Poetic Research Bureau
Los Angeles CA
5 April 2022

Written and performed by
Emji Saint Spero

Co-directed by
Emji Saint Spero + J Shelley Harrison

Choreography
J Shelley Harrison

Videography
Joseph Mosconi

Video editing
curbAlert + Alsea Raible

Audio recording
Alsea Diana

This video-poem is dedicated to Fred Herko (1936-1964), a queer choreographer, dancer, musician, actor. He was a founding member of the Judson Dance Theater and co-founder of New York Poets Theatre, and starred in several early Warhol films. Herko’s performance style leans into the excess and camp of high faggotry, reframing everyday movement and denaturalizing the quotidian, using humor as a critique of structural oppression.

Herko : an adaptation was released as part of Poetic Research Bureau’s Compression Poems series. Support provided by a Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts 2021 Organizational Support Grant.