Please join us for SOUND IMAGE BODY - co-hosted by Joshua Ware and Sharifa Lafon
Door 7:00 pm / Event 7:30
Algae & Tentacles (aka John Melillo of Tuscon, AZ) will perform a sound/music set, and New York City-based interdisciplinary-artist Qinru Zhang will screen an animated film. These out-of-town artists will be joined by local digital/performance artist Phillip Stearns and dancer/body movement artist Cassidy Wagner. It is sure to be an eclectic and exciting evening
There will be light refreshments, but you are encouraged to bring your own snacks or drinks if you feel so inclined.
ARTIST BIOS:
John Melillo makes music, noise, and various sound experiments under the name Algae & Tentacles. Based in Tucson, Arizona and Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Melillo sings and improvises using a range of genres, from folk song to concrete sound poetry and electro-acoustic improvisation. As Algae & Tentacles, Melillo has released a self-titled album with Lightning Records and collaborative albums with Geoff Saba (Dry River) and Cecyl Ruehlen (Where Tremble Heart). His latest album The Mouth Is a Resonant Field was released in April of 2023 by 2182 Recording Company. Melillo is also a writer, teacher, and researcher, and his book The Poetics of Noise from Dada to Punk was published by Bloomsbury Sound Studies in 2020.
Phillip Stearns (He/Him) is a Denver based, self-identified grizzled veteran of electronic art, working with both physical and digital media. A major through line in his work is the use of media technologies to reveal hidden worlds that are integral to our daily existence but reside just beyond our sense perceptions. He has performed and exhibited work internationally in art festivals, museums, and galleries including Tate Britain, Park Avenue Armory, NYU Abu Dhabi Art Gallery, ELEKTRA BIAN, Transmediale, FILE, Festival de Arte Digital, Thoma Foundation, Denver Art Museum, Zhangzhou Museum of Art and Haus Der Elektronischen Künste.
Colorado native Cassidy Wagner started her dance journey drenched in ballet, studying with the Miami City Ballet School when she was only a High School student. After some years, Cassidy graduated from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts with a degree in Dance and danced her way with the Second Avenue Dance Company in the East Village, NYC, and later in Brooklyn -- performing at venues like Roulette and Triskelion Arts. In NYC, Cassidy freelance danced with Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener (both Merce Cunningham Dancers), and Netta Yerushalmy (Guggenheim Fellow), and furthered her education through international workshops and company immersions. In 2019 Cassidy was invited by Ohad Naharin to participate in the Gaga teacher training program. Cassidy was selected as one of a small group of dance artists for this specialized training. She considers Gaga to be her primary movement practice, and is committed to exploring this research daily. Cassidy has been based in Denver since covid, and teaches weekly Saturday Gaga classes open to the public, and as well has collaborated with The Lab on Santa Fe, and Habitat Gallery using the SKYLIGHT Event Center for First Friday Art Walk events and collaborative work-in-progress artist centric events -- she loves dancing in unlikely spaces and performing at events that are multi-medium.
New York City-based interdisciplinary artist Qinru Zhang has been exploring uncanniness and femininity using digital mediums including 3D animation and mixed reality. Through observing society’s sexualization of femininity, Zhang appropriates, détourns, and normalizes feminine stereotypes to challenge existing gender norms. With Zhang’s unique use of eerie aesthetics in her feminine narrations, she advocates for freedom of choice in women’s self-representation and lifestyles and calls for female empowerment.