Performance Art

Image Description: The photo is taken from the balcony, looking down on the audience clustered in a U-shape against and besides the white gallery walls, around the black chalk stage, where Baldoz is kneeling to scrawl on the chalk and Vo is standing, legs wide, behind the center of three black megaphones. Some of the audience is shadowed, people stand, or sit on the ground. From this angle, Vo is in the very bottom of the photo, the top of their head, arms, and their bare back visible under a soft spotlight. With white chalk, Baldoz has written in huge letters and small, at all angles, and in a mix of cursive and print. One word, “HANOI”, is legible even from the balcony view.
Photo: Albert Yee

Translation Again, and Again

Xander Cobb

How do we become available to being possessed? What enters us when we are empty? In Vo’s view, presence is emptiness.

On the deck of a boat, three glamorous performers strike confident, dramatic poses. At the front, Raven Nightingale wears a black rhinestoned corset with cascading ruffled sleeves and fishnets, leaning toward the camera with playful bravado. Behind them, Miss Angie tilts her head back with effortless poise, hair cascading freely over her deep blue, velvet gown. To the side, AshantiDoll dazzles in a hot pink sequined gown and gloves, paired with bold jewelry and a blonde wig that evokes vintage Hollywood. With the river and Benjamin Franklin bridge faintly visible in the background, the image blends nautical calm with bold theatrical energy.
Photo: Stephanie Griffiths

Shiver Me Tassels!

Emily “Lady Em” Culbreath

Bawdy games, cheeky acts, seaworthy chaos, and a boatload of fun.

ora chipaumire, a black woman with short hair and the creator of Dambudzo, is in the foreground wearing a black t-shirt and singing into a microphone with her eyes closed as another cast member sings into the background, amidst several audience members.
Photo: Jonathan Stein

Chi Buku

E. Wallis Cain Carbonell

“We know all about you. You are here to know about us.”

A male presenting figure is laying , hogtied and topless on the black stage floor. Muscly, oiled, topless, bald white men strut past him in the space.
Photo: E. Wallis Cain Carbonell

Variation on a Body-Slam

E. Wallis Cain Carbonell

There is a version of this where Bill Goldberg is the base of my desire.

Photo: Adam Reign

We Are Where We Came From

Andrew Sargus Klein

Rosie Herrera’s pairing of sets and props with resonant personal symbols seamlessly blended the past and the present.