CulturalDC presents Never in Our Image a Three-Part Queer Gun Destruction Opera by Stephanie Mercedes

A performance series exploring themes of anti-gun violence and queer identity.

“How can we, the LGBTQ+ community take the tools of the oppressors and transform them into the opposite: music and art?” is a question posed by Stephanie Mercedes. For the past eight years, Mercedes has been melting down weapons and transforming them into sculptures, installations, and instruments of mourning.

In her most recent project titled, Never in Our Image, a three-part experimental opera, Mercedes explores the sound of gun destruction and gun transformation. Mercedes composes music in reaction to the sound of each of the tool she uses in this process: angle grinders, blow torches, furnaces, and molds. Singers, musicians, and dancers will respond to various sounds of guns being cut, melted, fully transformed and eventually recast. Recast instruments will be used in the final act of the opera.

ACT I – Gun Cutting Ceremony

Friday, May 19th – 6-8PM