Hello! Thanks for being here. We’ve been dreaming up a different way to connect with you, up close and personally. We are excited to host DESCENT: Online & In-Depth, an online event featuring an intimate conversation between our founding artists followed by a screening of DESCENT, filmed in 2018, with revamped accessibility. There are two dates: 

Thursday, Oct. 26th 7:30pm ET / 4:30pm PT
Saturday, Oct. 28th 1pm ET / 10am PT

The first hour will be a pre-recorded, podcast style conversation between the artists; Alice Sheppard, Michael Maag and Laurel Lawson will tune into the event live via chat so you can engage with them in real time during their recorded conversation. After a short break, we’ll roll into screenings of DESCENT, and the chat will remain open so you can connect with each other live. Open captions, multiple tracks of audio description, musical ASL interpretation from a DI/HI team, call line, and transcripts will be available. The entire event will be available to those with tickets for 48 hrs following each screening.

Content Note: The artist conversation includes some explicit language and brief topics of a sexual nature.

We invite you to join us from your couch or your bed or your kitchen table. Or maybe you can host a virtual watch party with your beloveds. However you join us, we are so glad you’re here.

DESCENT: In-Depth | Artist Convo

While rehearsing in New York this summer, our founding artists (Alice Sheppard, Michael Maag, and Laurel Lawson) made some tea and reflected on the origins of DESCENT, which, as it happens, are also the origins of Kinetic Light. The conversation bubbles with humor and creative exploration; together in the comfort of their own space, the artists dove into topics that are rarely talked about in public forums. We hope it offers you a glimpse into our world, up close and personal.

DESCENT: Online | Performance Screening

DESCENT was inspired by Auguste Rodin’s work, specifically Toilette of Venus and Andromeda. Recorded in 2018 at EMPAC, this performance features dancers Laurel Lawson and Alice Sheppard, with lighting and video design by Michael Maag. Andromeda is embodied by Alice, restoring the racial heritage that Rodin himself erased. Venus is assumed by Laurel, who both challenges and realizes Rodin’s imaginations of Venus and ideals of feminine beauty. Venus and Andromeda claim their desire, as wheels fly within inches of the ramp’s edge. Their spines soften to taste the subtle pulls of gravity and arch into the sumptuous immersive world created by Michael.

Access details for DESCENT screenings

Audiences will be able to choose from four accessible versions of DESCENT. We are proud to present two never-before experienced accessible versions for this event. In one, a dynamic DI/HI team of ASL interpreters (Joey Antonio and Nicole Cartagna, directed by celebrated DASL Alexandria Wailes) created a fresh take on the musical interpretation for DESCENT. Going beyond identifying orchestration, Alexandria, Joey, and Nicole reveal how sound and light open the heart of DESCENT.

In a new track developed specially for this experience, Cheryl Green delivers spacious, evocative emotional audio description with emphasis on plot and the internal world of Andromeda and Venus. As an alternative, we will offer a blended, layered AD track with poetry and emphasis on lights and movement.

Audiences can choose from these versions:

• ASL + Open Captions
• Spacious Emotion and Plot Focused AD + Open Captions
• Layered Poetry, Lights, and Movement Focused AD
• No AD, Captions, or ASL

Contact support@kineticlight.org with any questions!
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About Our Sliding Scale

Our priority is your presence with us! To that end, tickets to this event are available on a sliding scale from $0-50. We believe that accessible art should be available to us – disabled creatives, thinkers, and dreamers – first and foremost. Period.

And we believe that accessible work should be funded, individually and collectively. It’s important that artists and access workers are paid for their work; it’s equally important that our work reaches the people for whom it’s intended. Our work emerges from community and experience in cross-disability spaces, and we strive to center this at every turn.

We invite you to choose the tier that most celebrates your experience, each tier supports us and our work:

• If paying $0 is most aligned with your life and spoons, or if it means you can instead bring food to a watch party, we are thrilled you’ll be with us.

• If paying $5 or $10 or $25 aligns with your budget and desires, we celebrate that too.

• Our $50 ticket is at the top of this scale and substantially supports the artistic, production, access, and administrative resources that make Kinetic Light work possible. If this ticket is a fit for your capacity, we hope you will consider supporting our artistry at this level.

**tickets are not tax-deductible donations

For questions about this event, please contact support@kineticlight.org. If you’re interested in making a financial contribution to our work beyond this sliding scale, please email Molly - Managing Director (molly@kineticlight.org). 

Sliding scales recognize the reality that individuals have different access to wealth in this country (and world); this is based on a host of factors that include race, disability, gender, sexuality, generational wealth, and legislation. There are plentiful resources and models for this approach; the folks at Radical History Club offer a direct and clear explanation of a sliding scale framework.

Header Image Description: Against a dark blue night sky with a silhouetted mountain range, white text reads "DESCENT by Kinetic Light." The SC in DESCENT are aligned as if slipping down the slope of the mountain peak behind them. In the bottom left corner, against the dark mountain, white icons indicate ASL interpretation, open captions, and audio description. Photo (cropped) by Jaqlin Medlock|Rutgers.

Event Page Image Description: Alice Sheppard, a multiracial Black woman with coffee-colored skin and short curly hair, is crawling on her hands with her knees in Laurel Lawson's footplate. Laurel, a white person, is arching her back on the ground as she is dragged along the floor. Their wheels form a figure 8. Big white letters read DESCENT by Kinetic Light against a sunset behind them; and shadowy figures appear below along with the event title and access icons for ASL, OC, and AD. Photo Chris Cameron/MANCC.