Journey To The East (JTTE), a celebration of queer artists of colour and allies claiming space on the Scottish main stages, presents two legendary international artists premiering their work live in Glasgow for the first time. 

Matt Mullican – Live Performance Under Hypnosis

Since the 1970s Matt Mullican has examined the relationship between reality and perception to model the real. Here he explores trance states, working with a hypnotist to access “That Person,” the artist’s alter-ego who possesses the stage as a psychic entity with no identifying age, gender, or name. Performing improvisational actions and moving into unpredictable relations with everyday objects and configurations in space, “That Person” explores existential, aesthetic, and psychological spaces, as well as collective unconscious underpinnings of the artist and persons in society.

Keioui Keijaun Thomas – Come Hell or High Femmes: The Era of the Dolls

Charting a post-apocalyptic geography, Thomas imagines a time where the dolls — a word that, loosely, means a trans woman so beautiful and perfect that she can no longer be considered real — have survived a mass extinction. Why are dolls the only ones left? Perhaps, it is because trans femmes (often, but not always) are forged in nocturnality, where beauty and intelligence must learn to supersede time and space. Thomas reclaims what it means to be black in nature, forging new ways to exist in peace, joy, and healing. The choreography is based on queering landscapes, camouflage, and metamorphosis as modes of survival and transcendence for queer and trans people.

AUDIENCE NOTES
This double bill will contain coarse language. The Keioui Keijaun Thomas performance will contain flashing lights and nudity.
Recommended for ages 18+ only 

Part of Journey To The East Festival 2023

Come Hell or High Femmes is made possible with funding from The MAP Fund, supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, and Mellon Foundation.

Image
Matt Mullican Performance Under Hypnosis, The Kitchen, 2016.
Courtesy of The Kitchen, New York and Peter Freeman, Inc.