Performing Harold Norse @ Planet Queer - photo by Geronimo Quitoriano
Monday night Planet Queer released a Rainbow Revolution of love into the universe to counteract the hate, honor the dead, and dance with the fragile fleeting magic of life. I was honored to once again be a part of the monthly performance art evening co-hosted by Ian MacKinnon & Travis Wood, presenting a couple of poems by Harold Norse in preparation for the various upcoming centennial celebrations happening in San Francisco and Venice Beach/Los Angeles.
Video documentation of the preview performance below created by Robert Patrick Playwright. Special thanks to Zak Pence for his wonderful job with my make-up.
I'm enjoying the process of diving into Harold's work and finding ways in which to share his words fused with my queer spirit. There is such relevance to the events of our modern world and I hope that more people are turned on to Harold's poetry as a result of Todd Swindell's hard work in keeping his legacy going.
If you haven't heard of Harold Norse before, you're not alone. While unknown to the general public, he was respected by his peers in the Beat generation poets, like Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Charles Bukowski, and James Broughton (whom I did a series of performances about in celebration of his centennial two years ago). Norse didn't promote his own work, so unfortunately got overlooked, but hopefull that is going to change with the upcoming celebrations on July 6 & 9 in SF and July 23 in Venice Beach. (click on poster for larger image)
I look forward to sharing more of the process in the weeks to come, but for now, enjoy the video and photographs of the piece in development.
I'm enjoying the process of diving into Harold's work and finding ways in which to share his words fused with my queer spirit. There is such relevance to the events of our modern world and I hope that more people are turned on to Harold's poetry as a result of Todd Swindell's hard work in keeping his legacy going.
