artists-In-residency highlights I
Communities Co-creating What Access Looks Like.
1. Walken Schweigert (Bard of the Night), (Open Flame Theatre): Artist-In-Residence, Current
Walken Schweigert is a queer/trans actor, musician, composer and director from St. Paul, MN. A 2019 Jerome Foundation Fellow, he is a 2009 graduate of the Dell’ Arte International School for Physical Theatre, and a 2006 graduate of the Perpich Center for Arts Education (Theatre Major). He has worked with the Taller Xuchialt and Ronda de Barro in Leon, Nicaragua (2005-2007); toured with and been mentored by Stacy Klein and Carlos Uriona of the internationally renowned Double Edge Theatre in Ashfield, MA (2012-2016); and has busked on the streets of 11 countries.
He has facilitated Theatre of the Oppressed workshops across the Americas, and co-founded the all-transgender theatrical/dance/circus ensemble entitled the Gay Unicorn Triplettes (2010-2012). A classically trained violinist, he has been part of over a dozen musical ensembles of varying genres, from klezmer to string metal.
Currently, he performs with the poetic-folk band Buffalo Weavers (Saint Paul, MN) and the occult-inspired, baroque-horror, Detroit-based band CRUNE. Walken has performed across the country, from the streets of Portland, OR, to the Appalachian Mountains, to the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. In 2008 he founded the Unseen Ghost Brigade, an ensemble that toured an original piece of street theatre down the Mississippi River in 2010 on a raft they built themselves.
In its next incarnation, the ensemble was renamed Children of the Wild to produce Schweigert’s first opera The Wastelands, which premiered in 2016 and toured across the country for three years.
In 2017 Children of the Wild became Open Flame Theatre, and moved to Philadelphia Community Farm, in Osceola WI, where the theatre and Schweigert are in residence indefinitely.
Walken was also recently a recipient of a JFund Award from the American Composer’s Forum for the composition of his second opera, The Garden, which was scored by CRUNE and produced by Open Flame Theatre and Philadelphia Community Farm, where it premiered in September, 2021.
Walken is currently a student at United Theological Seminary, studying paganism, theology in the arts and Queer and Trans Theologies.
His most recent opera was commissioned by the Washington National Opera and premiered at the Kennedy Center in January, 2023.
Gallery Link: from Open Flame’s performance of The Garden at Philadelphia Community Farm in September, 2021
Photos by Max Haynes
https://maxhaynes.smugmug.com/Theater-Arts/21-09-24-The-Garden/
2. Mirrored Fatality; Artists-in-Residence 2020
Mirrored Fatality remembers wholeness from dismembered flesh and mutates as cross pollinating perennial terratoids. Mirrored Fatality intertwines glitch rage webs with corroded resonance and regenerates forsaken spores across their current biome: ECOCIDE 3URTH.
Mirrored Fatality is an underground interdependent Kapampangan and South Asian xenobinary experimental and healing noise queer punk farmer duo sharing their rituals + altars. Mirror Fatality creates their “cocoon webs'' combining performance art, music, spoken word, film, photography, painting, drawing, upcycled garments, anti-imperialist education, and healing justice practice spaces to mobilize a warrior community responding to transnational calls-to-action for mutual aid, land sovereignty, and prison abolition.
They have toured across Turtle Island (United States of America), United Kingdom, Mexico, Thailand, and Spain (tinyurl.com/mftimeline). As farmer artists, Mirrored Fatality has completed residencies with Philadelphia Community Farm [(formerly Buttermilk Falls)] Artist Residency, Postcrypt Gallery, EFA Project Space, Dead Bedland, Earthlodge Center for Transformation, Star Route Farm, Esalen Institute, Isis Oasis Sanctuary, AADK Spain, Calafou, Baesianz x hatezine at SET Woolwich, University of the Underground, Tour de Moon, Outsider Festival, The Uhuru Dreamhouse, and Fancyland.
They have co created with University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), University of California Berkeley (UC Berkeley), California State University of Long Beach (CSULB), University of California Riverside (UCR), University of Kansas, University of Illinois, New York University, and Columbia University.
As artists in residence at PCF, mirrored fatality recorded, mixed, wrote, and produced their first EP: COCOON WEBS and their film “ BLOOM” on December 12, 2020 during their artist and farming residency.
The EP was featured on Decolonize Punk, Rolling Stone India, United Asia, Abolition Is, and OutWrite NewsMagazine. You can stream [COCOON WEBS] here and watch BLOOM here.
Mirrored Fatality weaponizes COCOON WEBS as a sonic metamorphosis container to a world numbing us with toxic forces. COCOON WEBS is a ferocious affirmation of chaos to harness our ancestral power, primal spirit, collective fury, and interconnectedness to our multiverse. BLOOM, UTOPIA, INVALIDATION, and EARTHBODY(S) are restorative anthems to sustain us through the revolution. mirrored fatality also created sculptural altars towards the entrance of the forest for a winter solstice ceremony. mirrored fatality created paintings for the artist studio in the woods they left behind for future artists in residence. Lastly, mirrored fatality did a social media takeover and created a fashion line of their WARRIOR WARE for QTBIPOC grassroots fundraising: Earthlodge Center for Transformation, Liyang Network, Arwah Collective, and Flora Y Tierra and a Seraphim Dream postcard for Ancient Pocket, an Indigenous Mother healer artist and extraordinare, based in the desert.
In 2022, Mirrored Fatality released a remastered version of their COCOON WEBS EP with Aklasan Records, their film VALE on Get Better Records, and their film EARTHBODY(S)_BIOME(TRICS) on Tour de Moon and Nowness Asia. Mirrored Fatality released their singles “REINCARNAGE”, “VALE”, “BIOME(TRICS)”, and “PRIMALDIAL MAGMA” on their EP ECOCIDE 3URTH Cherub Dream Records on November 11, 2022. In 2023, they will release their 12-track album. In 2023 as Outsider Fests 2023-2024 artists in residence, they will perform a multimedia ritual theater performance of their entire album at Outsider Fest 2024., their 12-track album in 2023, and will perform a multimedia ritual theater performance with all 12 sonic spells at Outsider Fest 2024.
Mirrored Fatality, Self Portrait, 2021
3. Your Name Here
We offer Artistic Residencies for reconnection with nature, retreat, and visioning. Openings are available and can span 1 week-1 month. Artists stay on site and participate in community life as well as in our gardens and on the farm.
Are you a trans and/or non-binary person of color looking for a place to practice your art in a rural setting? Are you dreaming of the ways nature relates to your discipline?
Through generous support from Pfund, PCF has secured funding for a second year cohort of PRISM Fund, to support black, brown, and/or indigenous trans artists to be on the land and create their art in nature.
For more information about our Artist Residency Programs, please connect with us via email here. In your submission include a proposal for your project in written, video, or audio format, 2 references, as well as a resume with any links to your work.
We look forward to hearing from you.
Your Picture Here