Performance: Transtraterrestrial

Please be advised: The performance has a 75-minute runtime. Participants will be asked to remove their shoes and store their mobile devices. Floor seating with limited chair availability upon request. Wheelchair accessible.

We ask that you arrive 10 minutes prior to the performance. Please advise gallery staff of any necessary accommodations.

Presented in conjunction with their exhibition *Sage Ni’Ja Whitson: These Walking Glories*, *Transtraterrestrial* is a live performance work by multidisciplinary artist Sage Ni’Ja Whitson. The performance takes the audience through an otherworldly exploration of the dark. In dialogue with Yorùbá cosmology, astrophysics, and research on the “blackest black,” the work centers the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy through a Black, queer, transembodied lens. Led by space conductor Trans Trappist the Extraterrestrial (Whitson), this work imagines the dark as a portal to interrogate the unknown while honoring it as an ancestor and transgender technology.

*Transtraterrestrial* happens inside and outside the space|ship, a custom-built dark room designed as a futuristic space vessel. Whitson worked with architect Valéry Augustin of DNA Architecture + Design to realize a site-specific design for the exhibition to aid in experiencing darkness while integrating immersive VR projection and spatial audio. The space|ship cradles performers and witnesses in the possibilities of collectivity, medicine, and invisibility.

Conceived, directed, created, and performed by Sage Ni’Ja Whitson
Text and VR: Sage Ni’Ja Whitson
Dark room design: Valéry Augustin , DNA Architecture + Design
Original composition and music performance: Douglas R. Ewart
Sound engineer: Davu Seru
VR software engineer: Joshue Ott

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Host or Publisher California African American Museum