Our Lady of the Spasm (Sorrow #4)
Welcome to the fundraiser for Dolores: Our Lady ;) This is a straight-forward campaign to raise money and resources for my group to make new performance work at Coaxial Arts Space, Los Angeles. a bit of bio:
Ron Athey has been making performance work since 1981s PE with Rozz Williams. A noise meets bodily actionism and cut-up word and sound play, the work still address those themes, as the torture trilogy addressed the HIV/AIDS pandemic of the 90s, delved deeper into body, philosophy and esoterica with The Solar Anus, Self-Obliteration and the Incorruptible Flesh Series. Athey has show work extensively at art centers and festivals int he EU, UK, Mexico, Canada and Brazil.
A two stop retrospective of his work, the Amelia Jones-curated Queer Communion (plus same-named monograph) was on show last year at Participant Inc. and ICA-LA; a new video project with Hermes Pittakos, “Pasiphae: was launched through dirty looks and Long Beach Opera Film Festival in July, 2022.
Acephalous Monster was a 2018 commission from Performance Space NYC, where it showed for 4 nights and carried onto a 6 city UK tour, festivals in Brussels, Riga and Skopje, 4 night run at REDCAT, and finally Oblivion Access Festival in Austin Texas, May 2022.
I’ve spent the year writing grant and residency applications, all to NO. and my motto stemming over from the DIY foundation, DON’T WAIT. I’m 60, I’m not bowing to gatekeepers or waiting the last 5-10 years of my life for the climate to change. I”m prolific, I’m constantly working on my own dime, and trying to produce events that engage in the magic culture I want to thrive.
I have invited sculptor Karen Lofgren, tattooist/ritualist Christos Tejada, artist Avery Collinsbyrd, and Vocal artist Micaela Tobin to join me in making work in an cooperative/experimental setting, that could be described and a modular sacred theatre. Its my not so humble opinion if all work comes out of the same academies, its all a bit academic and dull. Its my conviction to at least try to organize a different source for work evolving out of spirit/magic/weird science/ritual/actionism. I’ll add more accurate profiles and images of the participants soon! Super excited my top 4 choices were able to be involved.
Many thanks to Coaxial for inviting me to make work at perform at this space, and allowing me to expand the time and resources to include the 4 commissioned artists as part of my seasons. We’ll list the exact details of the performance dates but they’ll be September 25th and 30th, solo and group showings respectively.
Funds are needed for: set building materials, tech rentals, artist fees, as well as to have the ability to bring in specialists for training components i.e. lighting design, choreography, vocal training, video and sound editing.
I’ll definitely be looking to book this work in its solo or group form afterwards, get involved with this campaign and consider attending the performances at the end!
I’d like to invite you to support independent projects, its trickier than just being excluded not to, but gatekeepers monopolize culture by giving the same 5 artists every grant, it’s not working for me. Invest early in this work and give it a chance to develop!
(An example of my work ethic, even though we had small grants to make Pasiphae, I had to do 15 massages in a few days to pay the editor)