Queer Corralling and Comforting: Celebrations and Ceremonies
with Dr Brian Lobel
Course Structure: 3 × 2.5hour sessions
Course Venue: Online
Course Dates: 11-25 March 2026
Course Fee: Pay-what-you-can
This course is for those who have experience leading and coordinating rites and ceremonies for and with queer people. This is not an Intro to Queer Celebrations and Ceremonies, but a reflective and reflexive space for those already in the field to draw on past experience and build towards making sustainable practices, resources and futures.
This course is for:
LGBTQIA+ individuals with experience of leading at minimum 2 ceremonies (weddings, funerals, civil partnerships, etc)
Queers have always been the caretakers and space-makers, and this course is dedicated to thinking more critically about our practice as queers who lead ceremonies both in exclusively queer spaces and in and amongst our hetero, straight, pasty-normal friends and family. How do we help people marry? How do we help people mourn? How do we help people marry and help people mourn while other people in the room may not acknowledge our humanity? When do we compromise, and when do we dig in?
Your instructor, Brian Lobel (he/him), is at the beginning of his journey as celebrant, but has been facilitating spaces (as an installation and performance artist) for over a decade. Queer Corralling and Comforting asks participants to draw on their individual experiences as celebrants to see the patterns and practices across queer celebrancy.
This course has a required text: The Dead Good Funerals Book.
Brian Lobel is a performer, teacher, curator and trainee celebrant who is interested in creating work about bodies and how they are watched, policed, poked, prodded and loved by others. His work has shown work internationally in a range of contexts from Harvard Medical School, to Sydney Opera House, to the National Theatre (London) and Lagos Theatre Festival, blending provocative humour with insightful reflection. Last year, his book Theatre& Cancer was published by Red Globe Press. Brian is a Professor of Theatre & Performance at Rose Bruford College, and the co-founder of The Sick of the Fringe.
Images:
1) Lead Image: Screen grab of Our Goddess and Eternal Muse, Moira
2) Secondary Image: Screen grab of our High Witch of Sadness, Lydia
3) Bio Image: Christa Holka