Performance Art Week XIII Is Happening Now!
The 13th iteration of Performance Art Week is happening April 14 - 17, 2025 on the Auraria Campus.
Jasper Lipscomb | College of Arts & Media Apr 15, 2025
If you spend any time on social media, it’s possible you’ve seen videos from some bewildering contemporary art performances. A short clip isn’t always the best representation of the medium, given that with the right context and intention, performance art can capture a visceral realism that’s hard to convey on canvas alone. It can be humorous, satirical, graceful, solemn, or even musical, and it’s all coming to the Auraria Campus starting Monday for the thirteenth edition of Performance Art Week (PAW).
Below you'll find a run down of the events happening this week. Events are happening in the Emmanuel Art Gallery, the CU Denver Experience Gallery, and a couple places off campus.
Monday, April 14
Location: Emmanuel Art Gallery:
10am to 1pm
MG Bernard - “Visiting hours under the covers”
New Orleans and Denver-based transdisciplinary artist, MG Bernard, invites attendees to visit her in a hospital bed several times throughout the week. The experience has no particular agenda, but Bernard will ask participants to temporarily play a "care partner" in a two-way performance that looks to answer questions surrounding medical care, disability, and intimacy.
1pm
Aryel René Jackson - “Re:Future”
Live-streamed multi-media performance, Re:Future, will see Aryel René Jackson explore displacement, labor, and resilience by turning the scientific manipulation of soil into a symbol of memory and reflection. Jackson’s work seeks to link colonial coercion to natural processes—creating an inherent tension navigated through improvised choreography.
Tuesday, April 15
Location: Emmanuel Art Gallery
11 am to 2 pm
MG Bernard - “Visiting hours under the covers”
Location: CU Denver Experience Gallery
On view through April 20th
Hyperlink - “Beach Day”
Hyperlink is a collective of sixteen artists who’ve had installations around the country that started as an alternative space in Chicago’s Zhou B. Art Center. Five members of the group will transform the CU Denver Experience Gallery into a pool/beach party themed video installation.
Location: Museum of Contemporary Art Holiday Theater
7 pm
Michelle Ellsworth - “Memento Mori in the Dreamatorium”
CU Boulder dance professor Michelle Ellsworth premiered a work at the MCA Holiday Theater fifteen years ago centered around plans for an end, titled, The End of Man: Preparations for the Obsolescence of the Y Chromosome. This time, the performance won’t just cover the end of men, but the end of everyone by exploring the indiscriminate force of death. Though there are many ways to go about posthumous logistics, Ellsworth will be launching ‘The Dreamatorium,’ her newest technological development. The rigorously tested device fosters adaptability in the emotional and logistical realities of parental death.
Wednesday, April 16
Location: Emmanuel Art Gallery
11am to 2pm
MG Bernard - “Visiting hours under the covers”
Location: CU Denver Experience Gallery
6 pm
Hyperlink - “Beach Day” Performance
Collective members Julie Puma, Tobias Fike, Theresa Anderson, Alicia Ordell and Lynn Bowman Cravens will highlight the themes of their installation in a performance that touches on pool and beach culture, beauty standards, and who gets access to water and fun. Who gets to break our social and cultural norms?
Location: Daniels & Fisher Tower on 16th Street
8 pm to midnight
PAW XL
A compilation of select student work from the College of Arts & Media will be projected onto the Daniels & Fisher Tower on 16th Street for four hours. This exhibition is made possible through Night Lights Denver.
Thursday, April 17
Location: Emmanuel Art Gallery
1 pm
Teague McDaniel & Silen Wellington - “Grapple”
Grapple opens the final day of PAW with a physical clash inspired by injury from a round of a queer wrestling competition between the two artists. During the recovery, the two reflected on interpretations that could be drawn from the experience and developed Grapple—an exploration of the dualities in their own masculinity, spirituality, and self-expression. The artists will literally grapple with one another to win rounds of a leg-wrestling game where the victor has a chance to recite lines of poetry.
5 pm
Elle Hong - “lightness has a call that’s hard to hear.”
lightness has a call that’s hard to hear. is a dance-based performance informed by psychoanalytic theory.
6:30 pm
Adán de la Garza - “sweet spot”
Adán de la Garza is a video and sound centered performer whose work has been exhibited across the southwest and all around the world. Sweet spot will conclude the week in a performance that focuses on space and sound. An array of portable radios scattered throughout the gallery will create feedback loops based on De la Garza’s location. A blindfold will force him to use only his ears to explore and find ‘sweet spots’ of resonance that he wants to sit in.