Rachel and I designed a collaborative project called “TRIBAL SOVEREIGNTY.” This project toed the line between play and menace, exploring archetypes that we trade casually in until they were exposed for what they are: an elemental echo chamber of human frailty. I explored the vampire archetype and Rachel was an ultra-feminized “Jewess.”

Rachel encouraged a massive audience to beat me (using a cow tongue or switches) while I was restrained and hooded. An eager and drunk (we supplied the champagne) audience approached the prospect of ritual beating with zeal. Rachel swung between oversexed/depraved sprite and blunt-toothed maniacal acolyte.

Rachel then “released” the vampire into the audience that had so willingly enacted violence upon it, and the results were honest.

Our practice is rooted in creating elaborate artifice and abruptly removing it. The vampire and the Jewess met, circled, sniffed and slunk away.