Ruthless Cosmopolitan: Apotropaios (excerpt) (2022)
Apotropaios was a live performance art work from sculptor and performance artist Chelsea Steinberg Gay (b. Brooklyn, NY 1986). Starring Steinberg Gay’s alter-ego drag persona The Ruthless Cosmopolitan, the performance combines elements of contemporary dance, hip hop, Yiddishkeit, drag, ballroom, color theory and queer activism. Apotropaios is a protective amulet realized through the sublimation of ancestral ritual and the queering of folkloric Jewish femme narratives.
Artist and Performer: Chelsea Steinberg Gay
Choreographer: Rebecca Pappas with the ensemble
Music: Amore Querida Dancers: Theo Armstrong (not pictured), Paris Cullen, Venghour Than, Arien Wilkerson, Carlos Zipactonal Martinez of the Royal House of Nina Oricci
Performer: Austin Casebolt
Presented by Ruthless Cosmopolitan Productions, New York, in partnership with the Parsons School of Design, School of Art, Media and Technology, and MFA Fine Arts, Intlx Productions, and the New School for Social Research.