An archway of participation and a call to action

Since May, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, citizens across the country have defaced, destroyed, and advocated for the removal of racist, colonial-centered monuments. At the Minnesota State Capitol, a statue of Christopher Columbus was ripped from its pedestal and thrown face down on the pavement. In Richmond, Virginia, the Robert E. Lee Monument was covered in spray paint and has been the site of weeks of protests. In Salt Lake, red paint was strewn across the “Serve and Protect” sculpture of bronze hands that resides in front of the Downtown Public Safety Building.

In this context that Kathy Tran, a design educator, and Alex Moya, an artist who migrated from Mexico to Utah as a teenager, enacted Tomorrow’s Monument. This participatory art piece is a part of Pain and Possibility, a community art series hosted by Sugar Space Arts Warehouse and Mestizo Institute of Culture & Arts. It is in this context of destroying monuments that these artists envisioned and launched a new sort of monument—one that embraces community and participation. 

At eight pm on September 3, I walked along the grassy median right outside the Sugar Space Arts Warehouse. The sun was low in the sky offering an orange haze for the last few minutes of the day. In the center of the grass stood a large white arch constructed from stretched white spandex offering the impression of marble architecture. The organizers scampered around the structure in a buzz of last-minute construction: adjusting cords, repositioning laptops, and angling projectors. 

In just a few minutes, the neighborhood was swarmed in darkness. Several lampposts that reached above the tree tops gleamed like little moons in the surrounding sky. The monument was illuminated by the contrasting darkness and glowed with stoic presence. 

Words filtered across the top panel of the arch expressing that, “We don’t need another monument. But people dedicated to eliminating racism.” Meanwhile, projectors cast the image of two white men that moved ever so slightly. The choices of these figures provoked questions for me. Was their presence intended as a parody? Were they meant to invoke the essence of so many historic monuments? Were they chosen as an intentional criticism of the dominating presence many monuments entail? 

As I mulled over these questions, I felt an itch that I did not want these figures on the monuments of tomorrow. They don’t belong as the front facing images of the fight against racism. For a monument that reaches to the future, that calls upon solidarity, and acknowledges the need for change, I craved for two white men to not be the projected relics.

Tran and Moya structured Tomorrow’s Monument with participatory action. Individuals and groups of people were directed to walk and stand under the arch. Once underneath the structure, the projection recognized the presence of bodies and progressed in segments to read: 

Breath

For Those

Who Can’t

And then, a tree appeared that quivered and stretched while small green buds pushed out of the branches. The light evening breeze seemed to mix with these electronic pixels and ground the experience in reality. 

I loved watching families entering the arch together. Several kids pulled their parents back around to the front, to line up, and take a turn at entering the arch again. These families would stand in the arch, huddled together, in a shared moment to acknowledge the violence of racism and breathe in a commitment toward future action. 

This cycle of text and images took about 30 seconds to complete. This offered time to the audience. This was a moment where participants breathed together, reflected, and perhaps considered actions of future change. Upon exiting the archway, the back of monument billowed in clouds of smoke that expanded like grey parachutes. I was struck by the implication of the temporal. Logistically, this monument is only on display for two short nights, unlike so many other permanent, unchanging monuments and memorials. The smoke added the implication that this arch was in the process of being destroyed. What remains when the physical structures come crumbling? When symbolic forms are torn to the ground, what do you do next?

If you have shown up to demonstrate your solidarity for anti-racist work, what do you do when Tomorrow’s Monument is no longer standing? What action do you take after the symbolic gestures are completed? Will you continue to show up and engage in anti-racist work?

Rachel Luebbert is a Utah-based dance artist. She also teaches and works in arts administration and programming, and has previously worked in Colorado, Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C. Her work will be seen at the upcoming Queer Spectra Arts Festival.

Shm00fi3zZ Virtual Birthing: A Queer Orwellian Spacescape in the Age of COVID

It’s both difficult and amusing to consider where to begin after witnessing the Shm00fie3zz Birthing. 

The basic, “what does it mean?” expresses a genuine desire, but feels almost disingenuous when examining the series, captivatingly conceived of and performed by local artists Natalie Allsup-Edwards, Molly Mostert, and Emmett Wilson. The Shm00fi3zZ Birthing, hosted on possibly the most garishly dystopian of all platforms: Instagram Live, mounts the ritual births of the Shm00fi3zZ, adorable beanie baby-like space aliens, who are immediately auctioned off for adoption by the Inter-Dimensional & Galactic Adoption Foundation, Inc. (IDGAF). The piece is a continuation of the long-term performance art series typically conducted live but modified for COVID-19 safety.  Both delightful and sinister, watching the Shm00fi3zZ live on Instagram is akin to watching the Teletubbies read Orwell. 

screenshots by Max Barnewitz

Adult Shm00fi3zZ are near impossible to ignore. The large harlequin space cyclopses, embodied by Mostert and Wilson, dance with exaggerated and guileless movement, emitting high pitched squeaks and buzzes, presumably with unseen kazoos. While the Shm00fi3zZ, like walking Lisa Frank notebooks, are so aggressively cute that they express some sort of uncanny horror, Wwanda Star, the Adoption Agent for the mysterious and/or nefarious IDGAF judiciously played by Allsup-Edwards, is just as engrossing. With stilted optimism, Allsup-Edwards grimaces from behind Martian green face paint while narrating the scientific observations about the Shm00fi3zZ whose offspring she collects, tags, and auctions off. 

The queer performance piece is unsurprisingly resistant to moralization. Indeed, in the spirit of both strict postmodernism and absurdist millennial humor, applying meaning is probably what audiences should avoid. However, for the purposes of entertaining ideas, it is worth postulating that the Shm00fi3zZ could be 1) a dark metaphor for animal rights, 2) a biting critique of the mistreatment of immigrant families by the United States government, 3) a reminder of the inevitable commodification of the body in a capitalist society, 4) a commentary on the pitfalls and horrors of the art making process. 

Over the trills and toots of the Shm00fi3zZ, Wwanda made the eerie assertions that “when they’re not birthing, they’re working” and “it is so difficult to give away the things you create.” Over the course of the performance, her growing obsession with “productivity” belied one of the central themes of the Shm00fi3zZ piece: greed. Ultimately, while Wwanda is willing to go to great lengths to explain away the Shm00fi3zZ objectification – they are “ill equipped to care for babies” – audiences must choose where they stand. Do we believe Wwanda is doing what’s right for the adorable baby Shm00fi3zZ? Or do we support the adult Shm00fi3zZ in their struggle to keep their innumerable offspring? Much like said babies and the swarmy, grotesque bodies of the adults, questions are plentiful, comical, and disturbing.

The Shm00fi3zZ Birthing delivered (if you’ll pardon the pun) surprising twists and turns, plus many humorous Easter eggs to which Allsup-Edwards dutifully pointed the viewers. Past Shm00fi3zz shows have embraced a need to stay in-character that rivals that of the Muppets. As a result, audiences are immediately drawn into the narrative. Not to be inhibited by social distance, the trio encouraged audiences to interact with the Shm00fi3zZ. Viewers could dance at home (to promote the birthing process!), ask questions of Wwanda via the chat feature, and even order the baby Shm00fi3zz via eBay. As bizarre and fascinating as the Shm00fi3zZ Virtual Birthing may be, the trio of artists produced an outrageously complete, provocative, and well-constructed show that let audiences’ minds and bodies go wild.

Max Barnewitz is a writer, comics enthusiast, and outdoor nerd based in Salt Lake City. Max graduated with an M.A. in Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies from the University of Utah in 2016. Their thesis, “The Animal As Queer Act in Comics: Queer Iterations in On Loving Women and Nimona” underscores the potential for comics to portray LGBTQ+ identities. They also serve on the organizing committees for Salt Lake’s Grid Zine Fest and for Queer Spectra Arts Festival, which premieres this weekend.

A Salty Showcase at Reservoir Park

Indigo Cook and Christina Hughes’ new Salty Showcase series took shape this Thursday in Reservoir Park. The dance on offer was a duet by Nora Lang and Tori Meyer, as well as poetry by Gray. Clearly a work in progress, the images below give a sense of the exuberance the duo brought to a weekday afternoon in the park. Meyer and Lang asked the audience to view their dance through glass jars – which also served as seating guides for social distancing. Hopefully this event will continue to offer more opportunities for dancers.

– SBH, editor

Tori Meyer, in the foreground, Nora Price and audience in the background

An audience member views the dance through a pyrex glass jar

Andrew Alba explores race, class & bodies in public spaces outdoors

In downtown Salt Lake, nestled in the shadows of skyscrapers and the rumble of passing Trax cars, five sculptures emerged on Friday afternoon. It was the middle of the day, just after lunch when the pavement had been thoroughly heated from the sun. These sculptures are pieces in Andrew Alba’s multi-site project WORKED that are being displayed throughout Salt Lake on various dates. WORKED is a part of the Pain and Possibility art series catalyzed by Sugar Space Arts Warehouse and Mestizo Institute of Culture and Arts to provide a platform for artists to engage with the painful present in all its complexity.

On August 28, these sculptures appeared outside Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (UMOCA) on the entrance ramp. They were aligned in a small gathering, all facing different ways that forced museum attendees to walk through the bodies on their way to the entrance. The soft notes of Cumbia music sifted in the air from a small portable speaker just behind the sculptures. Passing pedestrians gently bopped their shoulders as they walked by and passing car drivers turned their head to observe the small gathering of humans and art.

The five sculptures resemble Latinx humans in the middle of a day’s work. They are covered in real clothing: a blue flannel shirt, black shoes with a white Nike label, a flowing white top with plastic, silver embroidery, cloth masks, a grey bandana, black pants splattered in paint. The faces of these figures seemed to be constructed with a paper machete type material with sculpted faces, large daring eyes, and swirling colors. The essence of the faces brought to mind the neo-expressionism artistic style and resembles many of Alba’s large-scale paintings that have been displayed at UMOCA and Finch Lane Gallery. This use of multiple materials created a striking combination of literal objects and abstract creations — offering a brilliant fusion of the tangible and the imagined, of something that is both deeply human and also an artistic creation.

The five figures facilitated an evolving sense of movement. WORKED is a durational performance. One figure with a bun at the peak of her head stood with one black pant leg rolled part way up the leg, the white shirt that laid over her implied body, flowed and rippled in the wind. The other sculptures held postures that implied movement. One sat on a paint bucket with shoulders hunched, hands resting between his legs, eyes gazing downward. There was the tangible sense of exhaustion; the weight of hard work sunk down the limbs of his body. Later into the afternoon, Alba picked up the figure in a brown hoodie that held a crescent-shaped shovel and carried him across the street in front of a storefront window of City Creek Mall. The window was filled with yellow, smiley faced balloons advertising some unremarkable sale. I was struck by the multiple layers of juxtaposition of this moment: a sculpture with a handcrafted face standing in front of mass produced, identical balloons. The earthy shades of browns that covered the sculpture’s face, clothing, and shovel against the monotonous, single-toned yellow of the advertisement. And the essence that our economy is run by the working-class (especially during a pandemic) against the backdrop of artificial sentimentalities.

One figure particularly caught the attention of intrigued pedestrians. The sculpture was on all fours covered in dark clothing and work shoes. He had large hands with fingers splayed wide across the ground and a sombrero slung across his neck, which is often seen as a reminder of the Southwestern and Central American workers’ rights movement. Multiple people dropped on their hands and knees, mirroring his position and peering at his face. Later a small child ambled up to the sculpture and plopped down directly across from him.

The child continued to sit there for multiple minutes, seemingly making eye contact with him. This sculptural installation is critical, raw, and emotional. Alba responds to the current and complex injustices that surround our country during a pandemic. These figures call critique to the hard, dangerous work that Latinx individuals complete every day that is essential to this country’s functioning and yet are treated as ‘non-essential’ components of the economy. In an interview with Modern West Fine Arts, Alba explained components of his artistic process, “I sculpt using everyday materials from my day job in construction. While materials like drop cloths, drywall mud, concrete, and lumber aren’t archival-quality, I am interested in how these materials will enact the inescapable slow decay of blue-collar bodies.” Alba brings real materials from the experiences of working in construction to protest the racist systems of the U.S.. Specifically, during a pandemic where working class communities are put at high risk of COVID-19, Alba’s work humanizes working-class individuals and calls outrage to their experience.

This sculptural installation will emerge at several other locations throughout Salt Lake:

September 1-2 at Wasatch Community Gardens (622 W 100 S)

September 3 from 2-5pm at Modern West Fine Art (412 S 700 W)

It is intentional that WORKED is on display on week days during typical working hours. Alba says, “My work is for tired, working people.” It is for the construction worker walking down the sidewalk to the next project, it is for the Uber driver transporting people through city streets, and it is for the essential humans that are worn down by the injustice of our socio-economic system.

Rachel Luebbert is a Utah-based dance artist. She also teaches and works in arts administration and programming, and has previously worked in Colorado, Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C. Her work will be seen at the upcoming Queer Spectra Arts Festival.

Utah Presents and LAJAMARTIN team up

LAJAMARTIN is a physical theatre company currently based in Salt Lake City, with roots in New York and abroad. On August 6, UtahPresents partnered with Laja Field and Martin Durov, the company’s founders, for a virtual fundraiser. Under the guidelines of our “new normal,” LAJAMARTIN’s new work, Pandemia, was performed on the stage of Kingsbury Hall to an empty house, but live-streamed onto UtahPresents’ Youtube account. Donations received during this virtual fundraiser support the company’s scholarship for BIPOC artists, as well as new film equipment for UtahPresents as they will inevitably be presenting much of their upcoming season virtually.

Ella Kennedy-Yoon performing a solo

Film equipment is actually how I want to enter into dialogue with/about Pandemia. Multiple cameras captured the dancers from several angles. One was set up in the house of the theatre, catching what you’d presumably see if you were seated front and center. A second camera seemed to be on the stage, or at least in the wings, capturing the dancers from the side. I don’t know much about camera technology, but the quality of the footage was different from one camera to the next. The front and center camera transmitted a clear and crisp view, while the side camera was a little grainier, sometimes a little less focused, and the coloring was a bit duller. Whether or not this was intentional, it added an interesting and personal layer to the performance. The differing image qualities made me feel as though I was watching a documentary, sometimes seeing what was intended for me and sometimes catching behind-the-scenes footage (in one moment, UtahPresent’s executive director Brooke Horejsi was spotted in the wings). 

Pandemia was a series of movement solos featuring monologues, voiceovers, lip-synching and props galore. As the name suggests, it was a reflection on our current state of affairs and was stuffed with imagery and dialogue that highlighted the vocabulary, hashtags, protocols, misinformation, arguments, and feelings that have infiltrated our lives over the past several months... not just because of COVID-19, but also because of the uprising around the country in the face of continued social injustice. A party girl walked into a bar, drank a Corona beer, then downed a hydroxychloroquine pill. A doctor wheeled out an IV, lathered on hand sanitizer, and flipped through medical files. A janitor mused on her role as an essential worker while swiffering the floor. After each performer established their characters, they tumbled into movement essential to the LAJAMARTIN brand — thrashing, whirling, acrobatic. 

Jon Kim engages in some hair-ography

The company did not shy away from their feelings about Trump... which aren’t positive, by the way. There was no tip-toeing around the discomfort and discouragement that his rhetoric has left many of us feeling, and I was really grateful for such honesty. The solo that really emphasized their commitment to calling out Trump’s bullshit was performed by a man who flailed around a mock-living room after hearing 45’s asinine proclamations while channel surfing. The way he threw his body over the La-Z-Boy chair and around the floor looked how I’ve felt most days this summer: restless, hopeless, helpless. He eventually yelled at the TV, “I wish I could have a one-on-one with you, but you’d probably call the cops on me. Do I really even matter to you?” A pertinent proclamation from this performer, a man of color, who learned this monologue only two hours before the performance.

Mase Sangster in a passage that critiques the Trump administration

The original cast member, who I happen to know is not a person of color, suffered a neck injury the day before. Curious how and if the scene shifted with the change in cast, I asked Laja and Martin for the scoop. “The beginning actually was exactly the same... when we had the original cast member, we thought he would maybe be perceived as a Trump supporter, or how someone would stereotype a White man. Our interest was to look at him as a stereotype and then watch him flip it... obviously that changed with the new performer because he couldn’t pull off the same image. But we thought, why don’t we let him run with this, with his totally different energy? The important part is to understand that we wanted to leave a message...” 

I can’t imagine that anyone didn’t receive it. 

Alexandra Barbier is a performance maker who has taught courses in creative process, dance in culture, and queer performance art. Alex is presenting work in a group show, A shedding, on August 22 and 23. Contact her for details via abarbier.com.