ecotherapy project and the Fairmount Park Commission. She honors her Lenape ancestry through weekly Lenape language study under the guidance of the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania and has recently become an official luwensu wintemakwi, a Lenape language teacher. Krista enjoys playing Native American-style flutes and creating sacred talismans on a canvas of Native American finger weaving. She says both flute and weaving tell the untold stories of her ancestors. She lives in Philadelphia with her five children and six grandchildren.
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Shavon Norris is an Artist. Educator. Facilitator. She grew up in a Black Sci-Fi Christian home in the Bronx that sparked her curiosity about the magic, medicine, and meaning living within us. Shavon uses movement along with text, sound, and imagery to reveal the stories living in our bodies. Her work explores our relationship to our identities, our experiences, and to each other. An examination and celebration of what we feel, think, and believe. As an artist her work has been presented at venues in NYC and Philadelphia. As a performer, she has performed for Silvana Cardell, Leah Stein, Merian Soto, makini poe, and toured with Pig Iron Theatre Company. As a facilitator, she works with artistic, educational, and corporate institutions, offering learning on Creativity, Movement, Inclusivity, and Healing Centered/Trauma Informed Practices. Shavon’s artistic and educational philosophies are rooted in the desire to offer herself, learners, performers, and audiences, opportunities to deepen the understanding of self and the collective. She loves the living and working she gets to do in the world.