sweet, rotten, sweet

Premiered March 7–31 2019, BONFIRE Gallery, Seattle

A visceral communal ritual examining what it means to see, be seen, and bear witness to the passage of time.

Conception & Choreography: Peggy Piacenza

Director of Photography: Doug Arney

Original Music and Sound Design: Paurl Walsh

Scenic Design: Danielle Blackwell, Ezra Dickinson, Peggy Piacenza

Performers in Video: Ezra Dickinson, Kim Lusk, Wade Madsen, Amelia Reeber

Light Design: Jessica Trundy

In this video installation, Piacenza crafted a visual and sonic landscape that utilized dance and performance to illuminate the human struggle to find meaning within an absurd world. Reimagining past choreographic works that deal with the nature of touch and the inevitability of mortality, sweet, rotten, sweet aimed to strip away extraneous layers in order to discover moments of stillness within an overstimulated, disoriented psyche.

The next step in a creative evolution, sweet, rotten, sweet re-conceived material from Piacenza’s recent work The Event, into a new realm of video installation and gallery performance.


In addition to the installation, there were live performances throughout the month with Seattle performers Ezra Dickinson, Kim Lusk, Wade Madsen, and Amelia Reeber. Staged in an intimate setting with only 25 audience members per show, sweet, rotten, sweet used an up-close and personal setting to awaken audiences to the present moment.

photos: Jazzy Photo