Who Are We?
We are a producing and performance collective whose pedagogy focuses equally on artistic research, creating performative experiences for audiences, and deepening an awareness of how to sustainably live as a whole being in an ever fracturing world.
At the core of our work is our performance laboratory, where we use our toolbox of techniques to cultivate awareness of our impulses and habitual blocks to access a deliberate, playful relationship with how we choose to act. These skills then extend into our communal living practice, where freedom and self-awareness turn eating, cooking, resting, and socializing into opportunities to create culture actively. We embody ways of being together that are flexible, resilient, generative, and bring us into a new and queer understanding of what it means to live interconnected lives. We channel this into performances, participatory banquets, workshops, guided walks, experimental camping trips, and invented holidays. We choose these forms because they are delightful, because they arise from our skills and interests, and because they allow our practice to extend further into life and to be shared with friends, audiences, and strangers.
Patton Small
Patton Small (he/him) is an artist, explorer, and a founding member of Experience Cult Research Group. He works both in the arts and social sciences. His research examines the relationship between embodiment practices, mystical experience, and communal meaning making. Patton has been involved in expeditions and research projects on four continents and presented artistic works across the United States. His work with Experience Cult focuses on the use of psycho-physical performance techniques in the creation of Active Culture. Patton possesses a B.A. in Theatre Arts, B.A. in Philosophy, an Interdisciplinary Concentration in Archaeology (Carleton College), a Certificate in Contemporary Performance (ICP Portland Oregon), and a M.A. in Performance Studies at Texas A&M University.
Brin Constant Gordon
Brin Constant Gordon (they/them) is a founding member of Experience Cult Research Group. They are a Dramaturg, Animator, and Pataphysician whose work and thinking is communicable at the syzygy of genre, subjectivity, the body, and play. In their explorations with Experience Cult, they focus on the ways in which we jam meaning making in our lives, and how we can constantly find new ways to resolve those contradictions. Currently based out of Los Angeles, CA, they work at a small Museum and dance often. They hold an MFA in Experimental Animation from the California Institute of the Arts, and Bachelors in Studio Arts and Cinema & Media Studies from Carleton College.
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Sasha Blinikova
Principal Collaborator
Sasha Blinnikova (she/her) is a Performer, Movement Facilitator, and Principal Collaborator with Experience Cult. She is delighted by the community-building, imaginative sparks, and silly times ECRG’s work creates. More formally, her interest is in Clown, Butoh, and Grotowski Image Visualization, as well as applying presence-expanding and paratheatrical techniques developed by the group as acting tools. She is based in MN, where she has extensive experience in Arts Administration and Theater Tech and is a Co-Founder of the performance group Virginia Twins. Sasha holds a B.A in Theatre Arts, and a Concentration in Cross-Cultural Studies (Carleton College), and has trained in movement and acting at the Moscow Arts Theater in Russia (via the National Theater Institute).
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Artemis Brown
Principal Collaborator
Artemis (they/them) is a non-binary sculptor, sound artist, dancer, and craft enthusiast based in Minneapolis, MN. They work with artists across the country to make dance, theater, written and devised performance, and workshops. In 2017 they graduated from Carleton College with a BA in Studio Art, and graduated with an AAS in Massage Therapy in 2021. They continue to expand the scope of their art and understanding by engaging new topics and mediums at every opportunity.
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Ben Capp
Principal Collaborator
Ben Capp (he/him) is a Philadelphia-based theater director, performance artist, and printmaker. He is interested in how improvisational movement and participatory action can cultivate creativity and allow us to imagine new possibilities for how we might live. His work is focused on how practices of attention and listening can help us move through and attend to the current climate crisis. Directing credits include Caryl Churchill’s The Skriker, along with devised productions such as Beach Play and Ghost. He holds a Bachelors in Theater Arts from Carleton College.