Real Sweat Performance Group

Susannah Haight

Real Sweat Performance Group is an interdisciplinary duo formed by Philip Jonah Logan Geller and Tia Ashley Kushniruk in the summer of 2023. Blending Bouffon-inspired improvisation, dance, text, and live performance, they craft works that explore the complications of identity, context, and the passage of time. Drawing from their own personal intercultural syncretic queer identities (Tia is Chinese-Ukrainian; Philip is Ashkenazi Jewish and Red River Michif), Real Sweat creates performances that unground the spectator through mimicry, reinterpretation, and miscommunication of the everyday, inviting them to reflect on the fleetine nature of the present.

Instagram Tia Instagram Philip

A PRACTISE: MISINTERPRETATION (A PERFORMANCE) XXL

a practise: Misinterpretation (a performance) XXL is an absurdist duet in which two mixed-race, androgynous, and WILDLY SEXY artists practice and experiment with modes of contemporary Whiteness. A tirade of sonic innuendo to pop culture, PMP XXL engages with Bouffon as a method to explore the escapism of being White-passing and the grief emerging from burnout. The research unveils an ongoing negotiation between authenticity and the seductive ease of Whiteness.

Experimenting with long-duration formats, the artists interrogate the psychomaterial conditions of uninterrupted labor—mirroring the rhythms endured by blue-collar, and retail workers—and use this inquiry to examine how performing ‘whiteness’ can quietly consume and erase one’s sense of self.