Repository for DEWCLAW #LIVE's front-end things, prepared for the web using Preppop.
"A DEWCLAW is an often-vestigial “non-weight bearing” toe on that appears just above the paw on cats, dogs and other mammals. When you search for the term on the web, hundreds of results are returned about the contentious discourse on Dewclaw removal; how the claw is attached, if it is ethical to remove it, the pain and complications that can come thereafter, as well as what to do if your pet’s extra claw is accidentally injured.
SHAWNÉ MICHAELAIN HOLLOWAY’s performance by the same name is a realtime multimedia composition that uses the choreography of common sadomasochist bondage play and the faux-rage fueled narrative vocalization styles of 1980 and 90’s wrestling promos, to consider old and forgotten memories, movements, habits, desires, and dreams we hold on to and assimilate into our bodies and identities.
As much as an animal’s DEWCLAW might be a vestigial appendage, it is part of them, connected to the paw by flesh and collective history. What are our personal and collective histories that force us to carry the same vestigial signifiers? How do we emit or wear those invisible parts, long incorporated? To which part of our being are they attached? Are they difficult to remove? Do they pain us? What are the complications that come from their presence? What happens when our forgotten extras are accidentally called upon?
In DEWCLAW’s three parts, [LIGATURES], [TEAR], and [AMELIORATION], this three person performance mirrors the Internet’s discourse on declawing by scratching deep into stories about leaving heterosexuality behind, habits learned during intimacy with ex lovers, and shedding adolescence."
SHAWNÉ MICHAELAIN HOLLOWAY is a new media artist and poet. Known for using sound, video, and performance, Holloway shapes the rhetorics of technology and sexuality into tools for exposing structures of power. She has spoken and exhibited work internationally in spaces like The New Museum (NYC), The Kitchen (NYC), The Time-Based Art Festival at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, Institute of Contemporary Arts (London), and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Currently, shawné is a 20-21 Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art Queer Theatre & Performance Resident and is teaching across the New Arts Journalism and the Film Video New Media and Animation departments at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Isaac aka Cake is a leatherman of 12 years based out of Virginia. They teach classes on rough body play, tea service, and conflict resolution in Dominant/submissive relationships. They are deeply passionate about making the scene and BDSM in general more accessible to Black people and other POCs through their work with the 757 Spectrum Munch group, their time as a group leader for Richmond TNG, as well as through mentoring and writing. Recently Cake has spent their time exploring the intersection of African spirituality and BDSM.
Ms TNT Impact identifies as a masochistic bi femme leather girl who has been active in the kink community since 2016. During her journey, she has attended numerous BDSM conferences throughout the country. She is currently the Vice President of the Mid-Atlantic Onyx Pearls chapter, and has also served in the Memphis Project and the 757 Spectrum Munch, both based in Virginia. When she is not serving, she loves to play. Her kinks include cigar and ash play, rough body impact play, primal play, wax and knife play, and being bitten––with consent of course. She also has a passion for music and her new kink involves singing while involved in a scene.
Kitten is a non-binary transmasc Leatherboi active in the LGBTQ+, BDSM and Leather circles. They enjoy the local scene’s sense of intimacy and are dedicated to making space for support and inclusion among them through frequenting queer spaces and events as well as through their work with the Virginia Anti-Violence Project (VAVP.) In addition to their dedication to community, they are enamored by the art of being in service to others and love the hit shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel for their empowering portrayals of queerness. On the weekends, you can catch them fighting (or worshiping!) their own demons in the dungeon.
Anthony A. Dunn (aka Terran Wretch) makes music that spans cluttered, noisy industrial adjacent to warm/spacey ambient with synthesizers, drum machines, tape manipulation and vocal performance. His tapes and records have been released on labels such as Sol Y Nieve, Bloodlust!, and Land of Decay. In 2010, Sun Splitter (2008-2015) closed out the farewell show of legendary Chicago DIY venue, The Mopery, drenched in fake blood.
Julian Kevon Glover is a scholar and artist who graduated with honors from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, holds an MPA from Indiana University and earned a PhD in Black Studies from Northwestern University. Their research focuses on Black/brown queer cultural formations, performance, ethnography, embodied knowledge, performance theory and Black futurity. They were awarded a Franke Fellowship at Northwestern’s Kaplan Institute for the Humanities and their work appears in journals including American Quarterly, Feminist Formations, South Atlantic Quarterly, Souls and Text & Performance Quarterly. In 2019, they were inducted into the Edward A. Bouchet Graduate Honor Society at Yale University and is a longtime member of the ballroom scene. They have also worked with the Grammy award-winning Swedish singer Robyn and appeared in the music video for the title track of her 2018 album Honey. A classically trained cellist, their creative work is multidisciplinary and engages sonic, visual, affective, written and kinesthetic registers with the aim of bringing viewers into critical dialogue with themselves towards psychic, spiritual and interpersonal transformation.
Jackie Bishop Wells graduated from the VCU Graphic Design Program in 2008 with a BA in Fine Arts. She has owned Fallout—Richmond’s Premier Goth Industrial Fetish Nightclub—since 2015 and has been organizing events and working with the BDSM, Leather, LGBTQIA+ and Alternative Communities in the Richmond, Virginia area for over 10 years.
rotting_reign, Logo Artist
Vanna, Sound Engineer
Andy Clifford, Production Manager
David Riley, Curator
WRESTLING, BDSM, TEAMMATE INTIMACIES, DOG TRAINING, ATHLETICS, FAILURE, BLACK LESBIANS, LEATHERDYKES, NOISE, DARK AMBIENT, NEW MEDIA
Event documentation here : https://icavcu.org/events/test-pattern-shawne-michaelain-holloway/