Arika have been creating events since 2001. The Archive is space to share the documentation of our work, over 600 events from the past 20 years. Browse the archive by event, artists and collections, explore using theme pairs, or use the index for a comprehensive overview.
Sometimes we put on club nights. But we want to think beyond genre so we’re also considering patterns in this theme. Things that repeat and define surfaces, but also scenes that sustain themselves over time. Documentaion that speaks to the theme of Club and Patterns: First up the sets and performances from the Episode 6: Make a Way Out of No Way Club night. Then learn more about the history, politics and creative practices of the House|Ballroom scene in this discussion led by the Vogue’ology collective. It might be helpful to note that these paired ‘terms’ or ‘themes’ are not synonyms nor are they binary oppositions but words that combine to (hopefully) produce un-rational anti-categories. The aim is to allow (encourage) the archive to be read in ways counter to normative or reductive categories. To allow things in the archive to appear in sometimes unlikely groupings and to resist essentialism. And to encourge exploration into all the archive documentation.
Ecstatic, intensely joyous experimental club music: like “the sound of our water ceremonies…40 bands playing their melodies at once to recreate the cacophony of the first aurora and the call of the morning star Venus”.
What’s the relationship between the eternal hum of the oceanic beloved and the persistence of vorticity in fluid dynamics? And how does Alice Coltrane’s harp help us stay there?
Dub is strange. A conversation with Edward George and Dhanveer Brar.
A somehow hyper-modern, ancient and folkloric lip-synced, made-up, fashioned performance.
Mashed up queer fantasy of worker’s revolts, biblical demons and present-day hells, and dubbed out cyborg-electro.
Social and party with all proceeds going to the Unity Centre, featuring DJ SETS with Dj@Christelle, DJ D-Harsh, Nena Etza & Moor Mother.
Moor Mother is a musician, Philadelphian housing activist and black quantum futurist.
A party and fundraiser to support Sex Workers’ struggles and LGBT Unity with music and performances from the sex workers’ community and allies, plus DJ’s and dancing.
All ticket income goes directly to We Will Rise – a group of migrants, refugees, asylum seekers and their allies who have come together to End Immigration Detention in the UK.
Is it possible to dance our way out of the hardened stances and identity prisons we are locked in?
This mini, late-night ball will include categories inspired by the events earlier in the weekend.
A historical narrative of the black and Latino/a transgender, bisexual, lesbian, and gay House and Ballroom Scene in relation to race, gender, sexuality and class oppressions.