I.E. You Belong to Me: So much wonderfulness, so little time.

Monday, March 2, 2009

So much wonderfulness, so little time.

Hello my dear You-Belong-to-Me-ers--

Just wanted to let all y'all know that I was thrilled to participate in the seminar, thrilled with our conversations and lectures and screenings and performances, thrilled to come back the following week and experience the Resonate/Obliterate performances. I have so much more to say, but for the time being, the construction and finessing of almost all of my words is devoted to my thesis, so for now I shall enjoy reading along, and promise to jump into the blogging fray as soon as I have a surplus of words at hand.

Cheers!

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About You Belong to Me

A series of events staged in February 2009 in downtown Riverside, celebrating artists who turn their audiences into more than spectators. Joined by the shared experience of performances that are alternately tender and intimate, intense and cathartic, we do more than watch them perform. In "being there" we become a body of witnesses, a collective, a community. At issue in these artists' performances is not just their presence to us but our presence to them, and to each other. Visit the Sweeney Gallery's website for more info!

You Belong To Me: Schedule of Events (Feb 2009)

Part One: Seminar with Ron Athey
February 13-16

Four day intensive seminar, taught in the basement of Back to the Grind in downtown Riverside. This free seminar included 16 area artists working in a wide range of mediums (dance, painting, photography, tattooing, performance, fashion/design). The seminar was opened up to the public for evening screenings of performance video and experimental film, and for two lectures by Jennifer Doyle - one on difficult and contemporary art, and another on queer theory, abortion, and performance.

Part Two: James Luna & Ursula Rucker in Concert

Friday February 20, 8:00pm
3587 Main St & 6th (former jazz club)
Riverside

Performative storytelling, spoken word to music, hip hop poetry, bluesy folktales, jazz manifesto, poetical action, performance music art an evening of genre bending music from a leading figure in performance art, and a leading voice in feminist hip hop poetry and music.

Part Three: In Conversation

James Luna, Ursula Rucker, Ron Athey in Conversation
Saturday, February 21
3587 Main Street (corner of 6th & Main)

James Luna in dialogue with UCR Professor Michelle Raheja
Ron Athey in dialogue with UCR Professor Jennifer Doyle
Ursula Rucker in dialogue with UCR Professor Erica Edwards

Available as podcasts at The Sweeney Gallery's website.

A public conversation with each of the artists covering a range of subjects like the difference between performing inside and outside museum walls, about battles with AIDS panic and phobic reactions to performance, about poetry and politics, music and text, the body as text – and the when, where, and how of art that creates new worlds.

You Belong to Me: Part 4 Resonate/Obliterate I.E.: A Night of Queer Performance

Part Four: Resonate/Obliterate: I.E.

Featuring performances by co-curators Ron Athey and Julie Tolentino, as well as Heather Cassils & Zackary Drucker

8:00pm, Saturday 2/21 in Riverside CA

Unless otherwise indicated, all photographic documentation of Saturday's performances are reproduced on this site courtesy of Tracy Mostovoy (all rights reserved), and with the permission of the artists. Mostovoy may be reached at: tlmostovoy@woodcraftrangers.org.

This night showcased work produced by artists associated with Praxis Mojave. Athey and Tolentino jointly run this intensive summer workshop/retreat for performance artists. Cassils & Drucker participated in Praxis Mojave 2008. Click here to see an e-flyer for last summer's Resonate/Obliterate - a fundraiser for Praxis Mojave.

Ron Athey’s work has significant, recurring themes: dissociative sparkle, self-obliteration, and incorruptible flesh, each played out upon the historic body, the queer body, the AIDS body, the body in the grip of ecstasy or sorrow of death.

Tolentino's performance here moved through scenes of sexual disaster, romantic attachment, love, and loss. The evening's program staged performative dialogues between Athey and Tolentino in which the artists were drawn into each other's work. It concluded with Tolentino's performance and on-the-spot archiving of Athey's "solo" ritual of beauty, abjection and ecstasy. Heather Cassils and Zackary Drucker framed Athey and Tolentino's performances with their own dialogue of embodiment - and staging of nervous gender/sexual nerve.

Our Sponsors!

All events are sponsored by The University of California Humanities Research Institute, The Sweeney Gallery, and the following departments and programs at the University of California, Riverside: The English Department, The Center for Ideas & Society, The College of Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences, The Chancellor's Office of Excellence & Diversity, The Rupert Costo Endowment, The Art Department, Women's Studies Department, Media & Cultural Studies, Department of Creative Writing, African Student Programs and the Women's Center. Special thanks to the Marriott Hotel and to Back to the Grind. See website for location information: www.sweeney.ucr.edu/exhibitions/belong

I.E. You Belong to Me