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For four years, Providence-based interdisciplinary artist Shey Rivera has organized a performance art forum called Luna Loba. Each month, they invite a group of artists to respond to a prompt inspired by the Farmer’s Almanac, astrology, and the full moon. They moved the past two shows online, and tonight’s show will continue digitally.
Rivera recently talked about this upcoming performance, and reflected on how they are responding creatively to the coronavirus pandemic.
“This next one is called Shadows and Liberation. So it’s more around the powers that we have, but the things that we hide. And what do we need to achieve freedom? Like, what are the things that are our secret superpowers or our secret pleasures or the secret things that we want that actually give us energy? And how do we achieve freedom?
“It started about four years ago. I was going through a pretty intense moment in my life. And I felt like I needed a consistent forum to perform and to do performance art. And I figured that if I need that, maybe other people need it, too — just a space to experiment.
“And the other piece of it, for me, it was all about transformation. Like, how do you take a moment of hardship personally, emotionally, mental health-wise, financially, environmentally or politically? How do you transform it? How do you shift it? And I really do think that you can accomplish some of that by using creative expression. So that was really the whole idea behind it. It was really [about] transformation — what does that mean?
“And I think right now it’s a super important question. We are on a forced transformation. Usually transformations are forced; they’re not voluntary. So how are we going to come out of this? Can we come out of it with a higher awareness of how we build our lives and what we need?
“So I think this is what I’m contemplating on and reflecting on. This is just another moment where creating ways to build community and creating beautiful things and putting out energy and hope into the world is really important.”
More information on how to watch Luna Loba (7 pm, Sunday April 5) is available here.
Participating artists include: Roz Grace, Laura Lamb Brown-Lavoie, April Brown, Drone Dolores, Kei Soares Cobb, Aura Moreno, Carol Scavotto, Liz Oakley, Joel Rosario Tapia, Saúl Ramos Espola, Laurie Amat, and Shaffany Terrell.
