Weryd Wimmen is an ongoing performance series which investigates feminist perspectives from a varied practice in performance art. We are interested in using our bodies within a temporal space as an art form. The performances in Weryd Wimmen engage in practices of cosplay, dance, performance art and theater. Although the title of the event insinuates female gender “wimmen”, the reference is to feminism not gender, as in the alternative spelling of women as womyn. Performers in Weryd Wimmen identify as female, male or non-binary. Weryd is in reference to the Old English spelling of weird “wyrd” derived from Shakespeare’s Macbeth spelled, “weyward”. The appropriation and slight rewording is meant to enchant the theatricality within performance art while upholding the revisions of words, an allegory for our own identities and place in culture. Weryd Wimmen promises to make you laugh, cry and cringe.
Weryd Wimmen V features performers Alexandra Tatarsky, Beth Heinly, Cory Kram, Tabitha Nikolai and Tara White.
Alexandra Tatarsky has been called “a hilarious, finely tuned absurdist” by Theatre Jones and “an East Village relic” by Vogue. She experienced fleeting fame as Andy Kaufman’s daughter and often performs as a mound of dirt. Her one-man-shows Beast of Festive Skin, SIGN FELT!, and Americana Psychobabble premiered at legendary downtown theater La Mama ETC and have toured nationwide. She was a member of X-ID Rep at the New Museum, an ensemble devoted to investigating the ethics of intercultural cross-play, and has continued to explore the construction of selves and communities in real time with original performances at Bronx Art Space, Queens Museum, Maccarone, Metro Pictures, Dixon Place, Basilica Hudson, Gotham Comedy Club, U.S. Blues, The Brick Theater, Vox Populi, and many other small, dark venues. She teaches theater as community organizing at the School of Authentic Journalism in Mexico City and a course on Holy Fools at the School of Making and Thinking. Alexandra Tatarsky is a 2016-17 Movement Research artist-in-residence and has collaborated with Zhe Zhe, Pig Iron, George & Co., Truant Arts, and Lilac Co. Her writings on Russian-Jewish poetics and spambot lyricism have been published at The New Inquiry, Hypocrite Reader, Weekday, Encyclopedia, Calvert Journal and the Reed College Erotic Review. For more: tar-tar.biz
Beth Heinly will be performing as Lestat de Lioncourt from Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles. The performance demonstrates crossplay within cosplay and theater. The character portrayal of Lestat de Lioncourt will be derivative of Anne Rice’s vampire series. Lestat throughout his existence is always the thespian from Shakespeare to 1980’s rock idol – in addition to this canon, Beth will be performing Lestat as performance artist.
Cory Kram presents Something With a Crockpot, a performance that imagines a crusty ol’ crockpot as a portal to another dimension. What will happen while the crockpot is on stage? The pasta-bilities are endless.
Tabitha Nikolai
Words (some stolen, some invented) bespeaking the nexuses of being: Magical Girl, Replicant, Xenomorph, Frankenstein, Borg, off-brand Lolita, and the nefariousness of soy. This is yet another case for monstrousness in monstrous times.
Tabitha Nikolai receives support from the Oregon Arts Commission, a state agency funded by the state of Oregon.
Tara White is an interdisciplinary artist and film/video maker based in and Philadelphia, PA and Brooklyn, NY. She received her MFA from the University of Pennsylvania in 2013. She also has a BFA in Photography from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in (2007), a B.A. in Film, and a B.A. in Integrative Arts from Penn State University (2004). Her art and films have been exhibited and screened in the US and internationally.
