Legendary funk rock musician—and Joe’s Pub Vanguard Residency and Award recipeint—Nona Hendryx collaborated with photographer Carrie Mae Weems, theater director Niegel Smith, and choreographer Francesca Harper to create an immersive multimedia installation and concert called Refrigerated Dreams, which debuts this Saturday, October 27th at Joe’s Pub in New York City.
Inspired by Weems’ The Kitchen Table Series, Refrigerated Dreams is a work-in-progress directed by Smith and featuring choreography and performances by Harper, Josh Johnson, and The Francesca Harper Project, along with original music by Hendryx.
The set-up: A man invites you to a dinner party, for which he has secured Hendryx and her performance art band Anon to perform. Meant to confront the limitations of duality in gender, race, and social norms, the performance is fragmented into binaries: man or woman, black or white, stay or go?
Weems’ Kitchen Table Series photographs loom in the background. A disjointed narrative may begin to form. Are the people in these photographs players here? When will they arrive? What is their story? Will they shed the binary narrative?
The intrigugin press release reads, in part, “This will be a night challenging the heteronormative, asking: Shipwrecked. Not yet, but soon / i have to pay the cost to be free / who will care for me?“
Refrigerated Dreams is a work-in-progress and will take over the space at Joe’s Pub October 27. There will be four shows in a single night. If you are looking for a totally radical immersion into the artistic minds of celebrated and renowned artists, you know where to go. Buy your tickets here.
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