Priestess of Twerk
Priestess of Twerk will merge stories from strip clubs, street corners, and dimly-lit basements with cross-cultural indigenous cosmologies inside an immersive pleasure temple. In this work, several women, who have gone through black feminist monastic training, preside over an interactive, multi-disciplinary, and ceremonial event that strives to eradicate white capitalist heterosexist patriarchy in its embrace of all radical forms of femme sexuality and agency – gender reassignment, pregnancy, menstruation, orgasm, birth control, and yoni steams.
Arguably, the black female body is the most eroticized figure in the contemporary (and historic) imaginations, yet it is rare that the worlds of sex-work and theatre meet at the nexus of race and spirit. Compiling fictional characters with memoir from Witherspoon’s own sexual awakening as a black mixed-race femme, auto-ethnography from my labor as an erotic dancer, and devised work in collaboration with sex-work and reproductive justice organizations, this work re-creates an ancient temple of sexuality, built by and for women of color as a space for the public to re-encounter what Audre Lorde calls the sacred “erotic” on our own terms.
The final presentation will take the form of an immersive performative experience where the audiences have the chance to traverse multiple chambers, each with a different modality of audience experience – alternately witnessing, interacting, or participating. In this multi-dimensional space, in contrast to the world at large, even interactions which contain transactions will center the pleasure and agency of the Twerk Priestesses.
On a shared evening with A Meal as part of HERE RAW / Resident Artist Works.
Audiences are invited to arrive early (6:15pm) to enjoy tarot, sound installation, and elixirs.
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Nia O. Witherspoon
Feb 29-Mar 1
as part of HERE RAW / Resident Artist Works
Sat-Sun @ 7pm – Audiences are invited to arrive early (6:15pm) to enjoy tarot, sound installation, and elixirs.
On a shared bill with A Meal
The purchase of a HERE RAW Works Pass will allow the holder admission to any HERE RAW Work-in-Progress performance on a first-come, first-served basis. You must complete the purchase of your Works Pass before you can select events. After purchasing your Works Pass, you may reserve seats to HERE RAW performances by logging into your account, and selecting the events from the calendar. You may also use your name at the door as long as there is space permitting.
Already have a Works Pass? Apply it to Priestess of Twerk / A Meal here.
Students and educators can experience HERE RAW for free. To make a reservation contact Eleanor Kipping, Audience Activist at eleanor@here.org or message us on Facebook @hereartscenter
Otherwise, purchase a Works Pass:
About the Lobby Installation Team:
Ayanna Maia (Tarot Reader) is a life-stylist who specializes in self care. SelfCare Works began as a central network for the services Ayanna Maia has provided clients and organizations for over fifteen Years. Originally designing and facilitating workshops, she offered interpersonal development, creative arts instruction, and community health initiatives. From music and visual art production to breastfeeding counseling and self-image workshops, self care has always been the first priority for the communities she serves. selfcareworks.com
Desiree Mwalimu-Banks (Tarot Reader) is a mother, artist, educator, curator, tantric practitioner and diviner whose work explores the collapse between the boundaries of art and life. She weaves together her passion for narratives of women in the African Diaspora with contemporary visual art and global anthologies of the Sacred Feminine. Through education, research, and exhibition, Desiree investigates Afro-Futurist thought, eroticism, and the politics of performance as points of inquiry into the complex identities of women of African descent. She lives with her husband and sons and works across several boroughs in New York City. themuseandtheloom.weebly.com/about.html
Christine Mahoney Brooks (Custom Cocktails) is a Brooklyn based Ethnobotanist, CLC, and Culinary Nutritionist studying Ayurvedic Medicine under Dr. Naina Marballi. Her work centers on exploration and reverence of the food, culture and medicine ways throughout the Afro-diaspora and Indigenous communities. Christine produces, Obeah Womn Botanicals, a botanical pop-up bar featuring handcrafted herbal elixirs and small plates. @ObeahWomn obeahwomnbotanicals.nyc