Artists
Twincest + Sumir
Twincest is a collaboration between performance and multimedia artists Jez Kuono’ono Lee and Shawn Tamarubuchi. An exploration of sameness and desire though movement, images, objects and sound, Twincest was named one of the San Francisco Bay Guardian’s “Top Ten” for Dance in 2005. Their work has been called “daring, hot, rough and unexpected” and “intense, beautiful and disturbing”. (http://www.twincest.net)
Individually, Jez is a trained dancer with non-dance influences who has performed in works by Fenley, Mark Morris, Kim Epifano, Dandelion Dancetheater, group A, Ledoh/Salt Farm Butoh, Dance Naganuma, and most recently Zari Le`on Dance Theater. Jez's solo work is inspired by new butoh and post-post modernists and has been performed at Lisser Theater, Mills Concert Hall, Jon Sims Center for the Arts, 8th Street Studios, 8x8x8 (2005), and undisclosed performances on BART. Shawn is a multimedia artist whose mediums of choice consist of photography, film, video, and web design with a conceptually preoccupied with the presences of the erotic body in the public sphere. She was a co-organizer of Ladyfest Bay Area 2004 Film/Video, Women's Film Festival featured artist, collaborative visual artist with RAWDance’s Scripting Intimacies, and visual artist in the Asian American Dance Performance’s Translations and Tradewinds show and is currently a board member of Femina Potens Gallery and co-owner of Pink and White Productions.
Sumir Rawal has been an artist and performer since the age of 5, mixing his classical education, jazz and folk experiences into a mélange of drama and melody. His music takes the listener on a journey that is often off the beaten path and down roads with unexpected turns and endings. Performing on cello, guitar, keyboard or a variety of bamboo and silver flutes, his style ranges from pure and simple to electric and effected. Sumir's music reveals his utter joy for sounds; sculpting textures out of noise, he entices the audience to venture into a realm where landscapes are fluid and emotions are raw and innocent.
On their pairing:
Twincest and Sumir are Fling’s only threesome, and, we have to say that Sumir is one ballsy man for taking on Twincest – a pair of lovers, performers and multimedia who not only are willing to stake the audience’s comfort on the line, but theirs as wells. Their performances are raw, intense and hot – they wrestle half naked, punching, kicking, spitting, and loving. In between the bouts of fighting, they stand still and stare at each other over a video background of them having sex, the silence only punctuated by their quietly hoarse breaths. In other incarnations, they shoot each other with paintball guns, thinly separated by cellophane and trembling audience members. They fight for their right to love each other – plainly, evocatively, richly. Sumir enters this tapestry of violence and care with his music. The plaintive melodies and haunting cries of his instruments – cello, guitar, bamboo flute – throw a silver lining through Twincest's work, giving voice for the performances in which they rarely speak words. Be ready for the unexpected.