Nicole Garneau singing in a performance of Ezell: Ballad of a Land Man. Pine Mountain Settlement School, Kentucky, July 2021. Photo by Will Major
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The book Performing Revolutionary: Art, Action, Activism was published in 2018 by Intellect Books. Available in print and as a fully-accessible audiobook narrated by Nicole Garneau.
Fully Accessible audiobook of Performing Revolutionary narrated by Nicole Garneau.
An UPRISING performance is a public demonstration of revolutionary practices.
UPRISINGs are experimental ways of practicing the skills we need in order to achieve a global culture of justice and compassion. I believe that if we can grow more comfortable with our post-revolutionary selves and social relations, we will be better equipped to recognize even momentarily liberated spaces. We will feel less shocked when we actually manifest a radically loving revolutionary culture.
The UPRISING performance project began in January 2008 and continued once a month for five years. There were 60 UPRISINGs in all, involving easily thousands of people in 8 US locations as well as Russia, Denmark, the UK, and Portugal. The most recent UPRISING performance took place April 3, 2018 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.
The UPRISING project is featured in Nicole Garneau’s book Performing Revolutionary: Art, Action, Activism, published 2018 by Intellect Books and availably in both print and audio format, narrated by Nicole Garneau. Click on photo for more!
Ezell: Ballad of a Land Man United States touring production. Devised & performed by Bob Martin, directed by Nick Slie, produced by Carrie Brunk. Photo by Melisa Cardona from performances at A Studio in the Woods, New Orleans, LA, October 2021.
Faultline Ensemble. Contact: An original performance about public health disasters and what it means to live in them. A project of Faultline Ensemble, the Yale School of Public Health, Yale Schwarzman Center and the Burrows Wellcome Fund. Performance in-person at the Yale Landscape Lab, Orange, CT, May 12-15, 2022.
ALTARS, SHRINES, AND CEREMONIAL ART: Altar & participatory art installation for the performance Land, Water, Food, Story by Clear Creek Creative. Collaboration with Will MacAdams. Installed in rural Rockcastle County, KY, 2017. Click on the photo for more altars!
HOSTING & EMCEE: Hosting parties is an art practice! I love to Emcee events. Photo by Andrew Hensley while I was hosting the Northern Lights Queer Performance & Dance Party, a monthly event I co-created with DJ Erik Roldan, which ran at Parlour on Clark for 3 years. Click on the photo for more about hosting!
#500 Solidarity: In January, February, and March 2020, I made participatory performances I called “Yulia Tsvetkova 500-Meter Solidarity Walks” in Russia, Berlin, and London. Nearly 100 people participated. Yulia Tsvetkova is a feminist artist who supports LGBTQ rights, and who has been persecuted by the Russian government since fall 2019. Her persecution continues to this day. She is facing up to 6 years in prison for body-positive art. Click on the photo to find out more.
Costumes! Making costumes for myself and other people is a joy-filled part of my artistic practice. Click on the photo for more images of costumes.
Performance and Theater has been my main artistic focus throughout my life. Click on the photo for more!
Teaching Artistry & Youth Collaborations: teaching and working with young people inside and outside of school takes many forms. Through workshops in theater, performance, writing, and sacred/ceremonial art, I work to make students feel valued for the people that they are and their unique creativities. In this photo, I am teaching a workshop on portable Shrines and Memorías through the Center for Community Arts Partnerships at Columbia College Chicago. Click on the photo for more info.