Quench Presents

50 WAYS TO KILL A SLUG & MORE!

Friday, November 24, 2023

Quench Gallery is delighted to present a commissioned evening in celebration of the sticky, the slow, the sensual, the silly and the sensory, headlined by An(dre)a Spisto and Joana Nastari.

An(dre)a Spisto and Joana Nastari will be presenting 50 Ways To Kill A Slug, a queer, Latinx, neurodiverse-led, multidisciplinary, hyper-sensory performance. Celebrating radical slowness, with a sexy, ugly divergence from the unsustainable grind. 50WTKAS is a non-verbal performance piece using ASMR, pop-music and foley to highlight the rhythm of the work. The piece is punctuated by the exploration of materials relating to the slugs experience; slime, salt, coffee, beer and water. Expect queer clown deviance and lot’s and lot’s of slime.

An(dre)a Spisto

An(dre)a Spisto makes a mish mash of live theatre, art buffoonery, comedic interventions, filmed and live filmed performance with a current view into entomology, media and its relationship to perspectives as a queer, neurodiverse, Venezuelan immigrant. Trained at Lispa (Art-Haus Berlin) in Lecoq and embodied practices with a focus on clown through mask. Dre’s work has been described by critics as genre smashing, surreal, gentle and exuberant.

Work includes El Dizzy Beast (Nominated for the Filipa Braganca award), Butch Princesa (Nominated for Best Cabaret, Best Performance Artist and Best Theatre show) Tylor and Vincent:Pussy and Money, Tylor and Vincent: Now That’s What I Call Tylor and Vincent, Tylor and Vincent: Space, Miss Venezuela

Dre’s presented work at Jupiter Artland, Ugly Duck, Staffordshire Gallery, Shape Arts, The British Museum, SOHO Theatre, Brixton House Theatre, CASA Festival, Arcola Theatre, CPT and Shoreditch Town Hall. They recently collaborated with Keira Saunders on Beasts Between The Cracks, a costume and movement performance workshop at the Turner Contemporary part of OSE’s Public Programme 22-23. As creative programmes producer for the radical care organisation People United, Dre delivered We Keep Each Other Fed, Queer Zines of Care, Soft Fascination and The Sea of the Unseeable. They are currently a visiting lecturer at Mountview Academy of Performing Arts on the Theatre in Community and Education MA programme.

Joana Nastari

ana Nastari is an award-winning writer, performer, and community organiser. Currently the Oval House Theatre Associate Artist, she is best known for her debut theatre show Fuck You Pay Me, about the politics of working as a stripper in London. FYPM brought sex-work-stigma into the mainstream media in 2018 after sell-out runs in London and Edinburgh, followed by 2019 runs at The Bunker (Offie Nominated) and Arcola Theatre. Joana has had work at Soho Theatre, Southwark Platform, The Vaults, Edinburgh Fringe and Lyric Hammersmith, and CASA theatre festival. Alongside, she organises the closed community event Sleazy Virtue, for sex workers to share skills, stories and secrets.

With special guests

Nikki Sheth

Nikki Sheth is an internationally recognised sound artist and composer. Her work aims to give voice to the environment and foster a deeper connection with the natural world through field recordings, soundscape composition, spatial audio practices, multimedia installations, and sound walking. She was awarded a Sound and Music award (2020), nominated for the Phonurgia Nova Awards (2020), received an Honourable Mention for the Sound of the Year Awards (2021), nominated for Ivor Novello Composer Award (2021) and awarded a Sound and Music Seed Award for New Voices (2022). She recently collaborated on the ‘Disruptive Frequencies’ album released with Nonclassical and her debut album, ‘Sounds of Mmabolela’ was released with Flaming Pines in 2021. She is currently a Sound UK - Sound Generator Artist and an Associate Artist at Open School East.

James Jordan Johnson

James Jordan Johnson is an artist working in sound, performance and sculpture. He is interested in forms of sound collage that incorporates sampling r&b, electronic music and wind instrumentation to create new forms of sonic relationships. His most recent works includes, LATE AT TATE BRITAIN: DESIRE, CULTURE AND HISTORY( Tate Britain), In Response, Constellation of Multiple Wishes, (Mosaic Rooms) Something is Trying to Disappear Me (UGLY DUCK, Buzzcut Festival,Ark-T, Arts Admin