The Wrestlers of Absolute Suffering is a legendary group of wrestlers who, through their combat perform the aesthetics of angst with an ostentatious vulnerability and melodrama. Natural expression comes without reserve and is amplified by their costume and object: tragic masks, light and stage. They scramble a perfect intelligibility of reality. They show, don’t tell. They prioritize other forms of knowledge and expression, scrappling with the hyperprivilege of words in art and academia. The psychophysical presence of the Wrestlers is knocked loose from bodies that crash into each other, and splashes onto the spectators. This crashing and burning exorcizes dread, and instead conjures within a witness, a blooming supraliminal experience beyond words. Gut knowledge leads these Sufferers through our ritual, performance and sport. May we excite you. We beseech you, be unseated.
The first Wrestlers of Absolute Suffering fight was held on February 17th, 2022 at A402 gallery, Calarts, Valencia, CA. The gallery installation was on exhibit Feb 12th-19th.
Part I: Equipment Expo — Installation on exhibit Feb 13th-19th
Part II: Ekstasis — The Fight
Part III: Conversion & — Coming soon: A re-broadcasting of the fight night.
Re-broadcast
PII: Ekstasis, February 17th, 2022
A crowd stuffed the room of the exhibit, surrounding the square platform. Those who could not fit, stood outside and looked in. Some spectators brought cardboard signs denouncing the worst of heels, “THE DOG CAN SNIFF MY ASS”.
The Commentator sat at their table at the head of the hall, and read from a thick binder of script. The script was written in part by Havoc and in part developed with AI script generation. Outside of the fight room, Wrestlers sat in a backstage area, glued to a CRT’s screen, which displayed a live-feed of the action. They watched with bated breath and tense grips on their metal chairs as they viewed the fights. During the inciting incident, as they witness The Dog’s great betrayal, they shoot from their chairs and barrel through the throng to either enact revenge on The Dog, or hold him back from an inevitable beating for his treachery. The en masse fight becomes a writhing, punching, kicking, biting, twisting orgy, and as some Wrestlers make an escape, they bleed out of the hall, and take the fight into the larger institution.
About the performance development:
The performance was facilitated by Dallas Havoc, who lead the wrestling cast in five weeks of rehearsal in which the group collaboratively devised a loose fight routine within the score of the event, written by Havoc. See score diagram. Rehearsals were informed by Havoc’s practice in paratheatre, physical theatre practices and improvisation. Wrestlers were given their character’s mask, name and basic character traits. The cast, as a group devised more specifically, motivations, backstory and relationship to the other Wrestlers. Physicality, expressive style, and the events of the fights were influenced by Commedia dell'Arte and clowning. An on-going dialogue remained fundamental to our work in rehearsal regarding the miming and committal to aggressive and violent physicalities in improvisation while maintaining care and consent.
Media coming to the site soon:
Performance score diagram
Commentator script
PIII: Re-broadcast (A video work)
