New-York based artist Tau Lewis will present her first live performance in the stunning neo-gothic Harlem Parish, reimagining the ancient Sumerian epic The Descent of Inanna (c. 1900-1600 BCE), a mythical narrative of self-discovery chronicling the goddess Inanna's journey into the underworld to visit her recently widowed sister Ereshkigal, Queen of the Dead. As she passes through the seven gateways to the underworld, Inanna strips away clothing, jewelry, and earthly symbols of power and self. In the process, she confronts her mortality in a cyclical narrative of death and transformation.

Lewis is known for her sculptures constructed from found objects and imbued with ancestral presence to create fantastical, alternative worlds that can be considered a form of hand-crafted science fiction. In No one ascends from the underworld unmarked Inanna and Ereshkigal are embodied by Lewis’s sculptures, animated into living archetypes with live improvised vocal composition from Gelsey Bell, Alicia Hall Moran and Justin Hicks. Dancers move the sculptures across the stage as their spectral companions, their choreography narrating the story to emphasize the energy and emotional tone of the two goddesses experience. The shedding of material objects in the story mirrors Lewis’s own material language—where discarded fragments take on a new life as vessels of mourning and metamorphosis.

The Sumerian sign for “ear” also meant “wisdom”—Inanna was called to listen to the wisdom of the underworld. To channel this idea, and to ask audiences to listen as well as look, Lewis has collaborated with acclaimed composer and vocalist Lyra Pramuk. Known for blending voice, electronics, folk, gospel, house, and classical traditions into something singular and otherworldly, Pramuk has created a soundtrack that resembles Lewis’s approach to form: hybrid, layered, and deeply intuitive, with improvised percussion and saxophone from Eli Kezler and Kevin Sun. Lewis also collaborated with dancer Paul Hamilton to devise movement and choreography for both sculptures and performers. Together, they craft an experimental opera, drawn from the poem’s English translation by Diane Wolkstein and Samuel Noah Kramer, creating a mythic experience that charts Inanna’s emotional descent and return.

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A free exhibition of Lewis's sculptures from the performance will be open to the public from November 5 - 9, at Harlem Parish. HOURS: 11 am - 3 pm