Seattle collaborators Eric M Acosta, Greg Bem, Amy Hirayama, and Denny Stern are pleased to announce Altar / Alter, a new program centering altars to take place in mid-June at The Cherry Pit in Seattle’s Central District. Altar / Alter is an installation and performance series designed to explore the concept of altars through different perspectives, mediums, and interpretations. We approach this project with the hypothesis that altars alter. Creating and reflecting on an altar requires us to engage with physical objects, think about spirituality, ancestry, symbolism, culture, tradition, ritual, community, and more. Altars impact us as much as we impact them. Altar / Alter as a series gives space for those alterations to take place, provides opportunities to explore them in community, to learn from each other and to deepen our understanding of altars and the roles they play in our lives.

Performances and experiences range from dance to sound art to poetry to discussion to ritual and beyond. The Cherry Pit’s capacity is limited to 50 people at any given time, ensuring all performances will be intimate and communal. A sculpture initially designed by Denny Stern will be installed in the space for seven days. Each day it will be centered in the venue space during the times that there are performances. Otherwise it may be moved to the periphery if needed, or it can remain in the exact space for the duration of the schedule. The sculpture will be assembled before the installation. Events will be scheduled at various times to support access and accommodate different schedules. Events may be held in the morning, the lunch hour, the afternoon, or the evening, with the potential for late night / all night events as well.

Eric M Acosta is a poetics focused performer poet musique concrète noise architect interrogating tensegritic tension of potent from in space’s space’s spacial mergent emerge. Greg Bem is a poet and artist and librarian and union organizer in Seattle Metro since 2010, lives on a ridge, explores ambience, peripherals, artificiality, and mountains. Amy Hirayama is a hapa writer and educator exploring identity through imagined histories.Denny Stern lives on four peas; poetry, percussion, painting and philosophy, not necessarily in that order, as arts in resonance with consonance of being as process of making.

You can find the current schedule and more information at https://altaralter.wordpress.com/