Decomposing Fem
An evening length dance performance centering and exploring the trans experience, performed by Gwendy and Fyre, with Kat Nzingha on sound at Icebox Project Space
The performance revolves around a wall of fans that activates the space and activates our bodies. The audience will view the performance from two sides, feeling the energy and vibration of the fans before we enter. I will glide into the space against the wind in high-fashion drag. A slow cascading image in eight-inch heels, hours of makeup and hair, an elaborate couture garment, hand crafted to fit perfectly around my extremely corseted waist. Fyre will be revealed from underneath my garment as a golden idol, a golden goddess, who will climb up the stage pole and stake their presence in the room. This image will evolve into a vocal interaction with the wall of fans, a moaning, a yearning, a screaming for visibility, compassion, and love. As movement erupts throughout the performance, the high femininity housed within our garments and makeup will degrade and sweat away. Through a sampling of movement from Flashdance and 80’s workout culture, we will reference and call upon a splashing-thrashing, hip bumping-thumping siren. Though as we continue to call upon the figmentary embodiment of feminine sexuality, the intensity of movement will continue to degrade our fragmenting femininity. Washing the constructed self away, revealing a body caught between, a body on the verge. A radical state of superposition, both and neither, all and nothing. The work will exhibit extremely physical heel performance, chair performance, and pole work, that will be juxtaposed by text exposing the deeply rooted despair and joy that exists in our bodies as trans people.
Decomposing Fem responds to the need and desire for closeness in an increasingly alienating and divided world. It aims to ignite in the space the same spark I felt at the project's impetus; the feeling of questioning yourself and your surroundings, leading to a necessity to act, to create. How can I embolden and remind the audience of the power that is housed within? Through the use of costumes, props, improvisation, and singing, this work will explore representations and performances of gender and sensuality. We will inhabit and express the fight within to feel beautiful, to feel worthy of love, and to be enough. In sharing this process with an audience, this work aims to excavate that which is being suppressed, erecting desires previously submerged in guilt, fear, or anguish. This performance will be a reacquiantance with dreams long forgotten. I hope to hold a collective remembering of who we once dreamed of being, of who we are now, and to shout into the universe that anything is possible.
There are 3 different payment options, and no transaction fees, so keep that in mind along with your privilege, your budget, your situation, no one will be turned away. If you can’t make it to any of the performances but want to support there is a donation option as well.
A minimum of $1,000.00 from ticket sales will be donated to Galaei to support in their creation of safe spaces and opportunities that work to eradicate harm and scarcity in the QTBIPOC community and beyond.
https://www.galaeiqtbipoc.org/
Images by the amazing Cheyenne Gil
https://www.instagram.com/cheyennegil/
ARTIST BIOS
Kat Nzingha is a trans, multidisciplinary experimental artist born and raised in Philadelphia. Their artistic practices explore abstruse textures through sonic and sculptural materials. Combining their sculptural works with heavy low-end frequencies and celebratory tones they create blissfully cryptic sonic resonances that are the extended bodies of the modified objects they fabricate. Kat Nzingha uses convulsing kicks, metallic percussion, and hyper-processed textures to design sound, and distinct repetitive techniques, industrial materials, and elongated forms in their sculptural works. After releasing an EP, "Angeltribe" on London label TT in 2020, and "Vorphic Skin" on Toothgrinder Press in 2023, Kat Nzingha released the album "Grind" on AngeltribeXTL. Shorty after, they released “RIM” under the artist name “BRYYA” on the label formfourm which consists of heavy focused sound design techniques.
https://www.instagram.com/katnzinghasdead/
Fyre is a trans femme artist, pole dancer, stripper, and licensed cosmetologist based in Philadelphia. Born into a military family, they are a child of the world with no singular place to call home. Fyre came to Philly seeking asylum from their family in 2011. Here they found community, cosmetology, and dance. Dance and hair became a lifeline for them, both financially and spiritually, leading them to find drag. Fyre has competed in the Miss’D America Pageant in 2022, and was a Pro Nationalist at Pole Sport Org hosted in LA in 2015. Through these avenues along with fitness and wellness training, they compiled a multitude of skills and talents ultimately leading them to realize their transness. With this realization they took a deep look at how Philadelphia has a lack of safe spaces dedicated to celebrating trans bodies, trans beauty, and trans promiscuity. Therefore they founded and produce Fyre’s Femme Fatales, a trans femme strip show that takes place in the gayborhood and beyond. The show prioritizes BIPOC trans/queer/gender-nonconforming people who are looking to express their feminine sexual energy and prowess.
https://www.instagram.com/the_fyre/
Gwendy is a trans femme artist and maker based in Philadelphia whose work explores the beauty and love held within the human form through fashion, dance, and the written word. In 2019, they received a BFA from the University of the Arts in Sculpture and Dance. Through their studies and independent practice, Gwendy has cultivated their body as a site for the dialogue of forms moving between somatic research, product development, poetry, and most importantly, imagination and dreams. Gwendy’s work is a love letter to their younger self. It quenches their deepest desires for who they wanted to be and exceeds their greatest fantasies for what they wanted to do as that person. As a costume designer, Gwendy has collaborated on dance projects with Jimena Paz, Alex Da Corte, Jesse Zaritt and Katie Swords Thurman. They have performed in Philadelphia, New York City, and Paris, in works by Paul Matteson, Curt Haworth, Yael Bartana, Zoe Scofield, Alan Kaprow reimagined by Alex Da Corte, and Jocelyn Cottencin. They are currently exploring and developing an evening length performance that will debut at The IceBox Project Space in May entitled Decomposing Fem.
https://www.instagram.com/onlygwendy/
Lighting Designer and Stage Manager - Su Güzey