blue: sip it, swallow it, spill it, smudge it

blue: sip it, swallow it, spill it, smudge it is a performance lecture by Anastasia (A) Khodyreva that touches upon grief, sorrow, loss and sadness in relation to friendships; companionships, kinships, imaginary friends.  A loss of a friend due to disease, to long distances policed with national borders, passport regimes and wars. Incarceration. A friendship breakup. Or environmental crisis. Or unshared joyful moments. I wish you were here! Please, come next time. Or, or, or. 

The performance lecture refuses to accept the privatised and depoliticised idea of grief. It smudges the hard edges of the normative Western milieu that holds friendships marginal and shadows their emotional and physical labour. One is invited to sip it slowly, swallow it, bite through, spills it, mess it up, find its taste, form and pulse that feels true to their body. Not assuming there is one way to feel grief and live friendships, it speculates that the ether of grief comes in blue and holds it confident that blue is pluripotent. It searches for quotidian rituals and practices of messy grieving spacetiming out of normative worlds. 

The performance lecture includes words, images, tea, conversation and a writing moment. Everyone’s quiet presence is as valuable as a chatty one. No preparation, no registration.  

This event is part of the Dear Society, bimonthly grieving circle.