kelly langeslay
[an]archive
history as it should be made
Objects can conjure ghosts and invite them to walk among us. Memories, songs, flavors, games… ways to interact with them; make them dance. kelly langesley invites our ghosts to Risk/Reward’s Festival of New Performance through their installation piece [an]archive. The installation collects both objects commonly associated with academic archival work (journal articles, texts, historical dance films) and ones that exist outside of the regular sense of what “deserves” to be preserved (pop music, video games, personal narrative).
[an]archive is haunted by a lineage of dead queer artists – writers and dancers and filmmakers and musicians and loved ones. It is built around a history of queer performance that has been pushed to the side in favor of dominant (white, cis, and heteronormative) cultural narratives. They serve as a medium, walking us through the veil that weaves our pasts with our queer ancestors; kelly brings ghosts into the present to imagine potential for alternative futures.
More about the artists:
kelly langesley is currently choreographing a work for Velocity Dance Center’s Bridge Project, which will be presented February 2025. kelly is in the process of researching, building, and producing their first solo evening-length work, which is supported by 4Culture and Northwest Film Forum and will be performed in Spring of 2025. They have also danced in Alice Gosti’s company MALACARNE.
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