CHARITY STARTS AT HOME NADINE RUFF
Presented by TNMOT AZTRO PERFORMANCE ART & DANCE INSTALLATION LLC
Doors at 6:30PM TICKETS $15
This project serves as a bold reminder for artists to remain dangerous while safeguarding their well-being. It challenges us to be audacious without self-sabotage, daring without self-destruction, and to care for ourselves while igniting the world with art that seeks to activate rather than destroy. The true danger for an artist lies in the depth of care we extend to ourselves and the work we bring into the world.
CHARITY STARTS AT HOME NADINE RUFF exemplifies the intensity of an artist ready to be unleashed, serving as a powerful reminder to remain relentless and unapologetic in pursuing our craft, despite the ways the divisive and cult-like art world encourages us to silo ourselves. This project confronts the "ghostly" mentality of power, engaging with its tension and duality—a reflection of my personal experiences as an artist rejecting the complicit behaviors often found in high-society art philanthropy. This connection emerges through attentive listening to horrific stories of abuse of power, both within the art world and in society at large. It also draws on observations of how "dangerous" labels placed on people often reflect the fears of others. These labels serve as both creative and conceptual guides. As an artist, I inhabit a public persona frequently perceived as "dangerous"—a moniker shaped by societal narratives surrounding individuals like me, those with a presence and energy that refuses to cower or conform.
Featuring:
Arien Wilkerson/TNMOT AZTRO
Arien Wilkerson/TNMOT AZTRO considers that the complexities within art derive from the alienation of objects, identities, the body, sounds, and humans and is rooted in repurposing and redefining meanings of "fine art" and it's attachment to colonialism, white supremacy, and institutionalized racism. Their practice articulates epistemology and ontology by producing large-scale performance installations where audiences, public masses, or viewers are submerged within an immersive experience that populates multiple meanings, and multiple engines and embodies specific movement vocabularies, choreographic structures, and improvisations. Their discipline spans, Dance, performance art, digital performance, immersive installation, large-scale projection mapping, and lighting design. Within their creative discipline, they work deeply with live, digital, and noise sound experimentation, clothing design and set fabrication, conceptual writing, scientific research, investigative journalism, community organizing, critical art theory, queer studies, and curatorial presentation. Wilkerson is also the co-curator of Black Aesthetics, an experimental performance program at Judson Memorial Church with Malcolm X Betts, and serves as a professor at The New School. Their work has been showcased at prestigious venues including the University of Pennsylvania, Yale School of Art, University of Connecticut, Rhode Island School of Design, and Wesleyan University, as well as prominent spaces such as The Martin E. Segal Theater Center at CUNY, Real Art Ways, Vox Populi Gallery, Asian Arts Initiative, and the Wadsworth Atheneum. Recognized for their impact as an artist, Wilkerson has received over $76,000 in funding from state, national, federal, and nonprofit sources, including the Penn Treaty Special Services District, the Sachs Program for Arts & Innovation at UPenn, the Graham Foundation, and The Velocity Fund. Additional accolades include NEFA’s Rebecca Blunk Fund, The Connecticut State Fellowship, and the Spirit of Juneteenth Award from the Amistad Center for Art & Culture. They recently completed a 10-month paid residency at the University of the Arts iLab, which concluded in May 2024.
Soleil Collyear
Mackenzie-Soleil Collyear is a site-specific, improvisational artist interested in work researching duration, aural kinesthetic, and materiality within natural elements. Soleil is a deconstructor of the hyper-normative nature of the categorization; we place and are placed into categories as humans. Soleil began their dance training with Dallas Black Dance Theatre at the age of two studying in Horton, Ballet, African Diaspora, Dunham, Lemon, Jazz, Tap, and Graham. During their summers they attended The Alvin Ailey School, The Joffrey Ballet School, and in 2018 transitioned to full-time schooling with the Joffrey Ballet School in New York. Since then Soleil hadthe opportunity to collaborate, exchange, and learn from creators Milton Myers, Brigitte Moore, Angelica Stiskin, Nycole Ray, Zach Ingram, Jamal Story, Sidra Bell, and Akira Yoshida. Soleil studied for their BFA in Dance and MFA in curation with the University of the Arts and has transitioned their career to company work with the TNMOT AZTRO company in New York and Philadelphia. Soleil is the assistant curator for THE FUTURE IS US collective, and currently interning as the head curator of Vox Populi in Philadelphia. Soleil plans to continue their studies with Bennington School in Vermont, studying for BFA in dance and curation.
Jolie Padilla
Jolie Padilla is a multifaceted artist dedicated to exploring the essence of humanity through performance, scholarship, and creative making. They have served as a research assistant for the Bennington College MFA Dance residency under the direction of Donna Faye Burchfield and deepened their studies at the ICI-CCN in Montpellier, France, working with and under Thomas DeFrantz, Douglas Becker, Jennifer Nugent, and Kameelah Janan Rasheed. Jolie’s performance experience includes collaborations with Netta Yerushalmy, Sidra Bell, Mark Caserta, Jesse Zarrit, Shayla-Vie Jenkins, and Arien Wilkerson. Their practice extends into dramaturgy and ongoing work as a performer and collaborator with various Philadelphia-based collectives. These projects traverse movement, film, multimedia installation, event activation, and responses to societal crises, reflecting Jolie’s commitment to creating art that resonates with and challenges contemporary landscapes.
And Special guests!
Masina Frank
Micah Lat
Chloe Marie
