Ceremony

Ancient Knowledge +  New Relevance = for a Society Weighing Difference

Following the veins of SAVVY Contemporary’s ongoing priorities of acknowledging the body as an archive and sonority as knowledge transmission, with CEREMONY / PARTY AS METHOD, we open a new wing and form across projects. The methodology, underpinned by the potency of rhythm, extends itself as a process of reasoning and communicating through dance and collectivity.

Together, moving in the regulation of plurality, the night’s DJs are our priests and priestesses of ceremony, taking us along common grounds of alliance and resilience as they lead us in corporeal catharsis. By means of the honoring of shared memory, beats as routes of passage, and states of trance as vital forces, journeys of stories and spirit are catalyzed by sound.

In the framework of the multi-format project 4+3=1, THERE ARE STORIES TO BE FORGED FOR COMMON DENOMINATORS TO COME FORTH AND SOCIAL BALANCE TO BE RESTORED, the evening will be guided by DJs and performers who as new ancestors hold intergenerational conveyances across time, space, geography, and rhythm: where ancient knowledge carries new relevance.

At 21:00, BRUT – a performance concept by Kewin Bonono unfurls the night with an inception of poetry and body as ritual, with a first-time performed piece in collaboration with Eric Peter and 'O'. More details below. 

At 21:30 DJ sets follow: starting with Maryisonacid, who brings us through travels across Afro and cosmic rhythms through electronic and psychedelic vibrations.

At 23:30 Jewel follows, bringing genre-crossing and experimental tempos of gritty electronic that shapeshift across Elektro & Techno Dance/Club, Ragga Jungle & DnB, ranging between 140-150 & 170-180bpm.

At 1:30 Cali Rose closes the evening channeling Latin American ancestral energies through electronic beats.

NO: RACISM, SEXISM, QUEERPHOBIA, ABLEISM.

Brut (screaming quietly) by Kewin Bonono

This performance project takes as its object of examination the double-bind of expression that a certain group of people and outsiders face: staying true to their inner voice while simultaneously modulating that voice into something recognisable or inoffensive to their often hostile social environments. This is the dilemma of those who, on the one hand, are encouraged or compelled to be authentic, but whose authenticity is always remarked upon or disciplined by complaints of being too loud, too unrecognisable, too much. With limited political power, those who must use their unique voice(s) to survive, to stay sane, and to hear and find each other are told their timbre is too shrill for the crowd, their fashions too bright to fit in, their bodies too specific to completely belong. Sometimes this situation rises to the level of explicit confrontation; but usually, is subtle, covert, barely noticeable for the comfortable majorities to even ascertain. 
Building on the insights of countless artists and thinkers, this performance project helps the audience see the mundane ways culture, appearance, and language emerge on the battlefield of individual expression(s) confronting totalizing social control. We expose the lie that immediate perception of others could ever be innocent. Since perception is the bedrock of thought, our project will make explicit how mainstream thinking is actually, on the contrary, what queer theorist Judith Butler calls “non-thinking”. Our ultimate aim is to generate an aesthetic experience for the viewers which sensitizes them to the quiet screams of individuals forced to make their identities palatable, inoffensive, basic. It encourages solidarity with quiet screamers in particular, and human complexity more generally. As identities are turned into prisons and museums, our’s is a scream in the key of insubordination, defiance, and joyful riot against our unwanted curators and jailors. 

The quiet scream wants OUT. We offer a way, one among many.

Choreography and Concept  Kevin Bonono
Collaborators and co-performers  'O' and Eric Peter
Text  Written by Kevin Bonono, edited by Christopher Sweetapple
Picture  Alex Leali