Black Box Presents: spasm [embodied resistance]
In Partnership with All Mutable
6/27 and 6/28 FREE. At the Rail Park and Vox Populi
spasm [embodied resistance] is a two-day performance arts festival featuring POC/QPOC artists along the East Coast. Our intention is to gather disruptive and discordant performances that are singular in vision, emotionally confrontational, and highlights the body as a source of agency and political change.
Contemporary governance relies on dissociating the individual from their senses and intuition while inversely degrading the non-white, non-male and queer body as a policed object that can be immobilized, mutilated, exploited, or displaced arbitrarily: attacks on trans rights and abortion, increasing restrictions on medical care and harm reduction, police violence, gentrification and deportation all have this in common. The political attack on the body forces the individual to become disconnected from their sense of physical agency, and consequently, political agency. Our aim is for people to interrogate and heal their relationships with their body and emotions outside of the framework of corporate self-care and the medical-industrial complex as the first step in decolonizing their psyches.
Art is ultimately an exercise in speculative thinking and world-building, allowing the individual artist to transmit their truth and dreams of alternate reality. In this moment, when white supremacy has usurped control of the government and usual forms of protest have become neutralized, we need the imagination of BIPOC, queer and trans voices to realize true liberation and envision alternatives to contemporary Western capitalist paradigms. Stay tuned for announcement of full-line up.
All Mutable is an experimental music curatorial collective that has benn putting on performances across Philadelphia since 2016. With an emphasis on highlighting queer performers, All Mutable brings together local artists with touring acts.
About Black Box Presents
Made possible through lead support provided by the William Penn Foundation,, Black Box Presents is a yearlong series transforming our Black Box Performance Theater into a platform for 12 community arts organizations, each curating their own monthly event. This initiative amplifies experimental music, dance, film, and spoken word while ensuring free, accessible programming that strengthens Philadelphia’s creative networks.
About William Penn Foundation
The William Penn Foundation, founded in 1945 by Otto and Phoebe Haas, is committed to expanding access to resources and opportunities that promote a more vital and just city and region for all. We do this through funding programs in the Philadelphia region in arts and culture, children and families, democracy and civic initiatives, environment and public space, and workforce training and services. Learn more at www.williampennfoundation.org.
