Top 5 Performance Moments at Satellite Art Show Miami with performance curator, Quinn Dukes

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In honor of today being proclaimed Satellite Art Show Day in Miami, performance curator of Satellite and Founder of Performance is Alive, Quinn Dukes, selected her Top 5 #AliveAtSatelliteMiami performance moments. With nearly 100 performances to choose from, this short list is merely a small glimpse into the powerhouse performers that have presented live works in Miami over the past 4 years.

Special thanks to all of the tremendous performers on this list. You inspire us everyday! We look forward to presenting live performance again in 2021. 💗 
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#5 THOMAS ALBRECHT, SAND, 2016.

THOMAS ALBRECHT, SAND, Performance is Alive, Satellite Art Show, 2016. Miami, FL.

​SAND references the scene late in Samuel Beckett's play, Waiting for Godot, where Vladimir asks Ponzo what is in the bag his servant is carrying, and his reply is "Sand." Performed for Performance is Alive, Satellite Art Show December 3, 2016. 

THOMAS ALBRECHT'S performance art projects explore ritual and language in public spaces, galleries, and museums, prodding cultural beliefs and individual doubts. He has performed and exhibited work throughout the United States and internationally.

He has lectured on topics ranging from teaching pedagogy, ritual and performance, and contemporary visual practices. He served as the Menil Scholar at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music, was selected as a Faculty Fellow for the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, and was the 2017-18 Georgette and Richard Koopman Distinguished Chair in the Visual Arts at the Hartford Art School.

He received his BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, a Master of Arts in Religion from Yale University, and his MFA from the University of Washington. He serves as Assistant Dean in the School of Fine and Performing Arts, Chair of the Art Department, and holds the rank of Professor at the State University of New York at New Paltz.

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#4 TSEDAYE MAKONNEN, Paper(Bag) Test Deity Needs That Holy WateR, 2017.

TSEDAYE MAKONNEN, PAPER(BAG) TEST DEITY NEEDS THAT HOLY WATER, performed at Satellite Art Show, Alive at Satellite 2017. | Photo courtesy of Alex Sullivan.

Paper(Bag) Test Deity Needs That Holy Water, is from an ongoing series on colorism that began in 2014 titled Bleach Bloodbath after reading articles on skin-lightening injections and coming across international commercials selling skin-bleaching products. This piece explores how far people are willing to go to acquire whiteness, that which is  unattainable. As well as examines the toxic effects of bleach on our skin, our food and our environment. Bleach strips away sustenance and is quite the  metaphor for whitewashing. Performed December 8, 2017.

TSEDAYE MAKONNEN is an Ethiopian-American interdisciplinary artist who focuses on installation and performance art; creating sculptures, experiences and participatory pieces that involve the audience. Other titles she bears and inform her art practice are mother, educator and birthworker. Recurring themes present in her work are identity, migration, colorism, womanhood, ritual and kinship. For the last few years her work has been exploring the forced migratory patterns of the African Diaspora and their creative responses to assimilating and recreating the Self within new territories. 

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#3 Carolina Larrosa, Pa’ Hialeah​, 2018.

CAROLINA LARROSA, PA’ HIALEAH​ in performance at Satellite Art Show, Alive at Satellite 2018. | Photo courtesy of Performance is Alive.

Thirty minutes north of Wynwood, Hialeah is home to an almost exclusively latinx -and notoriously playful- community and culture. Most striking to me is a fierce do-it-yourself culture, outspoken and unabashedly present in every aspect of the city. There is a practice of self-reliance within Hialeah, born from a resourcefulness engrained in latinx culture, which serves as a method of technological and cultural disobedience against forces of colonialism and assimilation. This disobedience materializes in many ways in Hialeah - misspelled signs, home-grown avocados for sale, furniture stacked 10 feet high on the back of a pickup truck, vianderos selling guarapo and coco frío from repurposed vans on the side of the road, and beautifully confusing lawn decorations.

Pa’Hialeah is an homage to the vibrant, multifaceted, and kitschy city I call home, as well as to the women in my family, who raised me there with pride. 

Carolina Larrosa was born to Cuban parents in Miami. She currently lives in Montreal where she attends Concordia University for her undergraduate degree in Intermedia CyberArts. As an interdisciplinary performance, electronic, and video artist, Larrosa develops playful yet quietly personal inquiries that work to decode the charged signifiers tied to her identity. Born into a series of in-betweens - between countries, languages, cultures - Larrosa is interested in unclear and fluctuating points of intersection.

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#2 Kiyo Gutiérrez,  Derrame/Spill, 2019.

KIYO GUTIÉRREZ, DERRAME/SPILL, performed at Satellite Art Show, Alive at Satellite 2019. | Photo courtesy of Aylin Marcelo.

Oil exploration and exploitation has over the last 5 decades impacted tremendously on our oceans, massively endangering marine wildlife and throwing local ecosystems out of balance, and thus the entire livelihood and basic survival of all living beings. Approximately 5 million tons of oil ends up in our oceans every year. One of the most affected bodies of water is the Gulf of Mexico, scenario of the worst oil spill in history. The 2010 BP Oil spill leaked an estimated 130 million gallons of oil into the Gulf.

Apparently the Gulf of Mexico can never catch a breath. Even less now with Trump’s  Climate  denial  administration  and  Mexican president Andrés  Manuel López Obrador who is actually investing millions in building the new “Dos Bocas”oil refinery.

Oil like a gargle spouting in the Gulf of Mexico.
All forms of life choked under a thick black death.

Kiyo Gutiérrez is a Mexican performance artist and historian. Her work explores environmental, social and political issues affecting society. Through her body, she seeks to explore performance art’s potential as a transformative tool. Her art strives to address cultural taboos that have been constructed under a patriarchal system, with the hope of eroding preconceived notions of gender, identity, power, nature and art, in order to generate and disseminate discussions on social reality.

www.kiyogutierrez.com | Insta @kiyogutierrez | FB: Kiyo Gutierrez

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#1 Ginger Wagg and Mike Dimpfl (Durham, NC, USA), LEAVING IMPOSSIBLE THINGS UNATTENDED: HUMAN/PLASTIC/BALL, 2019.  

GINGER WAGG AND MIKE DIMPFL (DURHAM, NC, USA), Performing, LEAVING IMPOSSIBLE THINGS UNATTENDED: HUMAN/PLASTIC/BALL | Photo courtesy of Performance Is Alive, Alive At Satellite 2019.

Leaving Impossible Things Unattended (LITU) is a collaborative performance project by Ginger Wagg and Mike Dimpfl. LITU is site- and viewer-specific, using the garbage of consumption to examine the commitment to ignoring the reality of everyday life. There is no “behind-the-scenes” -- just trash as far as the eye can’t see. 

The waste we toss out has become our undoing. Plastic bags are everywhere and will continue to exist long after we do. What price do we pay? 

Working with a rope made of 10,000 plastic bags, LITU is trying to undo the damage. There is no possibility of success, just the work of trying. 

LITU has been performed at SEEK RALEIGH, Lump Projects, 21c Museum Hotel, Carrboro Music Festival, Durham Fruit & Produce, and SwitchPoint at the Haw River Ballroom. 

Mike Dimpfl is a teacher, costume builder, and DJ. Ginger Wagg is a performance artist, musician, and director of Wild Actions performance group.

 
lituperformance.com |  @wildactionmoves