Cosmos Dark, Yawa, and Neolith

Beyond, Beyond

Join Cosmos Dark, Yawa, and Neolith as they journey through and celebrate the expansive nature of sonic sanctity. Monoliths will be shattered.

Artist bios:

Vaughn Kimmons – Cosmos Dark

Vaughn is a multidisciplinary artist celebrating Blackness as the cosmic source of sacred inspiration and gives voice to the connective power of shared human nuance. Through voice, music composition, new media and spatial design she explores authenticity and its influence on spiritual and emotional development. Her work seeks to unpack issues that challenge self-actualization within Black communities, examining historical and current contexts that have stifled and transformed our identities. The avant-garde realm encourages us to consider and develop new perspectives and through this lens she challenges the stereotype that Black people are monolithic.

Cosmos Dark is a performance art exploration of absurdity by Kimmons. Through the use of off-kilter rhythms, haunting vocals and sometimes the recitation of a text message from a former partner, they invite us to befriend the shadow as a path to liberation.

Neolith

Neolith is the aural output of interdisciplinary artist Alim Ringgold. Using electronics, vocals, and found instruments, Neolith excavates and sculpts internal landscapes in real time, gives form to bodily knowing, uncovers sonic artifacts.

Yawa

Yawa AKA Amenta Abioto (b. 1991) is a songwriter and producer from Memphis, TN and currently based in Portland, OR. In her one-woman performance, she builds vocal and instrumental loops from synth, drum machine, and kalimba creating atmospheric textures. Amenta surprises and tantalizes audiences with mind bending ideas while skipping vocally from soul-shaking gospel to smooth jazz. Her music is boldly mystical and soul-fired, and her raw live performances invoke elements of both theatrical and magical surprise.