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.
Taking a scalpel to the relationship between performer and audience: cutting something out to see what’s left, a drastic subtraction and shift of emphasis.
Individual experience separated by physical boundaries (of space, time or ability) suggested as communities of collective experience by (perhaps voyeuristic) artists.
The Songspiels take on a mode of musical theatre developed by playwright Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill in the early twentieth century, presenting political and social concerns through the accessible and (often funny) form of song.
A somehow hyper-modern, ancient and folkloric lip-synced, made-up, fashioned performance.
Three documentary films exploring diverse realities of sex workers around the world followed by a closing ceremony of the festival.
Three short performances involving social exchange (jumpers, hats, glasses…) and singing (ballads)
Smith/Stewart set up allegorical situations over which they often have little to no control, but which instigate explorations of dependence and trust, the body, sex and death.
A system in which oscillators shake The Arches, seismographs pick up the harmonics that are then amplified through massive sub-bass PA.
A series of reality dramas happening over the course of the weekend.
The ongoing development of [b]reach, an abolitionist black queer retelling of Marge Piercy’s incredible feminist utopian novel Woman on the Edge of Time.
Sparse and miniature free thought workouts involving guitar, vocals and tuba.
A chat with Rashad about the communist, conceptual methodology that informs his ground-breaking synthetic music—a form of speculative sonic fiction writing to produce hyperreal non-representational auditive experiences.
