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Event
Seance: Signs of Life from Another Room
The decades immediately following the Stonewall Rebellion in 1969 saw a creative explosion of work articulating the developing gay culture. Artists of all disciplines sought with their work to chronicle the emerging culture, celebrating with music, drama, prose and verse the first flush of a new community coming together and finding an identity as, to borrow a well known phrase, "The Word (until then only said in whispers or catcalls that isolated the intended target) was truly made flesh." With this new visibility came a sense of a shared identity a commonality that spanned the globe.
Soon the gay community would be faced with a challenge that would all but obscure the memory of the heady days of coming out of hiding - but before disease stilled their voices, these artists examined and articulated the growing pains of a fledgling identity finding its place in the broader society. The genesis of the Séance Project came out of a recognition that many of the creative artists actively involved in documenting this growing gay culture went on to increased recognition as they chronicled their struggles with the disease, becoming in the process "AIDS writers" - as though the disease defined the boundaries of their life's work. Others among them simply passed on, forgotten by all but a few. The sheer depth and breadth of the AIDS epidemic, the devastating loss felt throughout the community and beyond, all but obliterated any other discourse, and the work of "culture building" became survival. Ironically, the disease that created a context wherein the larger world could no longer refuse to accept or acknowledge the gay men in its midst ultimately came to define them from without and within. The memory of a vibrant community existing before the plague all but disappeared from memory. For some, it is only now that we dare look back.
The evening's "Mediums" are Peter Zehren (FACT LGBT Festival-Baruch PAC, NY) , Michael Keiley (Carte Blanche Studio, World's Stage), Erico Ortiz (founder - Inspiration Studios), Marty McNamee (Skylight, Theatrical Tendencies), Tom Welschenbach (Off the Wall Theatre) and pianist Samuel McClain (KIC Band, Eddie Butts Band). Drawn from a roster of some of the city's most versatile performers, they will channel the characters and ideas that inhabited this "other room", the space "BE" Before the Epidemic - embedded voices reporting - once again - direct from the heart of a revolution.
The Milwaukee Gay Arts Center's (MGAC) primary purpose is to serve and promote the betterment of the Milwaukee LGBT community through providing a safe, secure and friendly environment for LGBT artists to express, display and perform LGBT relevant visual and performing arts as well as provide arts related educational opportunities.
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LocationMontage Lounge (View)
801 S. 2nd Street
Milwaukee, WI 53204
United States
Categories
| Minimum Age: 21 |
| Kid Friendly: No |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
| Wheelchair Accessible: No |
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