ASYLUM: After Dark, The SapioSexual Experience comes to Barking Legs
Come to Barking Legs Theater this Sunday to have your senses snared and your soul shaken. “ASYLUM: After Dark, The SapioSexual Experience”, is a new kind of entertainment designed to appeal to all the senses, including the inward eye and even the subconscious.
More than a listening party or variety show, “ASYLUM: After Dark” introduces Chattanooga recording artist Floami Fly’s album ASYLUM and features a range of other experiences, from dance to culinary arts.
Floami (also known as Liz Willis) and creative director Erika Roberts have collaborated with a group of Chattanooga’s innovative young (and older) artists to create a program exploring attraction, mental illness and art.
“Asylum is a project about navigating through difficult times,” Liz says. “It includes mental health awareness, especially the darker elements of the psyche; coping strategies; existential angst.”
The show grew out of a conversation between Erika and Liz, and expanded quickly as the two sent out a call for artists on social media. In Chattanooga, it’s not hard to find “creatives” as Erika calls them, especially ones eager to think outside the box and collaborate across genres and themes.
The artists acknowledge that madness can be both attractive and dangerous.
“This is a show about addiction, mental illness, intense attraction, personal demons, and self-awareness,” says master of ceremonies Marcus Ellsworth. In contrast to shows that celebrate sobriety or describe steps to recovery, “ASYLUM: After Dark” promises to place the audience in the labyrinth, hand them the end of Ariadne’s thread, and let them find their own way—in or out.
“It’s not a value of good or bad,” Liz explains. “The audience must decide.”Erika describes the process of sorting through thoughts and emotions as a Rubik’s cube, pulling together disparate colors to make things match.
Though societal concerns, such as addition or the civil rights struggle, may give rise to mental illness, this show focuses on the individual journey of working through madness and seeking understanding, even if that enlightenment is sometimes fragmented.
In a similar mix-and-match fashion, genres from ballet to hip hop are represented, blended into a single experience that promises to be both unsettling and enticing.
Artists appeal to almost every sense: poets and hip hop artists speak to the mind; singers and a violinist caress the ears; paintings as well as ballet and tribal dance dazzle the eyes.
Specially prepared food and drink awaken the palate. Dramatic presentation fuses them all together.
“The show transcends individual and cultural identity schisms,” says poet Arche Twitty, who performs as Arche Divine.
Of course, this mixture promises to be profoundly sensual. However, Erika says, the show aims to arouse at the more refined levels of thought. The themes make the show adult-only, but don’t expect straightforward burlesque.
“‘SapioSexual’ indicates an intellectual approach to sexual attraction,” Erika explains. “It draws you in mentally. The music holds it all together.”Audience members “check into” the asylum, where they become “inmates” and participants in the program.
“The audience is part of the show, too,” Marcus says. “They’ll participate with their reactions—to engage with us, to prompt the performers, to give input, to guide us.”
Participation is at the level of comfort. Marcus adds: “We want people to feel safe enough to take chances with us.”
Will this witches’ brew of ingredients come together to make a drinkable potion? And will it, like the DRINK ME vial in Alice in Wonderland or the red pill in The Matrix, leave the partaker profoundly changed?
The organizers and performers have promised a transformational experience. Will they deliver? There’s only one way to find out.
ASYLUM: After Dark, The SapioSexual Experience
Sunday, August 13, 7 p.m.
Barking Legs Theater
1307 Dodds Ave.
(423) 624-5347
Tickets $10 online; $15 at the door and for VIP seating
Visit barkinglegs.org for more info or to purchase tickets.
This is an 18-and-older event.
Recommended attire is red and black