In this final episode of season three of Queerly Beloved, I drop in with Yaron “Dashboard” Schweizer: a community weaver, theatre maker, and director of Chinkapin Craftstead. From kibbutz days to the Eggplant Faerie Players to a hand-built, off-grid life in rural Tennessee, Dashboard has been practicing the art of community living for decades. We start with a conversation about the tender tension of our time: holding grief and rage without losing levity, and how joy can be a sustainable form of resistance.
About Our Guest
Yaron “Dashboard” Schweizer has been committed to community living and organizing—and to theatre acting and directing—for most of their life. They lived on a kibbutz as a young adult, studied acting in New York City, and moved to rural Tennessee in 1994. A former member of the Eggplant Faerie Players, Dashboard toured nationally with multiple shows. In 2004, they and their partner joined friends in a hollow near Woodbury, hand-building their off-grid home. Dashboard now serves as director of Chinkapin Craftstead, a nonprofit queer arts organization uplifting queer, trans, and BIPOC voices. 💚
Other themes we explore:
- Visible allyship & solidarity: what a keffiyeh signals, showing up thoughtfully, and taking responsibility without collapsing into despair.
- Community (beyond the buzzword): the gift and the grit—why conflict can be medicine, and how chosen family keeps us brave.
- From kibbutz to Radical Faeries: homophobia, leaving, arriving, and finding a movement that makes room for your full self.
- Theatre x ritual x politics: ACT UP echoes, a Fairy Witch coven, ritual theatre, and intergenerational magic at Chinkapin (including the revival of Bar Dykes).
- Inanna’s descent & Venus cycles: shedding even the identities we love to remember who we are beneath them—and bringing that medicine back to the village.
- Earth-based spirituality & land: practicing on stolen land, indigenous rights, and why “all liberation is one liberation.
Memorable Lines
- “They’re coming for our bodies—but really, they’re coming for our joy.”
- “Community that isn’t self-aware can press people down; community at its best lifts us into who we’re becoming.”
- ““Palestinian liberation is the collective tissue of our collective liberation”
Mentions
Radical Faeries • ACT UP • Bar Dykes • Fairy Witch coven • Inanna / Venus cycle • Chinkapin Craftstead • Eggplant Faerie Players
Connect & Support
- Learn more about Chinkapin Craftstead - https://www.chinkapincrafts.org/
- Connect with Wil here- https://www.wil-fullyliving.com/
- Help me celebrate this final episode of season 3 by leaving a 5 star review! 🙏
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