AHA Media

featuring Silas Howard and Heather Ács

+ Vancouver DJs: Dance Mix Ninety-Six, Ugly, OCDJ, Women&Song

W2 Flack Block Gallery

click here for W2 website event listing and flyer

157 W Hastings @ Cambie

Sunday, August 2, 10pm-4am, $5.

Silas Howard of Tribe 8 and New York City downtown performance artist Heather Ács present an evening of new solo works, traversing through a multi-media world of string theory, social trespassing & loopholes in the American dream. Through ruminations on desire, shame, and loss these two escape artists invite us into a non-linear landscape scattered with fragmented mothers, renegade chickens, tranny jazzmen, and the mysterious figure of Mr. Hollywood in order to ask what is the price of letting go, selling out, or rewriting the script? 

“Tragic Magic was so good it hurt…Thank Goodness I brought moist towelettes!” Justin Bond 

Heather Ács’ piece “what the brain forgets and the heart denies, the body remembers…” explores illness, death, grieving and loss refracted through working class Appalachian and Mexican cultural imagery, creating a nonlinear world layered with movement, gesture, storytelling, soundscape, video, and installation. In this multi-media solo performance piece, time and testimonies loop, break apart, burrow, reemerge, and cross over. Breath taking, glass breaking, gifts are bestowed. Sparrows descend, tortillas and tears sizzle on the comal, a river flows with dirt and glitter. Lesley Gore croons cotton candy lyrics laced with razor blades while dust gathers in an empty house. Stitch it all together with string theory and skeleton keys, stuff into a mason jar, shake until your heart might break, check your pulse, make a wish, and see what rises to the surface.  

Howard’s Thank you for Being Urgent is a textured tale of a transman coming up in the queer punk world of San Francisco and spilling into the crappy and exalted glitter of Hollywood. He searches for true tales of fierce outsiders and re-imagines the mainstream, never loosening his grip on the underground. Our hero begs sanity from mystery man Mr. Hollywood through playful and plaintive letters, ruminating on desire, shame, and the infinite loopholes in the American Dream. Traversing serendipitous heights and punishing ironies, Thank you for Being Urgent chronicles burlesque dancers with dementia, tranny jazzmen and film executives, using archival photos, monologues and charm. 

Bios:

HEATHER M. ÁCS 
Heather M. Ács is a multi-media theatre performance artist, activist, educator and high-femme troublemaker. Her gritty, glittery work has been featured at the Culture Project, HERE Arts Center , the Kitchen, the Public Theater, Theater for the New City , and the New York City International Fringe Festival. She performs and facilitates workshops at community spaces, colleges and conferences from coast to coast. Heather has worked with Nao Bustamante, Karen Finley, Claude Michelle-Wampler, J. Ed Araiza of the SITI Company, and Steven Soderbergh. Heather is also a dedicated teaching artist. She uses theatre as a tool for social change with low-income youth in cities throughout the U.S. and has studied with Cornerstone Theatre Company, Sojourn Theatre, and Augusto Boal. 

SILAS HOWARD 
Silas Howard, (writer, director, and musician), co-directed his first feature, By Hook Or By Crook, with Harry Dodge. The indie classic was a 2002 Sundance Film Festival premiere and five-time Best Feature winner. Silas Howard’s next film, Exactly Like You, (co-written with Nina Landey), is based on the life of Billy Tipton.  Howard’s short documentary, What I Love About Dying also premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. 
For eight years, Howard toured with his band Tribe 8, the notorious queer punk band (a band boycotted by republicans and women at Michigan womyn’s music festival). The band has been featured in Rolling Stone, The Village Voice, and The Los Angeles Times.  You can check out Howard’s music videos, short musical and documentaries which have aired on MTV and LOGO networks and at Disneyland, Anaheim (weird, yet true). Howard’s writing is also featured in the anthologies, “Without a Net: Growing Up WorkingClass” and “Live Through This ,” as well as the artists’ journal, “LTTR.” Currently Silas is working on a novel set in San Francisco’s mid-90’s homocore scene.

W2 Community Media Arts Society
#205 – 163 W. Hastings St. (Flack Block)
Vancouver, BC V6B 1H5
www.creativetechnology.org
Mobile: 604.644.4349 • Fax 604.844.7441
Twitter: @W2Woodwards @FearlessCity