Saturnalia
Saturnalia
Judith Brotman, HyeGyeong Choi, Barbara Degenevieve, Jory Drew, Conor Ekstrom, Brent Garbowski, Vesna Jovanovic, Anwar Mahdi, Sofia Moreno, Rebecca Walz and Ryan Michael Pfeiffer
December 15, 2018 - January 26, 2019
Under the watchful care of Saturn we find abundance. Saturn watches over agriculture and the turning of the seasons. We tend to him and the maintenance of our prosperity every Saturday. Long ago, during winter solstice, there was an annual week-long drunken orgy held in his honor. Folks would show up to celebrations cross dressed. Everyone wore those hats we associate Disney dwarfs and Santa’s elves. A hiatus from social hierarchy was a huge part of the party vibe and those hats signified a slave or low born who had earned their freedom. During Saturnalia we are all free. We take a tumble, we roll the dice, we drink a bit too much, we breathe in intoxicating perfumes (frankincense and myrrh), we light an evergreen tree with candles, we sing ribald tunes while arm in arm with our compatriots and our neighbors reward the chorus of our voices with mulled wine, we exchange simple gifts to spread delight through the dark and cold of winter, and we wonder at the reemergence to life from death. I know a lot of this sounds like the birth of a different god, but this is the origin story. Come and let your hair down, your dressing gown down, the hard things of the year down, and look forward to the return of light, the renewal that comes with a blank slate and new year and a rolicking good time.
