UPCOMING EVENTS AND DATES
WIRED by KINETIC LIGHT: WORLD PREMIERE
May 5-8, 2022
Edlis Neeson Theater, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
220 E Chicago Ave, Chicago IL 60611
Tickets
Wired is an immense and intimate experience that traces the fine line between “us” and “them” through aerial and contemporary dance and the metaphoric use of barbed wire. The dancers of Wired spin and soar together in this meditation in sound, light, and movement on the gendered, racial, and disability stories of barbed wire in the United States, showing how this material shapes common understandings of who belongs. Barbed wire is designed as a material for containment. It is used, time and again, to limit individual and community movements and delineate boundaries as large as a nation state and as small as a personal fence. In Wired, this fraught material comes to highlight not only danger and contradiction, but also beauty and interconnection.
To create Wired, the artists of Kinetic Light—Alice Sheppard, Laurel Lawson, Jerron Herman, and Michael Maag—and their collaborators—composers Ailís Ní Ríain and LeahAnn Mitchell and scenic designer Josephine Shokrian—defy both gravity and assumptions about what dance can be. The artists of Kinetic Light see interdependence as a political position as well as an approach to making dance from a disability aesthetic: in which disability is a powerful creative and cultural force, and the many ways of accessing the performance are the art itself.
For a list of all Wired collaborators and funders, visit kineticlight.org/wired.
This project was organized by Tara Aisha Willis; Curator, Performance and Public Practice; with Nolan Jimbo, Marjorie Susman Curatorial Fellow. Wired was commissioned by The Shed (NYC) as part of Open Call.
The engagement model for Wired was developed with support from the New Works Initiative, with lead support provided by Elizabeth A. Liebman. The New Works Initiative puts the creative process at the heart of the MCA's relationship with Chicago by supporting the development of new performances and creative projects.
PAST EVENTS AND Dates
OPEN LORE POLICY
December 5 @ 6 PM
Golden Future, 1835 Myrtle St, Oakland
Free admission
A semi-monthly gathering to safely celebrate art and community. Featuring Lafemmebear, Madison Wetzell, Raquel Palmas, and Ess Nelson. Follow on IG @openlorepolicy. Event will be indoors, must be vaccinated or tested & masked to attend.
WHAT REMAINS: STRONG AF TWOC
June 8 @ 7 PM
whatremainsshow.eventbrite.com
Free
What comes after the storm? Peacock Rebellion and Lafemmebear Music present a night of world-bending, future-shaping music, poetry, visual art, and more. Born out of resistance to pandemic bullshit and the constant erasure of trans people, What Remains reclaims trans women of color’s agency over our own stories. For a link to view the broadcast, email crystal@lafemmebear.com.
LONEFEMME: A NIGHT OF FEMME SOLO MUSICIANS
A BENEFIT FOR MULTIVRS IS ILLUMINATED
Feb. 19 @ 6 PM
ProArts Gallery, 150 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, Oakland
$5 - 20 sliding scale
No one turned away for lack of funds
About THE MULTIVRS IS ILLUMINATED: Shawna Shanté Scroggins, Jade Ariana Fair, Sharmi Basu, and Titania Kumeh—all local Bay Area musicians—debuted The Universe is Lit in August 2017, a multi-day music festival with a lineup consisting entirely of black and brown experimental and punk musicians. Inspired by a series of events organized by the Black and Brown Punk Show Collective in Chicago some years prior, the trio seized an opportunity to highlight musicians of color in the Bay Area's underground scene.
Scroggins, a DJ, musician and the co-executive director of Bay Area Girls Rock Camp, and Fair, a visual artist and performer in noise duo Earthbound, have taken the reins for the festival’s second year. This time dubbed The Multivrs is Illuminated, the mission of 2018’s event embraces the collective mindset at the heart of punk.
For Scroggins and Fair, the focus on the collective is crucial in light of current political and social tumult. “So many things in this world don’t want us to shine and it can be hard,” Scroggins says. “There’s scarcity and competition, but it's like each of us shine together and there is infinite space to do that."
The name change is also a nod to the fleet of people— volunteers, performers and hosts of the venues—who support Scroggins and Fair in making the festival come to fruition.
Paraphrased from this 2018 KQED spotlight piece.
THE HOMOBILES, PLS PLS ME, & LAFEMMEBEAR
Feb. 13 @ 8 PM
Ivy Room, 860 San Pablo Ave, Albany
Lafemmebear performs with queer party punk supergroup The Homobiles (nominated for Best Live Band 2020 by the Bay Area Reporter) and Brooklyn-based, queer indie electro duo Pls Pls Me.
TRANSGENDER DAY OF REMEMBRANCE 2019
Nov. 17
Ivy Room, 860 San Pablo Ave, Albany
Just a little concert to support surviving trans musicians for Trans Day of Remembrance, with performances by Lafemmebear, El Primo Inocente, Dollii, Chico Chi, and Dreams.
BLURRED CULTURE: ZERØ SATURDAY NIGHTS
Nov. 16
Madame Siam, 1723 N Hudson Ave, Los Angeles
Lafemmebear returns to Madame Siam in Hollywood, with special guest Papa Zoo!
THE FESTIVAL OF INFINITE IMAGINATION
Aug. 15 - 17
ProArts Gallery and Commons, Oakland, CA
Presented by Topsy Turvy Queer Circus and India Sky. A powerful and vibrant multi-media, multi-disciplinary and multi-dimensional performance showcase of solo and collaborative works created by six Black queer and trans artists sparked by the question, what does your radical and expansive imagination have to offer the Black past, present, and or future? Featuring performances by India Sky, SPELLLING, Davia Spain, Rashad Pridgen, Omi Osun Joni L. Jones, and Ana María Agüero Jahannes. Emceed by LeahAnn “Lafemmebear” Mitchell.
Performances will take place within the Gallery, and oustide in the commons of Frank H. Ogawa Plaza. ASL interpretation provided on August 17; ADA compliant space.