Angelo Madsen: "A Body to Live In"

Arguably America’s most prominent trans maker, Angelo (North by Current) Madsen has placed their West Coast theatrical premiere here in thee feisty microcinema that, for almost four decades now, has stood up for queer empowerment, sex-worker rights, and the Modern Primitive movement. In fact, ReSearch’s V Vale, Paul King, and Cleo Dubois--widow of the subject of tonight’s doc--are all on hand tonight to introduce Madsen’s masterwork, a feature-length exploration of the huge human community who find erotic, psychic, and spiritual satisfaction in binding, piercing, and tattooing their bodies as they please...a subculture aptly represented by the life and career of recently deceased Fakir Musafar. Dubois gave Madsen free rein to bring to light more than a hundred hours of previously unseen recordings, to be stitched together with Musafar’s stunning photographs and the voices of performance artists Annie Sprinkle and Ron Athey. While Madsen’s provocative profile questions assumptions about “masculine/feminine”, and considers issues of BDSM control and consent, it also acknowledges the complexity of other ethical issues surrounding the practices, faces the charges of (Native) cultural appropriation, and forces audiences to think critically about the line(s) between free individual expression and reckless self-harm. $13