Time: Doors at 7pm, Performances 7:30-9pm
Location: Plummer Park, Great Hall, 7377 Santa Monica Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90046
This event will be live streamed on Facebook, HERE
Cost: FREE w/ RSVP
Description: A culminating evening of performance developed by Pieter’s 2023 and 2024 WeHo Artists-in-Residence, m and Ryan OByrne, presented in the Great Hall in West Hollywood. Plummer Park's Great Hall is a historic location where the Los Angeles chapter of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) met weekly from 1987-1996 to organize candlelight vigils, "die-ins," and direct actions during the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In honor of this history, this residency invited artists to engage with traditions of queer disruption and creation in the ongoing context of mass sickness and social abandonment.
About the Performances:
m: from the belly of the Beast, an excerpt from FAM, by m
pastor’s kid, Blue can’t get no sleep
their hells have come calling and the songs always playing in their head have taken on a haunting tune
as they trace back their memories in some hope to heal, they find their songs, their Psalms nor their self can save them
and so they cry out, in hopes of being heard by someone who can
enter FAM
Credits: written and performed by m, directed by Che Spriggs, music by @upperreality
Content Warning: This performance includes highly sensitive themes such as: sexual abuse/intimate partner violence, religious trauma, institutional abuse, and mental health issues including suicidal ideation. The performance features bright flashing/swinging lights that could disturb photosensitive viewers. Please take care in engaging with this piece.
Ryan OByrne: Untitled (Chamber, Image, Panel, Other Lights)
1) I spent time trying to find an affordable tree shaker. Maybe for rent. A machine that attaches to a tree (which bears some fruit) and intentionally vibrates the tree, shaking off the fruit. Olives. Or Cherries. The fruit is usually collected in a large tarp encircling the tree. On the ground, below its branches.
2) As the chamber nears the edge of the stage, unconscious as an object is said to be, it is neither exercising nor avoiding its will. The motor drives the object without intention. Direction, in this case, limited to basic degrees of on- or off- stage. The image attempts to split the surface of the panel. The panel still carries it. Humiliating the wall and the projector. The image, re-presents sitting as/with an object in a room. The other lights made me stop. Decay, an evolution against their imprisonment.
Credits: by Ryan OByrne, video featuring work by Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Untitled (Last Light), 1994
Bios: m (em/they/them) is a Blackqueer storyteller and performer by way of the American South. Their artistry is a practice of worldbuilding that is in constant pursuit of playfulness, liberation and community; their art combines performance mediums including music, theater, dance and digital media to create immersive productions that transform the theater into a place where Blackqueer psyches can unfurl. They work as an actor, writer and producer in Southern California & hold an MFA in Acting from Yale School of Drama.
Ryan OByrne is an artist currently pursuing their MFA in studio art at University of California, Riverside. Ryan has shown work in California at DAC Gallery, Highways Performance Space, Redcat, PAM Residencies, The Box Gallery through a residency with Pieter Performance Space, in Oakland at The Starline Ballroom, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive and in New York at Danspace, Judson Church, Dixon Place, White Columns, Governors Island Art Fair, with AUNTS, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Drugstore Kansas City and Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans. Ryan is a graduate of The Juilliard School.
Parking: Plummer Park has a 3 hour lot with limited spaces. Street parking is available, plan for some extra time to find parking.
Accessibility note: The Great Hall is located a short distance from parking areas along paved sidewalks. The courtyard outside the entrance is paved with bricks. There are no stairs to enter the Great Hall.
Untitled (Chamber, Image, Panel, Other Lights) will feature two small screens with non-strobing, blinking lights.
This project is supported in part by an arts grant from the City of West Hollywood Image credits: Top: portrait COURTESY m, Bottom: Video Still Twenty Four Minutes with Felix Gonzalez-Torres's Untitled (Last Light) at MoCA Los Angeles March 15th 3:42pm by Ryan OByrne