As a murky fog rolled onto the beach, the final 6 a.m performance of the BOFFO Performance Festival‘s day-to-night marathon came to a close. The title for the 11.5-hour cumulative program was Dystopian Ecstasy. With a slate of otherworldly site-specific performances, a day-partying army of barely-there swimsuits on the beach, and several crawls by performers in and out of the briny waves, it certainly looked the part.
Between July 12 and 13 in Fire Island Pines, the gay haven played host to a sequence of 10 performances across three sites (the beach, a James McLeod home, and a helipad) featuring talents across art and music including Shannon Funchess, Jonathan González, Lysis, Byrell the Great, Nile Harris, Jas Lin, Makadsi, River Moon, Symara Sarai and WILDBLUR. Since 2015, performers have descended on the island for a schedule of immersive installations, experimental performance, and musical sets; this year’s extravaganza was curated by Sydney Fishman, and Lucas Ondak.
For Harris and collaborator Dyer Rhoads, producing work in the context of the sand and salt provided a particularly fertile environment for the artist’s lauded performance technique. Equal parts critique, satire, and social commentary, the interactive work pulled audience members—including photographer Wolfgang Tillmans and actor Hari Nef—into an exploration of gay social dynamics, body dialogue, and community-building. In front of beachy murals and a painted sun held by two volunteers, Harris read cheeky excerpts of overheard Pines conversations, coaxed a modelesque figure into a repeated runway walk, pulling tautly-muscled men out of the crowd to spin slowly as if on display, and recruited viewers to take part in a a reading, beach ball toss, and a staged gaggle of queer laughter.
Behind the scenes, Harris was snapping his film camera as the festival ensued. CULTURED was there to experience it all with the artist, and offers herein an intimate portrait (or twelve) of how a performer sets their stage, and ignites an audience in real time.
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