I’ve always perceived the performing artist as a poet with the power of a shaman. On a good night, a performer will transport us to a higher realm, exposing layers of beauty and connectedness that lurk just beyond the perceived surface of our daily lives. From the lip of their stage, these spirits-of-the-night expose to us their naked souls, and become a magic mirror for our own unarticulated deep feelings. Audience and performer groping together for meaning and transformation in a kind of ritual dance, creating an antidote to the numbing effects of the mass culture that dominates our days.

This collection of photographs was started as we struggled with ending the Vietnam War. It was a period of raw cultural agony, the physical lives of our generation were under threat while our leaders were telling us falsehoods through the television. The stakes were high, so live performance and poetic language struck blood-deep chords. The collection ends in the early 80’s with the ascendence of a new medium called the music-video, when the primary bridge between performer and audience came to be mediated by a screen. I lost interest in photographing the subject when there was no longer any danger that my clothes would be soiled with the sweat of a live performer.

-Peter Cunningham 2019