Weddings and Rituals

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Our art/life projects sometimes take the form of weddings, rituals and rites of passage.  We have co-created fifteen ecosex performance art weddings, with hundreds of collaborators in seven countries, in which thousands of people have attended. We have also done baptisms, séances, and customized ceremonies. Each event has been site specific and unique, and so much fun! Our goals are to generate, celebrate and spread the love, open minds and hearts.

SO YOU WANT TO PRODUCE A WEDDING? WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW.
We have been creating a series of interactive performance art weddings in collaboration with various national and international communities and organizations. Each wedding has a different focus/purpose, a different theme and color and various political motivations.  In the past six years we have done fifteen performance art weddings, twelve of which have had environmental themes. These weddings, which have involved well over 3000 people, have been magical, garnered critical acclaim, been provocative and memorable for all those that attend.  The weddings live on years later through the display of the documentation (videos, photos, texts) in galleries, museums and on web sites. We have found that when people make vows to love and care for the Earth, they change their attitudes and habits.

Currently we are looking for people, organizations, arts groups, and political groups to co-produce and collaborate with us.  Our past collaborators have been produced with University of California in Santa Cruz, One Yellow Rabbits Performance Art Rodeo in Calgary, Canada, the International Workshop Festival in London, England, Collective Unconscious in New York City, the Queer Arts Festival in Zagreb, Croatia, the Women’s Visionary Council, Ohio University and Reverend Billy’s Church of Life After Shopping. We were also invited to do a wedding at the Murcia, Spain pavilion at the Venice Biennale.

So far we have married each other, made vows to our community, got legally married in a theater festival. We co-created what we were told was the first openly queer wedding in the Balkans. We made vows to the Earth in a California redwood grove with 350 people in attendance–150 people collaborated in the creation of the wedding. We married the Sky in Oxford, England, and married the Sea in Venice where people came to perform with us from seventeen countries.  In 2010 we married the Moon outdoors on the full moon with 500 people, and married the Appalachian Mountains in Ohio.

How it works: We ask for no material gifts, but put out a call for collaborators to help with the creation of the wedding about two months before the date of the wedding.  Dozens of people offer to perform, decorate, be in the bridal parties, do a ritual, be part of the production team and create magic.  We then weave together the offerings into one amazing wedding day performance event.

What you get:  Create and offer your town a wonderful, unique performance art piece, promote and create love for the Earth, get publicity, have fun, work with us (Annie and Beth) celebrate and generate love, create a community bonding and networking experience.

What you need to have:  You need to have some time, energy, and willingness. You need to have a production manager  (‘wedding planner’) that can network various communities in your area and get them excited about collaborating.  You’ll need a publicist or a good strong mailing list, and a location for the wedding (a theater/park/center/space/location.)  Have some finances, grants, budget for an artist fee and travel funds for Beth and Annie, and some funds for miscellaneous expenses (sliding scale).

This work is original and timely. We create a new form of performance work that combines social action, interventionist practices and environmental concerns.  We are happy to talk with you more about the possibilities of collaboration.