infinity kiss

Layton Lachman
In consortium with Samuel Hertz, ALEXA GRÆ, effie bowen, Estado Flotante, John Hoobyar

May 31, 2024 & June 1, 2024, 7:30pm
Doors 7:30pm
Performance 8pm

Symbiotic interaction is the stuff of life on a crowded planet. Our symbiogenetic composite core is far older than the recent innovation we call the individual human. Our strong sense of difference from any other life-form, our sense of species superiority, is a delusion of grandeur.
–– Lynn Margulis

infinity kiss conjures a complex, wild, and unexpected series of encounters. We dance the dance of the symbiotic ones, the self-devouring ones, and the ancient clonally multiplying ones. Within a dense sonic and visual landscape, bodily networks converge—aroused and excited—playing between individuality and the materiality of our interconnectedness. We spawn and respawn, exhausted by the drive to replicate and yet bristling at the touch of another. We propose stories of horizontal genetic exchange and long-lasting intimacy between strangers. Follow us into an inter-species celebration, a queer cruise: a primordial, biological ooze which inevitably merges with everything it touches.

infinity kiss celebrates the multi-biological flourishing that occurs the world over. It diligently searches for the diversity of life-making and kin-making strategies that have always existed, amplifying and holding onto them as signs of hope. infinity kiss is our gleaning practice of looking for the symbiotic beings, the collaborative support structures, the excited and aroused organisms that are pressing up against each other so hard that those we imagined as separate begin to merge.

At Amant, infinity kiss unfolds this gleaning practice, searching the area, the grounds, the rooms, plants and bodies for our collective histories and futures, amplifying the diversity of ways of being in connection with our social and ecological environments.

Image: Layton Lachman, infinity kiss, 2023. Photo by Juan Saez.

Layton Lachman is an artist and choreographer based in Berlin. Layton creates performances rooted in somatics, channeling experiential physical practices into immersive worlds of sensorial complexity. Lachman’s art works utilize a diverse range of artistic mediums and contexts, including film, digital sculpture, text, audio installation, stage performance, gallery, and public space. They explore physicality and communality at the intersection of speculative sci-fi world building, ecology, and ritual. In addition to their performative practice, Layton is an independent curator/organizer, a somatics teacher, and a guest lecturer. Before moving to Berlin, Layton studied choreography and presented works at BAM/PFA and CounterPulse, among many other institutions in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Samuel Hertz is a Berlin-based composer and researcher working with sound-sensing networks of environmental science research, whose works span electronic music, interstellar radio transmissions, deep sea broadcasts, and doom metal concerts. His work has been exhibited and performed in the Ars Electronica Festival (AT), Palais de Tokyo (FR), Akademie der Künste (DE), Pioneer Works/Wave Farm (US), the Onassis Foundation (GR), Kunstmuseum Bonn (DE), Biennale for Sound and Listening (DK), National Science + Media Museum (UK), and aboard the International Space Station, among others. Samuel is a PhD candidate in Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London Centre for GeoHumanities, and the author of a number of publications on sound, environmental violence and ecology.
ALEXA GRÆ is a Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist, vocalist, and composer. ALEXA is a combination of artistic disciplines informed by specialized academic training in music composition and opera. Rigorous training as an opera student challenged ALEXA to transcend the boundaries of various art forms and to understand the cultural boundaries of art in the everyday world. ALEXA bridges these chasms by focusing on how art informs identities, socialization, habits, self-expression, and creativity, by making genre-defying performances that incorporate multiple dance styles, theatrical personas, and experimental storytelling design. Themes of deconstructing classical forms, beliefs about the feminine and masculine, and channeling greater collective consciousness to find an evolving presence in their work. Their mission is to identify moments of pure imagination and innocent creation, harnessing the immediate kinship it creates in order to draw us all toward something divine, something as yet to be defined.
effie bowen has a BFA in Dance from Hollins University and an MFA in Sculpture + Extended Media from Virginia Commonwealth University. They have exhibited work at ICA Richmond, Bass + Reiner, Movement Research at Judson Church, Danspace Project, Pieter Performance Space, and PAM, and have performed in work by Pope L., Ryan McNamara, Jen Rosenblit, Deville Cohen, and Narcissister. effie was recently published in Being Work, about their experience performing in live exhibitions.
Estado Flotante is an artist based in Brooklyn whose practice ranges from dance/movement to music/sound, and video/visual composition consolidated through his pop music and live performance. Originally from Santiago, Chile, where he became dancer, teaching artist, and maker, he moved to New York City in 2012. He has performed and collaborated with various dance and performance artists, like Antonio Ramos, Miguel Gutierrez, Daria Fain, Ishmael Houston Jones, and John Kelly, among others. Currently he has been releasing his first singles online, and producing his first EP, to be released on all streaming platforms, while cultivating his performance practice for more shows to come.
John Hoobyar is a dance person based in New York. Hats: performing, producing, programming, ranting, and raving.
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