Event Registration

ONLINE TICKET SALES ARE CLOSED.
A limited number of tickets will be available for purchase on site at Biosphere 2.
Performance of “Cyclic” with Ron Athey, Arshia Haq, and Cassils
Saturday, December 1, 2pm-4pm at Biosphere 2
$20 admission, includes access to Biosphere 2 Grounds and Tour
$75 VIP ticket includes pre-show cocktail and invite to private dance party with the artists in the home of 2 original Biospherians.

Cyclic is durational performance expressing sublime and profane modes of devotion. Through this new, collaborative work commissioned by MOCA Tucson, the artists present actions which highlight the value of lives often deemed disposable, or even incomprehensible. Triangulated within a circle, alternately illuminated and concealed, the artists work against light and dark, visibility and invisibility as they coil and trace sacred geometries. Using the preservative materials of wax, salt, and ice, each artist performs their death rites. Passing through cycles, the artists recite litanies assembled from Gnostic and Sufi texts as they simultaneously leave traces that are continuously re-inscribed and erased. Their efforts move towards an alchemical force of transmutation and possibility. Collectively, they will conjure apparitions to haunt oppressive forces.

Presented in the uniquely resonant “lung” of Biosphere 2, a site which simultaneously evokes utopian and dystopian possibilities, Ron Athey, Cassils and Arshia Haq will bring their creative forces and subjectivities together in this performance that continuously unfolds in a triptych of tableaux vivants. Together, they evoke iconography across age-old faiths which mirror the present-day powers that be. Their cyclical modes of performative exploration orbit possibility and its failure.