Oct 10th, 2026
Boulder, CO
Creator/Performer
This is the first of a three-part series (Red, Black, and White) exploring the relationship between menstruation and death through performance art, which is the topic of the artist's senior thesis at Naropa University.
Exploring the expression of grief and loss based within blood cycles and blood lineages, RED is an improvisational performance art piece layered with visual and light projections, music, and costume. The visual graphics from pop films such as Carrie and The Blue Lagoon represent the fear and terror projected onto menstruating bodies through a distorted culture shaming blood. Fear, terror, shame, and grief are expressed through the loss or death of the menstrual cycle due to perimenopause, along with the loss of the realization of the magic and creation within menstruation and the battle of blood in veins.
A woven triangle, mimicking the cave drawings of the vulva, representing the goddess and what some philosophers believe is "the fundamental building blocks of the cosmos " (Grahn 170). The woven triangle is dyed with the last remaining menstruated blood to connect to the goddess as well as bringing a sense of peace within this ritual. The essence of Butoh allows for this improvisational, intuitive performance to transform not only the performer but also those witnessing.
The music is from Quartet for the End of Times (Quaruor pour la fin du temps), composed by Olivier Messiaen when he was held in a concentration camp during WWII.
Cited Works
Andersen, Carl, director. Mondo Weirdo. Sick Cinema Productions, 1990.
De Palma, Brian, director. Carrie. Red Bank Films, 1976.
Grahn, Judy. Blood, Bread, and Roses, Beacon Press, 1993.
Kleiser, Randal, director. The Blue Lagoon. Columbia Pictures, 1980.
Messiaen, Olivier, “Louange á I’Immortalité de Jésus (Praise to the immortality of Jesus)” & “Fouillis d'arcs-en-ciel, pour l'Ange qui annonce la fin du Temps (Tangle of rainbows, for the Angel who announces the end of Time),” Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Times), performed by Janine Jansen, Torleif Thedéen, Martin Fröst, and Lucas Debargue, Sony Classical, 2017.
Sigismondi, Floria, director. The Runways. Blackheart Films, 2010.