Photo by Veronica Lechunga
LACE’s Love Witches Ball
February 14, 2025, 7–10 PM
Philosophical Research Society
3910 Los Feliz Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90027
Cash bar / Limited free parking available on site
RSVP HERE general ticket free, suggested donations: $15, $25, and $50 (with free concert tee).
Emcee: Caleb Luna
Special performances by Beck+Col and Bitter Party
Speed Tarot Readings by Sanyu Estelle
Music by Sonido del Valle
LACE’s infamous Valentine’s Day bash is back with a Love Witches Ball! Join LACE at the Philosophical Research Society for an ultimate Valentine’s witchy night, with performance art, films, music, dancing, libations, cake, and a free raffle!
Film Program
Theo Jean Cuthand, Helpless Maiden Makes an “I” Statement (1999), 6:11
Patty Gone, Neverland Meltdown (2024), 13:22
Qigemu 七个木, Reality Fragment 160921 (2018), 14:01
Theo Jean Cuthand, 2 Spirit Dreamcatcher Dot Com (2017), 04:55
Ben Coonley, Valentine for Perfect Strangers (2006), 03:20
Talia Shea Levin, Make Me a Pizza (2024), 12:00
About the Performers
Beck+Col are a Los Angeles based artist duo who have been working exclusively in collaboration since 2014. Beck+Col have performed at numerous venues including the Hammer Museum, REDCAT, Human Resources and JOAN Los Angeles. Their work has been exhibited worldwide including the Royal College of Music in Sweden, Colección AMALITA in Buenos Aires and at Biquini WAX EPS in Mexico City. In Spring of 2020, Beck+Col were the artists in residence for the San Diego International Airport Performing Arts Residency and represented LACE at the Art Los Angeles Contemporary fair. Cohosts of ART TALK Talk talk, created while Beck+Col were in residency at UNLV in 2021. B+C were one of LAPP’s Research and Development artists in Residence in 2022. In 2023, they had solo shows at Woodbury University, The Art Room and Angels Gate Cultural Center.
Their first feature length film Red Night was screened at Festival de Sci-Fi Terror y Fantasía in Bogota, Columbia (third place terror feature), Another Hole In the Head Festival in San Francisco, CA and Bizarroland Festival in Orlando, FL, in 2023 (golden tentacle award winner) and had its Los Angeles Premiere with LACE in 2024. In 2025, Red Night will be screened at Outsider Fest in Austin, TX and at the Barrick Museum in Las Vegas alongside an installation of pieces from the film as part of the exhibit Color Made. They are currently working on the sequel.
Beck received an MFA from CalArts in 2019 and Collin received an MFA from CSULA in 2014.
Bitter Party is a Los-Angeles-based ghost pop band inspired by war-era music and the melancholy of life. Immersing themselves in the rich repertoire of folk, pop, and obscure tunes from Asia, their performance references the music in each of their pasts through dusty tapes, songbooks, vinyls, and YouTube channels. They re-animate these transmigrated sounds with megaphones, sanshin, and chiptune aesthetics. Pinball disco, electro enka, postcolonial ethnographic pop. Bitter Party is: Linda Wei (Bass/Glockenspiel /Melodica/Vox), Umi Hsu (Keys/Electronics/Guitar/Sanshin/Vox), Jacob Alden Sargent (Drums/Guitar/Vox), Nathan Lam Vuong (Strings/Vox), and Grace Umali (Drums/Percussion/Guitar/Vox).
Caleb Luna is an artist, public scholar and theorist of the body. They are an award-winning educator and scholar, the bestselling author of REVENGE BODY (Nomadic Press, 2022; Black Lawrence Press, 2023), and co-host of the podcast Unsolicited: Fatties Talk Back. Publishing, performing and curating across genre and medium, Caleb’s cultural work examines race, size, sexuality and disability in media and culture. Ultimately, they are interested in engaging embodied difference as a generative resource toward fatter understandings of collective freedom. They are currently an Assistant Professor of Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. You can follow Caleb on Instagram and Twitter at @dr_chairbreaker, or get in touch with them at caleb-luna.com
Sanyu Estelle is a Claircognizant (“clear knowing”) Soothsayer (“truth teller”) that is also known as “The Word Witch” because of her deep love for word origins (etymology) and word culture (philology). These natural inclinations are bolstered by a 15+ year practice of Daoism, as well as a 10+ year relationship with Ifa, the indigenous tradition of the Yoruba people of now-Nigeria. As a Soothsayer, Sanyu Estelle’s gift is truth-telling. With 15 years of card reading experience and 25 years of public speaking experience, her readings are often listened to over many years by her clients. She is a “1st generationish” (long, but great story) US-American of Ugandan and Belizean descent, born, bred, and buttered in Los Angeles on land traditionally stewarded by the Tongva.
SUPPORT
This program is supported by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Special thanks to our friends at PRS for their support while LACE’s Hollywood gallery is under renovation.
