Witches’ Cabaret is an ongoing, devised performance project helmed by Mireya Lucio and Sallie Merkel (Emotional Labor Corp.). Each iteration of Witches Cabaret is unique and collaboratively generated by a coven of performers through a process-based, feminist ethos:
-We Put a Spell on You (Machine Project’s Mystery Theatre, May 2016)
-Witch House (CalArts, February 2018)
-Love Spells (Mast on Fig, February 2019)
-Casting into the Unknown (Virtual portal, May 2020)
-The Graveyard Shift & Other Stories (Virtual portal, Halloween 2020)
****************************************************************************************************************
WE PUT A SPELL ON YOU: A WITCHES’ CABARET was a showcase of musical numbers, vignettes and spells investigating women’s labor and the depiction of witches in popular tween and teen culture. This performance was developed specifically for Machine Project’s Mystery Theater (May 2016)
Developed in part at the Women's Center for Creative Work and the Feminist Library on Wheels (F.L.O.W.)
Photo credit: Ian Byers-Gamber
***********************************************************************************************
WITCH HOUSE: A WITCHES’ CABARET featured intimate, extravagant, silly and haunting cabaret acts about the ways in which female identity, sexuality, commerce, and coming-of-age have been circumscribed by witch mythologies. This iteration was developed with and performed by CalArts students (CalArts, February 2018)
Photo credit: Juliana Romero
***********************************************************************************************
CASTING INTO THE UNKNOWN is a group spell in the form of an evening cabaret: a collective release of past paradigms, embrace of grief, and articulation of possible futures...
Image credit: Sean Grattan
Hosted by Mireya Lucio & Sallie Merkel
Featuring: Angela Mary Magick, Manor of Living, Madre Jaguar, Marina Libel, JC Zepeda as Mama Chula, Allie Shyer & Jazzy Shutt-VanMeveren & Tatiana Stolpovskaya, Megan May Daalder, DADDY, Susannah Simpson, Lauren White, Erin Aquarian, Fiona Dorn, Alyxaundrea Munson, Lisa Sanaye Dring & Ponyo, Patrick Mansfield, Este Sanchez, Grace Kredell, Edgar Fabián Frías, Abby Banks...
Performed via ZOOM on May 29, 2020
WATCH IT HERE
***********************************************************************************************
THE GRAVEYARD SHIFT AND OTHER STORIES is a group spell in the form of a Witches’ Cabaret to honor, embrace, align with & activate necessary SHIFTS: in perspective, states of being & more...
Image credit: Sallie Merkel
Hosted by Mireya Lucio & Sallie Merkel
Featuring: Susannah Simpson, Allie Shyer, Marina Libel, Sola Bamis, K. Mercedes, JC Zepeda, and Edgar Fabian Frias
Performed via ZOOM on October 31, 2020