PCDS: Spring Cleaning with Arien Wilkerson accompanied by Aaron Pond
Sat, May 04
|Clark Park
Curator, Multimedia Artist, Dancer Arien Wilkerson leads a jaw dropping jam that will take over Clark Park and possibly all of reality. They will be accompanied by Aaron Pond on flutes, horn, log drums, and melodica
Time & Location
May 04, 2024, 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM
Clark Park, 4300-4398 Baltimore Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA
About the event
Sliding scale $5, $10, $15, or $20, no one turned away for lack of funds.
Bios
Arien Wilkerson is a choreographer, dancer, video maker, director, producer, and installation artist. Born and raised in Hartford, Connecticut, Arien is Founder and Artistic Director of, TNMOT AZTRO, a collaborative multidisciplinary company working at the bridge of dance, performance art, installation, sculpture, and sound design for engagements in museums, galleries and site-specific locations. Under the alias Tnmot Aztro considers that the complexities within art derive from the alienation of objects, identities, the body, sounds, and humans and is rooted in repurposing and redefining meanings of “fine art” and its attachment to colonialism, white supremacy, and institutionalized racism. What is queer black “fine art”? Who has access to it? How does art become fine? Where is the “margin” marginalized, displaced, disproportioned? And what systems were put in place to keep black and brown queer folk out. Arien Wilkerson/Tnmot Aztro, sold out performances, online lectures and events have taken place at spaces such as The University of Pennsylvania, Yale School of Art, University of Connecticut, Judson Memorial Church, LGBT Center NYC, Rhode Island School of Design, Austin Arts Center at Trinity College, Real Art Ways, Wadsworth Atheneum, Vox Populi Gallery, Icebox Project Space, AS22O, SPACE Gallery, Wesleyan University, The Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts, Slought Foundation, the Martin E. Segal Theater, CUNY. Wilkerson is a 2023-2024 iLab Artist in residence at University of the Arts and is fiscally sponsored by Headlong Dance Theater.
Aaron Pond is a musician, concert promoter, and community organizer active in Philadelphia. His improvisational practice is drawn from early atonal music, the playful spirituality of the AACM, and a South Florida childhood spent in synagogues and swamps. His scholarly pursuits center the universal aesthetic structures of spirit possession and the marking power of ritual. Aaron wishes to find himself in the turbulent seas of sensation. As a performer/thinker, Aaron has closely collaborated with Thomas Patteson, Karen Smith, Toshi Makihara, and Dan Blacksberg. He is the President of the People’s Music Supply, and damn’ proud of it.