Installation and performance
“Made in LA 2018,” curated by Anne Ellegood and Erin Christovale, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA
Collaborators: Heyward Bracey, Meena Murugesan, Catherine Scott, Jas Wade, Anna Martine Whitehead, Suné Woods, .Turay
Sound design: Jeff Zahos
Costumes: James Kidd
For “Made in L.A. 2018,” I expanded upon an ongoing piece with WXPT collaborator Meena Murugesan, called counts orchestrate, a meadow (or weekly practice with breath). Drawing on the notion of breathing as a fundamental activator of the body, the installation is filled with audio of breathing that i solicited from artists and friends. An ensemble of dancers generated and executed embodied practices, rituals and actions built from the installation’s sonic breathscapes. The dancers’ collective actions were documented in rehearsal spaces outside of the dance studio and materialized in the gallery through video. The installation is an activated meadow—a term the artist uses as a metaphor for how a portion of land, not unlike a dance studio, can be understood and imagined as political and a site of potential.
above: sample of video played on monitors in installation
Breath Contributors: Sampada Aranke, Umechi Born, Heyward Bracey, Naomi Bragin, Rebecca Bruno, Brittani Broussard, Jaime Shearn Coan, Crystal U. Davis, Rainy Demerson, Treva Ellison, Jessica Emmanuel, Caleb Fields, Kate Foley, Sheethal Gandhi, Lin Hixson, Sharon Hayes, Grace Hwang, Cole M. James, Rebekah Johnson, Cheryl Kershaw, Autumn Knight, Cynthia Lee, Ligia Lewis, Maria Maea, Jennifer Moon, Okwui Okpokwasili, Tara Jane O’Neil, Nancy Popp, Rachel Russell, Stacy Dawson Stearns, Esther Baker Tarpaga, Turay Turay, Hana van der Kolk. Devika Wickremesinghe, Meg Wolfe, Suné Woods, Jeff Zahos , Kim Zumpfe
i believe in echoes performance praxes
June 17: i believe in echoes
July 8: meadow practice, in collaboration with WXPT
September 1: breathholdinglistening practice, in collaboration with WXPT
i believe in echoes is a series of live performances that correlate with counts orchestrate, a meadow (or weekly practice with breath) and took place throughout the run of “Made in LA 2018.”
i believe in echoes
breathholdinglistening practice
2017 (live performances on March 4 and 5)
Installation and performance
“Endless Shout,” public programming for “The Freedom Principle: Experiments in Art and Music, 1965 to Now,” curated by Anthony Elms, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
Collaborator: Meena Murugesan
counts orchestrate, a meadow (or weekly practice with breath) was built on the work of WXPT and the materials from “Endless Shout.” Through actively politicized contact improvisation, two queer bodies blurred and bended with the boundaries of each other and the objects in the room. They held vigil and created public space for the seemingly intentional obsolescence of the black body. This work was accompanied by breath scores solicited from members of paggett’s community.
above: video played on monitors in installation