Test Pattern 09: Brontez Purnell

Test Pattern returns to the ICA Auditorium for a final season, starting with a presentation by performance artist Brontez Purnell and The Brontez Purnell Dance Company, with artist/mycologist Sophia Wang and dancer/astrologer Larry Arrington.

The performance will be followed by a conversation and Q&A with the artists moderated by Tavia Nyong’o. Doors will open at 6 PM and the performance will begin at 7 PM.

About the Artists:

Brontez Purnell is an Oakland-based writer, musician, dancer, and filmmaker who brings an unapologetic punk ethos to his many projects. He is the author of a graphic novel, a children’s story, the cult zine Fag School, and several award-winning novels, including Since I Laid My Burden Down (2017) and 100 Boyfriends (2021), which won a Lambda Literary Award for Gay Fiction. As a musician, he has performed with electro-rock outfit Gravy Train!!!!, fronted the punk band The Younger Lovers, and opened for Bikini Kill during their recent reunion tour. His first solo exhibition, Anti-Alter Ego, an exploration of the performance of self, opened at Trotter and Sholer in New York City this past June.

View his instagram here.

Sophia Wang creates and performs movement-based works in collaboration with performance artists, writers and visual and sound artists. She is co-founder of the mycelium biotechnology company MycoWorks and the Brontez Purnell Dance Company, and she has danced for artists Xavier le Roy, Tino Sehgal, Jérôme Bel, Xandra Ibarra, and Amara Tabor-Smith. She has a doctorate in English from U.C. Berkeley specializing in experimental contemporary American poetry, and she integrates her research and performance practices through writing and curatorial projects focused on critical somatics: thinking with and as bodies. From 2015 to 2020, she co-produced Heavy Breathing, a discussion and movement workshop series led by artists working at the intersection of performance, visual arts, and pedagogy.

Larry Arrington is a dance artist working in hybrids of idea and practice at the intersections of body and astrology.

Visit his website here

About the Moderator:

Tavia Nyong’o is Chair and Professor of Theater & Performance Studies, Professor of American Studies, and Professor of African-American Studies at Yale University. He was previously acting Chair and Associate Professor of Performance Studies at New York University. His current research and teaching interests span black queer cultural and performance studies, contemporary art and aesthetic theory, speculative genres, afrofuturism, and black sound studies.

About Test Pattern:

Test Pattern is a hybrid performance series inspired by the legacy of visionary public-access TV programs and alternative video movements in the US. The series invites artists to turn the ICA auditorium into an experimental production studio for week-long residencies, during which they collaborate with members of the local community to create a live performance and internet broadcast. Test Pattern offers the public a unique window into the creative process—visitors can observe rehearsals, participate in live tapings and online streams of the performances, and access the performances afterward through videos, websites, and publications.

Test Pattern is guest curated by David Riley.