On Oct 28, 2023 homeLA presented togetherfire with artists with artists Crystal Sepúlveda, Justin Morris, Ray Anthony Barrett, María Regina Firmino-Castillo, Tohil (Fidel Brito Bernal), Nohely Gomez, Latipa, Camilo Ontiveros, Estrellx Supernova/EHQS, taisha paggett, and meital yaniv.

togetherfire, curated and hosted by taisha paggett and meital yaniv, contemplated home as a hearth, an archetype of fire, and an alchemist of private and social realities.  It took place at paggett and yaniv’s abode located on the home and gathering place of the Cahuilla, Tongva, Serrano, Luiseno, colonially known as Riverside, CA.  This indoor/outdoor event took place during a full moon and at a time when the veil separating the worlds is its thinnest.

Set beyond the county line, togetherfire was a special event that de-centered the geographical boundaries of the LA Art world to foreground the work of performing and visual artists who contribute to the vitality of our arts and culture while living, working, and contributing to the arts and culture in and across the Inland Empire. As such, togetherfire was an occasion that obfuscated boundaries and welcomed audiences to come experience site-specific work by artists at their home.  It was an invitation to draw closer, linger, and participate as togetherfire unfolded over the course of four hours in a gathering of dance, writing, nourishment, and performance encounters that offered the fire as spiritual, physical, political, and ancestral sustenance and contemplation with the following offerings.

Dancer and choreographer Crystal Sepúlveda performed on the outdoor patio and among the plantlife of the garden to a score and immersive sound installation by Latipa and Camilo Ontiveros. Embodying a score that centers stories of displaced people, Sepúlveda explored movement practices that withstand and brace for the impact of colonialism, specifically the people and land impacted by environmental injustices in the Inland Empire. Her questions draw on the efforts made by climate scientists, policy-makers, and activists pushing for climate mitigation and adaptation, and writer Vinita Srivastava’s powerful words, “Instead of calling people resilient, let’s instead look at solutions for those things we should not have to be resilient for.” 

Visual artist and chef Ray Anthony Barrett nourished guests, cooking over live fire in an intimate performance that embodies his assertion that communities are built through communion, and as such, gastronomy is inherently a social practice. For togetherfire, Barrett prepared a site-specific ephemeral sculpture––a dish featuring ingredients from Southern California’s Fall harvest and inspired by the hosts garden. Guests were invited to bring their own spoon to participate.

Transdisciplinary artist, Justin Morris, in collaboration with a written score provided by Estrellx Supernova/EHQS, combined elements of soft sculpture, movement tasks, and verbalizations that center the theme of etching. The theme of etching was in response to Estrellx Supernova/EHQS’s central catalysts for the mover to communicate both verbally and non-verbally as a process of digesting and deepening that which is known, unknown, hard to digest, and hard to utter. Morris responded to this provocation by questioning how words, text, and the moving body’s labor—both during and before the performance of the practice—can etch (make hollow, mark upon/within/around, dig, etc) into space and be in discovery of the power of impermanence and that which resides. This took Morris and others on a journey through several rooms within the house that have their own history of etchings.

During the twilight, María Regina Firmino-Castillo & Tohil (Fidel Brito Bernal) engaged in High sea, high c Listens for the ocean: gathering fire, joining twilights, freeing stones, uncovering sky, hearing earth…. This was not a performance. Instead, it was “an experiment in crepuscular corpo/poiesis” happening “between earth and sky, and in the shadows of togetherfire,” wherein Firmino and Tohil, responding to their own score, “edged spatiotemporal dimensions and sound the depths above and below” to connect the land upon which the home resides to past, present, and future twilights. Collaborators included ocean and river waters,  13 stones,  11 co-conspirators of twilights past, and every being present.

Interspersed throughout the event, artists Nohely Gomez, taisha paggett, and meital yaniv offered a multi-part movement and video work titled, \sweet/suites\sweets/ for \7/ directions.  For this work, Gomez, paggett and yaniv performed seven “mini duets of tenderness” in seven directions, traversing the margins of the space, place, and home, exploring how they “taste the fire and prayers of another” as togetherfire’s hosts, curators, and contributing artists.