A performance of guitar and voice by Johanna Hedva. Performed on Thursday 11 & Sunday 14 April 2019.

A keening. Animal droning. Hag blues. Minimal metal. Moon hymns. A dirge. O Death. For my mother, who was a Pisces (March 2, 1955 – April 30, 2018). This is a wake, so there will be whiskey, herbal tea and flowers. It’s 45 minutes long with no intermission.

Johanna Hedva knows deep grief and the incessant joys of wild hair and soothsaying sound. They will leave you reeling and bring you to your feels as they come to their knees, guitar in hand on a stripped down stage. This performance is specifically for the faint of heart, but it is loud AF with dropped down droned out chironic, khoratic rupture and riffs. Be ready to release and bring your dis-ease. Hedva brings serious dark crip love that offers an aural compendium to their sick theory and sci-fi written work. Think Diamanda Galas come Frida Kahlo in bed with Keiji Haino at a wake in Ktown.

Johanna Hedva is a Korean-American who was raised in Los Angeles by a family of witches, and now lives in LA and Berlin. They are the author of the novel, On Hell (2018, Sator Press), and their writing has been published in Triple Canopy, Black Warrior Review, and The White Review. Their performances have been shown at Wysing Arts Centre, Human Resources LA, High Desert Test Sites, the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time, and the Museum of Contemporary Art on the Moon. Their EP The Sun and Moon will be released in March.

There is photography, video and audio documentation of this performance, available below. The video is captioned in English and features live American Sign Language interpretation.

All documentation is released under Creative Commons Attribution – Non Commercial – No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND)