work is exploration is play
Selected works. Current and archival.
“Without resorting to apathy disguised as realism, I had to ask myself throughout: what does it mean to stay tethered to my integrity without conceding to the pressures of performing political purity in a social, political, and economic context where that is, by definition, impossible? What is the difference between strategic refusal and virtue signaling? Relationships became the ground on which to work through these questions throughout the production of this series. For me, relationships activate the fugitivity that lives in my bones, the fugitivity that was passed down to me from my ancestors as a tool for finding openings in impossible places. It’s tricky. Relationships are not straightforward, and neither is the path to shaping a process that’s in alignment with my core values and visions for collective liberation. What I do know is that we need each other, and that is, ultimately, what I hoped to communicate.”
(Excerpt from Coda: Glitches in the Matrix, Conversation with Sarah Cargill + Claudia La Rocco. Open Space, May 28, 2021)
Lucid Dreams of the Apocalypse
How might we, as Robin Wall Kimmerer describes in her book Braiding Sweetgrass, learn other “languages of animacy” through interactions that engender sonic intimacy? As we collectively work to repair and protect the structural integrity of our natural landscapes, how might sonic intimacy help us to uplift and center the sovereignty of our non-human and non-animal neighbors alongside our own?
Lucid Dreams of the Apocalypse is a digital performance series that explores such questions through a collection of essays, poems, sonic research, and performance works that center improvisatory experimentation, creative intimacy, process, memory, and Black temporalities.The series scaffolds multiple interwoven collaborations between Sarah and her two core collaborators: composer and scholar Amadeus Julian Regucera and percussionist, installation artist, and sound engineer Leviathe, culminating with a solo performance in which I introduce Pluto Noir to the public. Pluto’s origin story echoes the lineage of Drexciyan tales of the Black Aquatic. She harnesses vibration to codify and activate memories recovered from the archives of the astral plane and other liminal spaces. Forging a partnership with the element of water, she experiments with frequency and vibration to transport these memories across multiple dimensions and temporal planes. Between what is remembered and what is imagined, we find ourselves immersed in the depths of Pluto’s very own Lucid Dream of the Apocalypse.
Images 1-4: Stills from "Between beats, between breaths". Shot and co-produced by Amadeus J. Regucera. Images 5-7: Stills from "Lucid Dreams of the Apocalypse." Director of Photography: Aja Pop. Commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission. Presented by Open Space (SFMOMA). Image 8: Photo taken by Kimi Mojica.
The.Opening: Ritual for Safe Travels Through the Portal
Triggered by the rapidly crumbling conditions brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, we spent our last days in the outside world - our last few moments in what we now colloquially call the “Before Times” - furiously dancing, sweating, and indulging our curiosities with play. Filmed just two days before the first shelter-in-place was implemented in San Francisco, CA this short film documents an improvised exploration of energetic intimacy. How might we generate a sense of closeness and energetic exchange under circumstances that necessitate increasing distance?
Performance opens up a 4th temporal space - between past and present, present and future. We thus enter a temporal playground where we learn to traverse timelines and unlock a fleeting moments of possibility during a time of increasingly narrowed choice.
