The Living Canvas – Demons

This post is a plug for my latest artistic enterprise and a bit off-topic for drug policy.

As some of you know, one of my long-time artistic pursuits has been the photography and performance art of The Living Canvas — a unique art approach that is demonstrates the incredible expressive power of the human body through its function as a living canvas for projected textures and images.

The latest event is my seventh Living Canvas theatrical production: Living Canvas: Demons.

Join The Living Canvas in a journey through the mind of a young woman, encountering creatures of nightmare, mystery, and merriment. Eleven performers, clad only in the textures of projections and light, reveal a hidden world where naked flesh morphs into the manifestations of fantasy and nothing is what it seems.

Pete Guither’s The Living Canvas has been projecting textures and images onto naked performers since 2001, and Demons is their seventh show in Chicago. Each show has had a different theme and structure, but all celebrate the power of the human body to be an expressive canvas, with an underlying theme of body acceptance. In fact, each show not only has a Q and A session following, but also an opportunity for adventurous audience members to see what it’s like to be a Living Canvas.

OK – here’s a stretch for a connection to drug policy… One review of a past Living Canvas production said: “Stoners, Dali fans, sensualists of every stripe, this show’s for you.” — Brian Nemtusak, The Reader. However, you don’t have to be stoned to be blown away by the images and the story that is told.

Other reviews of past shows:

Nina Metz of the Chicago Tribune called The Living Canvas “intensely peculiar and mesmerizing… It’s riveting.” Time Out Chicago said “Pete Guither’s high-def projections of intricate patterns across naked actors is eye candy on the order of a laser-light show.” And ChicagoCritic.com called it a “sensual and visceral performance art piece done with craft and good taste.”

“The Living Canvas: Demons” opens Friday and runs Fridays and Saturdays at 10:00 p.m. from July 2 through July 31 at National Pastime Theater, 4139 N Broadway in Chicago. Tickets are $20 each and can be purchased by online or by calling 773-327-7077.

The show is part of a larger theatrical festival at National Pastime Theater called Naked July: Art Stripped Down. There is also a blog that discusses and previews the shows.

If you’re in the Chicago area during July, make it a point to see the show — it’s short (just under an hour) and unforgettable. Plus, there’s always that opportunity for audience participation if you’re interested. I’ll be at all of the performances. Feel free to come up and introduce yourself afterwards.

This is an open thread.

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5 Responses to The Living Canvas – Demons

  1. claygooding says:

    Good sounding show. Break a leg

  2. claygooding says:

    Just heard a good come back for prohibitionists when they use the “children ploy”.
    “Wouldn’t you rather your child be a drug dealer than a drug addict?”
    Colbert Report

  3. satan stole my teddybear says:

    Reminds me of that scene in THX 1138 where Duval is watching the chrome painted dancers on the teevee. It would be fun to smoke some green stickies and see this one live.

  4. Dean says:

    The show looks amazing by the way. If I was in Chicago I would be all over that.

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