Lifestyle
Your guide to free self-care: 8 L.A. wellness events you can’t miss in May
Who doesn’t love a seaside soundbath or a spa day? But wellness is expensive — and self-care shouldn’t break the bank. So we’ve curated a handful of free wellness activities for the month of May to keep you stretched, sane and grounded.
But first: One of these events is blending wellness, culture, community and healing in an interesting way.
For more than 38 years the World Stage Performance Gallery, in South Los Angeles’ Leimert Park, has presented live music, poetry, spoken word and other forms of cultural expression in its performance gallery. On May 23, it will stage its first annual Sacred Music and Healing Festival in Leimert Park.
It’s an ambitious undertaking, says Executive Director Dwight Trible. The idea behind the festival, he says, is that “music is medicine.”
“At a time when many are seeking restoration, grounding and connection,” he said, “we are creating a space where sound, rhythm and collective presence become tools for healing.”
We caught up with Trible to learn more about the free event in a conversation that has been edited for length and clarity.
You’ve been thinking about staging this festival for years. Why finally do so now?
The time is right to do this. Democracy is just barely visible and hanging on. I think we have a rogue administration and I do believe that they’re pushing swiftly towards a fascist regime. Most people that I encounter are very, very angry about [that]. And whenever there is some upheaval in the world, or in our community, Leimert Park has always been this galvanizing place where everybody comes together to learn what’s going on, to find out what the solutions are and what the marching orders are. Usually it’s about some kind of injustice that’s happening to the black and brown community. This time we just felt that the way of counteracting the upheaval and negativity that exists currently in our country was to look at it from a different perspective: with love, compassion, faith and education.
(Illustration by Robbin Burnham WACSO / For The Times)
How is the festival different than a traditional music festival?
It’s a wellness experience shaped through culture, where jazz, Indigenous traditions and healing arts come together in one shared space. We wanted to make it as diverse as possible. To not only have the African-oriented or African American music, but music from Mexico, Indigenous Native American music, Asian music, so people can be exposed to different forms of spiritual music. Most of the time in South Los Angeles we will go to the church and hear this sort of gospel Baptist music — and there will be some of that too — but there are all sorts of ways to express your spiritual views. So we wanted to have something that everybody can relate to.
How exactly is music healing, in your opinion?
We’ve all been to concerts — whether symphonic music or jazz or new age music — and we go in with one mindset and when we come out, we have a completely different disposition. I think music is one of the strongest ways of healing. Music is medicine. It’s sometimes better than taking pharmaceutical drugs. It changes your mind, your mental state, your spiritual state. When you surrender to the music it’s definitely something that’s going to transform. Music has a direct impact on the nervous system. Hopefully it will calm the body, shift emotional states and create a sense of connection. I hope that people from all over the city will come.
What other wellness offerings will be at the festival?
We have a main stage, which will have [musicians]. But there will be two other tents. In one, there will be people doing yoga, tai chi — the more physical things of peace and healing. Then we have another tent where there will be presentations on herbs and meditation and other ways of healing people’s bodies. There will be about 25 booths with other people [showcasing] healing remedies and some of the hospitals will be talking about mental health.
Who will be performing?
One of our founders of the World Stage, he’s a poet, Kamau Daáood. We’ll have Carlos Niño & Friends and I’m sure he’ll bring a special guest. The great pianist Eric Reed. Jimetta Rose Voices of Creation. I do progressive music and I’ll have a group playing there as well. We’ll also have people from our spoken word workshop who will be doing presentations throughout the day. There’s a store called Nappily Naturals & Apothecary in Leimert Park — they do healing remedies and meditation — and they will be curating the healing tent.
You’ve said the festival reflects “a deeper narrative emerging in Los Angeles.” What is that?
I think the narrative is: there has got to be another way to do things rather than to try and use force against force. We [can’t] bring peace by bringing war. I know that a lot of people are getting tired of what’s going on and thinking about how do we stop this? You have a person leading the country and they’re prepared to use guns and ammunition to be able to make sure they can keep doing whatever they’ve set out to do. You have to go at it another way. The power of love is stronger than the power of hate.
Sacred Music and Healing Festival, 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday, May 23; 4321 Degnan Blvd., Leimert Park.
Here’s what else is happening across the wellness landscape in May.
Mindfulness with Christiane Wolf at the Wende Museum of the Cold War in Culver City.
(Stella Kalinina / For The Times)
Midweek is “Wellness Wednesdays” at the Wende Museum of the Cold War in Culver City. The museum will host a free, hourlong, guided meditation — led by Christiane Wolf — in its Glorya Kaufman Community Center’s A-frame theater, a refurbished, century-old MGM prop house. Afterward, the Cantilever Collective will lead a free movement workshop in the sculpture garden, helping participants shake out any remaining remnants of stress. There will also be complimentary garden refreshments such as homemade soup and fresh bread from Clark Street Bakery. 9-11 a.m. every Wednesday in May; 10808 Culver Blvd., Culver City.
Similarly, the Hammer Museum hosts free, guided Mindful Awareness Meditations every Thursday in its Billy Wilder Theater, a collaboration with UCLA Mindful. Can’t get away midday to attend? The museum broadcasts the event live on its website. 12:30-1 p.m. every Thursday in May; 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood.
Los Angeles County Parks & Recreation is hosting a week of free “golden hour” wellness experiences in dozens of L.A. County parks in a program it’s calling, not surprisingly, “Parks at Sunset.” Activities include yoga, guided meditation, painting and dance; they’re meant “to help attendees relax, recharge, and reconnect in the heart of L.A. County parks.” The best part? They’re all free “drop-in” happenings, with no registration required. 4:30-6:30 p.m. May 14-22; check the site for park addresses near you.
ace/121 Gallery, which is operated by the nonprofit Glendale Arts, will host a “Mindful Art for Wellness” workshop for participants over 16 years old. The instructor will start off by giving attendees a prompt to spark creativity along with stress-reducing breathing exercises. Then the art-making begins. No experience is necessary. Simply “slowing down is the point,” the organization says. 7-8:30 p.m. May 18; 121 N. Kenwood St., Glendale.
Clockshop is an arts and culture nonprofit that puts on free programming in public spaces with the goal of connecting Angelenos to the land they live on. Its annual kite festival is a much anticipated, colorful “gallery in the sky.” This year, the festival’s theme is: “Take a Breath.” That includes visitors’ own deep breaths to slow down and feel relaxed as well as “the wind that lifts our kites, the air that sustains us, and the open sky we’re committed to protecting,” Clockshop says. 2-6 p.m. May 9; Los Angeles State Historic Park, 1245 N. Spring St., downtown L.A.
Los Angeles State Historic Park will be busy in May! The National Alliance on Mental Illness — NAMI — has dubbed May 16, 2026, “the day of hope.” As part of that, the annual NAMIWalks Greater LA County Mental Health Festival will take place that day at Los Angeles State Historic Park. The donation-only event, with free wellness activities, includes NAMIWalks, a roughly 1.5-mile walk on a path around the perimeter of the park. The fair will include about 60 booths as well as a “mind and body area” with soundbaths, yoga and other wellness activities. 8 a.m.-1 p.m. May 16; Los Angeles State Historic Park, 1245 N. Spring St., downtown L.A.
Nearly 50 years ago the Venice Art Walk debuted as a one-day fundraiser. It’s since grown into a 10-day-long Art Exhibition + Auction benefiting the Venice Family Clinic. The VFC provides comprehensive healthcare services to more than 45,000 Angelenos. The free exhibition will showcase works by established, mid-career and emerging artists, with Alison Saar serving as the event’s signature artist. Auction bids will be accepted online. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. May 8-17; 910 Abbot Kinney in Venice.
Author Julia Elliott won for her short story collection Hellions.
Forrest Clonts/Tin House
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Forrest Clonts/Tin House
Writer Julia Elliott has won this year’s Carol Shields Prize for Fiction for her short story collection Hellions. The award honors work by women and nonbinary authors in the U.S. and Canada.
Elliott, who also authored the novel The New and Improved Romie Futch and the short story collection The Wilds, is known for blending elements of Southern gothic horror, surrealism and fairy tale. Hellions, published in 2025, includes stories set against backdrops like a plague-stricken medieval convent, a feminist art colony, and small Southern towns.
“This eerie, eclectic, genre-leaping collection takes no half-measures; every sentence of Hellions crackles or crawls,” wrote the prize jury in a statement. “Here, human folly moves against a backdrop of horror and magic … But for all its wildness, there is tremendous control.”
The prize, named after a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, awards $150,000 to one winner each year. Novels, short story collections, and graphic novels by women and nonbinary authors are eligible.
This year’s finalists included Quiara Alegría Hudes (The White Hot), Lee Lai (Cannon), Megha Majumdar (A Guardian and a Thief), and Sonya Walger (Lion). They will each receive $12,500.
The Carol Shields Prize went to writer Canisia Lubrin in 2025.
You can listen to actor Donna Lynne Champlin read Elliott’s story “Hellion” on the Death, Sex & Money podcast here.
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By Helen Shaw, Vanessa Friedman, Léo Hamelin, Laura Salaberry and Sutton Raphael
June 2, 2026
At around 1 in the morning at the Sassafras Saloon in Hollywood, four masc lesbians in cowboy hats and chaps were dancing on top of the bar while bartenders attempted to continue making espresso martinis beneath them.
One performer crawled into the crowd and between the spread legs of an audience member, licking the air between their thighs. Another wrapped a belt around their girlfriend’s neck while thrusting against her to Bon Jovi’s “You Give Love a Bad Name.” The ravenous audience, almost entirely women, fluttered dollar bills all around, while easily filling the saloon’s 300-person capacity.
Across Los Angeles, countless strip clubs and revue shows were unfolding at that same hour, though none quite like this and likely few provoking this level of frenzy. The night had all the riotous energy of a scene from “Coyote Ugly,” with the choreographed masculinity of “Magic Mike.” Playing on the latter’s name, this was the doing of Magic Mascs, an all-masc lesbian and translesbian revue, by sapphics for sapphics.
Skye Valentinez, from left, Alexa Legend, Daddii Syd and King Captain are members of Magic Mascs, an all-masc lesbian and translesbian collective, that started in February.
“Our idea was to give lesbians what men get all the time at a strip club, but instead of just sitting around and singing ‘Pink Pony Club,’ actually going wild,” said group founder Daddii Syd, a.k.a. Syd Latimore.
The performers, self-described “daddies” — Daddii Syd, Alexa Legend, Skye Valentinez and King Captain — formed Magic Mascs in February. The performance at the Saloon was their third overall, but the group has already become an institution within lesbian nightlife in Los Angeles. They will make their debut during a Pride Month performance on Friday at Womxn Pride’s rooftop party in downtown L.A.
The members come from professional dance backgrounds. King Captain entered dance school at age 12 and taught dance for nearly a decade. Daddii Syd has danced since childhood. Alexa Legend spent years go-go dancing across clubs in the city before joining the troupe. Skye Valentinez, the baby of the group — cherub-faced, smiling through braces — is the newest to performing, though she steps into it naturally, exhibiting the same living, breathing caricature of masculinity as the rest of them.
“No one’s trying to be cisgender,” King Captain makes clear. “We’re not trying to be the kind of men who are born into and fed by patriarchy,” Daddii Syd added. “We’re redefining masculinity.”
King Captain gets their underwear stuffed with dollar bills from the crowd.
Magic Mascs’ success follows a broader trend of lesbians confidently stepping into masculinity before hungry eyes. In the past year, performative masc competitions have appeared across the country, with lesbians — hair slicked back and carabiners dangling from their Carhartt jeans — showing off in front of leering crowds. Magic Mascs feels like a more professionalized version of that phenomenon, less tongue-in-cheek — just tongue.
“We always knew there was a huge hunger for this,” Daddii Syd said.
Their first performance, in San Diego, sold out fast.
“I knew right away we were onto something special,” Daddii Syd said.
Videos of the troupe traveled far across sapphics’ algorithms, especially clips of King Captain, whose devoted fan base — known collectively as “The Castle” — make arduous trips just to see them in the flesh. One fan drove more than 20 hours from Dallas to San Diego to see Magic Mascs. Another sent an edible fruit bouquet from Australia.
Backstage, every gesture from the troupe was ultra-confident. Captain, wearing briefs stuffed with a sock full of rice, talked to me with a leg cocked on the footrest of my stool. Daddii Syd, Alexa Legend and Skye Valentinez stood pelvis-forward, hands behind their heads, flexing ropey muscles. They loved the camera, eyeing it like prey while tipping the brims of their cowboy hats. (“You guys are like the modern-day Beatles,” our photographer said.)
King Captain gets the Hollywood crowd into a frenzy during a recent show.
Everything in the show revolved around their hips. The performers rolled and glided before delivering sudden, mechanical thrusts powerful enough to rattle nearby glasses. Their bodies were taut with effort and exaggerated lust. Daddii Syd performed with her girlfriend Jamie in matching plaid, not leaving much to the imagination as they licked whipped cream off each other.
Alexa Legend, who described herself as shy offstage, eventually stripped down to nipple pasties and a cowboy hat, firing confetti from her crotch into the crowd. King Captain swerved their hips like a powerful mechanical bull. “Oh, Captain, my captain,” someone in the crowd said, hand pressed dramatically to her forehead.
They paid particular attention to a woman in a wheelchair in the crowd — typical of their performances — asking if they could sit on the wheelchair. They received keen consent. “That was, um, very nice,” she told me after, still a little lost for words.
“We’re huge on consent,” Daddii Syd said. At the start of the show, they told the crowd to cross their arms in a Wakanda Forever pose if they didn’t wish to be touched. They checked in constantly while moving through the crowd, leaning close to ask questions like, “Is this OK?” and “Anywhere you don’t like to be touched?”
Captain learned these habits through work in intimacy coordination and under the mentorship of Tonia Sina, among the first professional intimacy coordinators in Hollywood. That ethos of care extended beyond their interactions with the audience and into the way they interacted with one another offstage.
“We want everyone in the crowd to feel gorgeous,” King Captain said before the recent show at Sassafras Saloon in Hollywood.
King Captain, left, and Lauren Henson, a stage kitten for the Magic Mascs, perform together on the bar.
Forming a sanctuary for themselves was just as important to the troupe as emboldening others’ desire. “It’s hard to find other masc friends,” Daddii Syd said. “Everybody’s weirdly competitive and trying to sabotage each other.” King Captain agreed, asking: “Why can’t we all be daddies at the same time?”
Daddii Syd and King Captain, who are both in their 30s, had little butch representation or friendship growing up and they have now become something like father figures to Alexa Legend and Skye Valentinez, who are in their 20s.
“We have to protect each other,” King Captain said. “We have to look out for each other.”
Daddii Syd put her arm around Skye Valentinez and said: “Look at this beautiful baby we have.”
That tenderness carried straight into the night. There was a striking seriousness to the whole performance, which spanned from just past 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. Unlike a bachelorette party or the typical male revue, there was no giggling in the room, and no wink of camp from the performers. Here was a rare claim to unabashed public sapphic desire; it was given the scale and seriousness routinely afforded to heterosexual display, like the gleeful bravado of a man striding into Hooters.
By the end of the night at Sassafras Saloon, the performers had stripped down nearly to nothing, pouring water over themselves while the audience roared. The atmosphere felt like one of collective release, a recognition that masculinity and desire don’t belong only to men — that a group of four masc lesbians can be horny, inspire horniness and ultimately stir a hysteria that once greeted Channing Tatum or even the Beatles.
It was the magnitude of the response that night at the Saloon, as on every other night they’ve performed, that’s inspiring their next moves: total domination in sum. The troupe is already planning a national tour through Florida, Dallas and Sacramento, though Daddii Syd’s ambitions extend much further.
“The idea,” she told me, “is to go global. Like a boy band.”
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