Saturday, December 9 at 7:30 PM

Theydy bedbug: Keepsake

KeepSake is a drag poetry journey by Kelindah bee featuring their drag persona Theydy Bedbug. Kelindah bee enters a clinical trial for an experimental new body scan technology, called  KeepSake, intended to treat stored trauma. Together, we take a somatic journey and pause at key body parts for core memory excavations, surreal dream interpretations, forgotten fantasies, trauma distillations stored in the caverns of the body. What lives and dies in the brain, the lungs, the chest, the junk and how does that long-term storage impact what we can be?

ALEXA GRÆ & Stephanie Acosta: COLLUSIONS OF GRANDEUR - transfiguration 

COLLUSIONS OF GRANDEUR - transfiguration is an electronic opera in the form of dazzling soliloquy - featuring soundscapes, movement, and poetry sparked, out of necessity, for self preservation. The source material assembled through snapshots from a quarantine and uprising that brought intelligences rooted in blackness, trans-queer identity, neurodiversity, and magic to the fore. Drawing from the traditions of operatic madness, solitude, body intellect, and the building of self, as artistic practice. Spoken confessionals ripple textual streams of consciousness as the protagonist attempts to unburden themselves by repeating ego deaths in the morning and seeking metaphysical magic under the eye of the moon.

About the artists

Kelindah bee (t[he]y/them) is a drag artist known as Theydy Bedbug, a spoken-word poet, an educator, and a producer. Their art is a collage of campy drag, grotesque burlesque and narrative poetry to reclaim their body, queer audiences, and reckon with belonging. They grew up in Indonesia and Singapore and have been making art in Lenapehoking since 2015. In 2019 they won the title of “Mx. Brooklyn” and are now the director of the Drag Performance program at BAX. They are currently a Queer|Art|Mentorship fellow under the mentorship of Kate Bornstein. Connect & collaborate: https://www.kelindahbee.art/ | @theydy.bedbug

ALEXA GRÆ, (they/them) is an interdisciplinary artist, vocalist, and composer whose works stretch into accumulation and dissolve without breaking the seal or shattering the magic. They have collaborated with Stephanie Acosta, Pioneers Go East Collective, Isaac Pool, Jessie Young, and Same As Sister. ALEXA released their studio song cycle ‘SEEN’ with the premiere of ‘Sur La Nuit’ an operatic/electronic music video (Matthew Ozawa & Jon Wes) at The Art Institute Chicago with Open Television. They have performed with Haymarket Opera Company, Madison Opera , Elements Contemporary Ballet, Chicago Arts Orchestra, The Savannah Philharmonic, and Northwestern University Orchestra among others. www.alexagrae.com  

Stephanie Acosta (she/her/they/them)  is an interdisciplinary artist, director, experimental archivist and organizer who places the materiality of the ephemeral at the center of their practice. Acosta has presented with and for the Museum of Art and Design, MCA Chicago, Knockdown Center, NYLA, IN>Time Symposium, Abrons Arts Center, and beyond. Acosta has collaborated with artist Miguel Gutierrez, on multiple projects including Cela nous concerne tous (This concerns all of us) for the Ballet de Lorraine in France, and This Bridge Called My Ass premiered 2019. Recently Acosta opened Good Day God Damn at the Chocolate Factory Theatre, a solo exhibition curated by Alexis Wilkinson, and talk show Apocalypse Talks and is the lead archivist for AUNTS.