Evento

Culture Wars Cabaret

Friday, March 27th & Saturday March 28th, 2015 at 8:00 PM
$15 advanced online sales only, rush line available for at-door tickets

FEATURING:
Jaime Carrera
Venus DeMars
Sweet LillyBee
Junauda Petrus
Lazer Danger
Elliot Reed (Corporate Headquarters)
Interactive installation by Emmett Ramstad

Co-curated and hosted by Eleanor Savage and Scott Artley.

In 1994, queer performance artist Ron Athey performed "Four Scenes in a Harsh Life," under the aegis of the Walker Art Center, at the then-underground performance venue Patrick's Cabaret. Athey's infamous performance, which involved ritual incision, sparked a national debate around art and censorship, ultimately leading to the slashing of the National Endowment for the Arts budget, the near-complete elimination of grants to individual artists, and a powerful chilling effect on controversial artwork. Twenty-one years later, almost to the day, how does this controversy reverberate in our local and national cultural landscape?

In the culminating activity of a weekend-long series of events, the Culture Wars Cabaret brings together eight artists representing a snapshot of some of the most interesting queer performance art in the Twin Cities to reflect on the themes of censorship, contemporary queer aesthetics, and radical embodied performance. As an intergenerational team, Eleanor Savage and Scott Artley co-curate the Culture Wars Cabaret by pairing established LGBTQ performers (punk-rock pioneer Venus DeMars, performative provocateur Jaime Carrera, and the fiery burlesque of Sweet LillyBee) alongside emerging multidisciplinary queer artists who stretch new boundaries for embodied performance (Junauda Petrus, Elliot Reed, and the duo Lazer Danger). Emmett Ramstad premieres a new interactive installation called "Trimming Station," a pubic hair trimming and collection station.

Tickets are available for $15 by online advanced sales only. A no-guarantee rush line will be available for any remaining seats at 7:45 PM. Ticket-holders need to arrive by 7:45 PM to ensure their seats.