[Pdxevents] 2 Gyrlz - Ron Athey, Samantha Sweeting, more... First Thursday 03 April

Mon Mar 31 11:37:31 MDT 2008

For the first time in PDX
Ron Athey <http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LnJvbmF0aGV5LmNvbS8=>
(L.A.),
Samantha Sweeting 
<http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3Lm15c3BhY2UuY29tL3NhbWFudGhhc3dlZXRpbmc=> 
(Britain/France),
and Portland's own Aria Benner and Micah Perry (Cliche Au Lait 
<http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vY2xpY2hlYXVsYWl0LmNvbS8=>)

First Thursday 03 Apri*l* Hippodrome, PDX (SE 3rd & Oak) $8 | 21 +

PERFORMANCES RUN 8 - 9:30 pm | SPOTLIGHT ACTION BY RON ATHEY 9 pm
9:30 - Close AFTER PARTY NEXT DOOR @ Branx 
<http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3Lm15c3BhY2UuY29tL2JyYW54cGR4> 
WITH PAN!ZEN Soundsystem 
<http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LnBhbnplbi5uZXQ=>

2 Gyrlz Performative Arts is proud to present legendary performance 
artist, Ron Athey, for the first time ever in Portland. We were able to 
meet with him this last year in London, England, and were able to see 
his new piece, Incorruptible Flesh, which he will be performing an 
excerpt of here on April 3. He will be joined by UK artist, Samantha 
Sweeting, also visiting Portland for the first time, and local artists, 
Micah Perry (Cliché au Lait) and Aria Benner.

This will truly be a rare and exceptional event, in which performance is 
taken to an edge that 2 Gyrlz and other presenters in this city have 
rarely dared to visit. This is not about shock, this is about exposing 
truths and presenting new possibilities.

Ron Athey <http://www.2gyrlz.org/>

03 April <http://www.2gyrlz.org/>

* RON ATHEY*: www. ronathey. com 
<http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LnJvbmF0aGV5LmNvbQ==>

As an author, filmmaker, and performance artist, Athey gained notoriety 
in the 1990s when his performances turned to focus on the new AIDS virus 
affecting the country, and became a target for the National Endowment 
for the Arts' censorship campaign, along with artists such as Robert 
Mapplethorpe, Andres Serrano and Karen Finley. As an HIV+ man, Athey's 
work continues to provoke audiences to confront their own fears and 
prejudices around sexuality and mortality within a culture living under 
the spectre of this disease. We are incredibly proud and lucky to be 
able to introduce him and his important work to Portland audiences.

Ron Athey forces the body to transcend it's confines. His brilliance 
manifests as exorcism not only of, and for, the cauterizing of his own 
pain, but by pushing the boundaries of endurance through artistic 
expression, he shares his compassionate epiphany: We all need to break 
free from the shackles placed upon the individual by society, family, 
religion and gender. And possibly through the catharsis of performance, 
and ritual, we might finally be able to lay to rest the demons who've 
sent us in search of the respite only a knife or needle could at one 
time provide.

* SAMANTHA SWEETING*: www. myspace. com/samanthasweeting 
<http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3Lm15c3BhY2UuY29tL3NhbWFudGhhc3dlZXRpbmc=>

Samantha Sweeting works with site-specific performance and installation, 
constructing intimate encounters that speak of love, loss and erotic 
desire. Her performances often take the form of private ritual and 
child's 'play', softly treading between rural and domestic contexts.

Samantha's practice is shadowed by her background in photography, made 
evident through her continued engagement with performance to camera. It 
deals with different forms of writing and mark-making, creating a poetic 
interplay between photography, phonography and corpograpy as text is 
composed in light, shadow, sound and body.

Samantha uses her body as a site for performance, making quietly 
transgressive acts that seek to question the social and cultural mores 
regulating the body-marked-female. She draws upon myth, fairytale and 
religious iconography, occasionally slipping into performance personae, 
notably a red-haired Jezebelle and recently a contemporary rendition of 
Peau d'Ane.

Current works include investigations into cross-species metamorphosis 
and nurture, occurring alongside her active research into s[t]imulated 
lactation. Milk is used as a deeply erotic bodily fluid, distinct from 
maternity, offering a mutual exchange of flows through which body and 
gender are experienced as complex and mutable rather than fixed binary 
opposites. This follows on from her Hungerworks series, which used food 
and hunger to trace psychological and emotional relationships, 
intermingling restraint and revelry, and exploring the mouth as an 
orifice through which to experience sensations.

Samantha was born in Singapore in 1982 and moved to England in 1994. 
After completing a foundation course at Camberwell School of Art 
(2000-2001) she trained at London College of Communication (2001-2004), 
graduating with a First Class BA in Photography. Following this, 
Samantha joined Transit Station, an artist-led touring 'exhibition as 
event', via which she has performed in Berlin and Edinburgh.

In 2006 Samantha received an AHRC Professional Development Award. She 
used this to complete a Masters in Visual Performance at Dartington 
College of Art, where her thesis Erotic Appetites: Women, Sex and Food 
was supervised by decadent writer Jerome Fletcher (alias Durian Gray).

During her MA, Samantha began a series of pinhole performance 
photographs in collaboration with artist Tom Hunter. At the same time, 
she initiated an ongoing text, image and performance exchange with 
writer and critic Jack Sargeant.

* ARIA BENNER*:

"I have often found it difficult to speak clearly with people, and I 
distrust language, but I want to make connections with others around me. 
At an early age I learned I could find my voice through metaphors I 
created in my objects and actions. I asked myself, if words are 
containers of collective memory, what are containers of individual 
memory? I use symbolic objects such as eggs, books, paper, and 
heartbeats, building my own vernacular to try to answer this question. 
Although my choices are based on my own experiences, I know others will 
interpret them and find their own meaning in them.

"I believe before we translate our ideas and feelings into words, they 
exist in their purest and most meaningful forms. The word-based language 
we use cannot express the fullest extent of our desires like more subtle 
and intuitive forms of communication: scent, body language, and touch. 
The way we move or make eye contact, the way we dress, or the tone of 
our voices relay what we are really trying to say more accurately than 
the words we use. Words are containers for collective experience. They 
are containers we have chosen for inclusive communication, assuming we 
have all had common experiences. In return for this commonality, we have 
lost some of our honesty, individuality, and integrity.

"My work is a kind of "sketchbook" of ideas about language, 
communication, and the differences between the two. I consider my work 
to be a series of experiments. The point is not success or failure, but 
to have experiences and find meaning.

M*ICAH PERRY*: www. clicheaulait. com 
<http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LmNsaWNoZWF1bGFpdC5jb20=>

CLICHE AU LAIT (PDX) is a performance Art group operated by Jo Case and 
Micah Perry. Since its inception in 2000, one of their intentions is to 
allow viewers a transcendent experience with art not signified by static 
objects alone. CLICHE AU LAIT offers opportunities to intervene, 
predict, or participate. The resulting cooperative creation process 
affords participants entrance into the actual realm of the art, RATHER 
THAN OBSERVING SOMEONE ELSES EXPERIENCE OF ART.

2 Gyrlz Performative 
<http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LjJneXJsei5vcmc=>

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