If the financial cost of the event is prohibitive, please email boxoffice@performa-arts.org

Gregg Bordowitz and Pamela Sneed will present the first episode of a year-long project exploring the intersection of art and health activism, a subject that has influenced both their work and lives in myriad ways since the AIDS epidemic began in the 1980s. Presented by Bordowitz and Sneed, this event will combine the format of a conference, Town Hall meeting and a chat show, during which they will invite collaborators OlaRonke Akinmowo, Kay Ulanday Barrett, Morgan Bassichis, Miguel Gutierrez, Viva Ruiz, and audience members to address this subject. Healthcare Not Warfare: A Tragi-comedy takes the relationship between the AIDS public health crisis and the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic as a pivotal convergence during a time of increasing climate chaos, to consider the ways that performance can inspire and activate change.

Through varied mediums, overall, the project will address how capitalism and climate chaos affect people who are repeatedly overlooked, disregarded, and even controlled by the health system in the US—including the crisis of healthcare for Black women in the U.S., the denial of gender affirming care, access to healthcare and basic rights for trans people and people with disabilities, overall emphasizing the ways class and racial capitalism impact healthcare access and quality of care. Healthcare Not Warfare: A Tragi-comedy is a call to action on issues of social inequity that shape our health and our lives.

This event will be the first of a series of gatherings that explore different strategies of movement building, culminating in a live television variety show presented in fall 2024, hosted by Bordowitz and Sneed, with contributions from artists, musicians, comedians, performers, and other activists and experts in this field. Both artists are Leos born in 1964 and grew up as part of the first generation who experienced the world via broadcast television sets; as such, each often utilizes recognizable genres from popular culture as containers for composition to mix different kinds of cultural production, creating a format that is both familiar and accessible towards the formation of new constituencies.

Masks are strongly encouraged to support each other in the space and we will also provide N-95 masks for use.