How To Build a Fire – back story

How To Build A Fire, the queer multimedia performance/teaching tour with Heather Acs, Silas Howard and Leah Lakshmi I’m working on for Spring 2010 is exciting for several very specific reasons:

  • Silas, Heather and Leah are all really talented in different arenas so we make up a really interesting teaching team – covering theatre, writing, video, DIY booking, community healing, web and audio production…
  • And because of that, each of us *performs* really differently, too. Silas’ piece on Hollywood, quistory and integrity; Heather’s highly performative work on loss; Leah’s multimedia razor word work…and the Hot Pink Jesus Trash work I’m bringing is some of my best, creating magic out of dirt and shame.

We decided to change the name to How To Build A Fire, because that really reflected what we are accomplishing with this project — by pairing our performances with “how-to” interactive workshops and/or lectures that offer practical, hands-on techniques, our participants are encouraged to deepen their critical anlayses of cultural production, and will walk away with a collection of  techniques, tools and technology necessary to create artistic work and sustainable community projects in their own communities — with the ability to build their own fires!