SANCTOMB

SANCTOMB is a performance art project that questions the afterlife – who it is created for, and who is denied access. Through choreographic exploration, we examine how religious power structures have historically excluded queer bodies from the sacred, and how these exclusions still shape our society today. By invoking a queer sacred body – a body that does not need to be cleansed, transformed, or forgiven in order to exist – we attempt to create our own queer liturgy: a space for community, comfort, and hope on our own terms.

Throughout history, religion has operated as an apparatus of power, used to control and define who has access to the sacred. In many religious narratives, we – as a trans woman and a homosexual man – are placed among those "condemned" to eternal punishment in hell: a position imposed upon us through normatively charged stories. At the same time, these narratives of the afterlife have been a source of comfort for many, offering a framework for understanding the meaning of life, especially when faced with the inevitability of death. But what happens to those who have never been allowed into that comfort?

SANCTOMB seeks to navigate this landscape of tradition and power. How can we, as queer individuals without religious belonging, find an equivalent force – a space that holds the meaning of life? Through choreographic exploration, we examine bodily, spatial, and spiritual states that might generate new communities, detached from established traditions and historical narratives. By redefining ideas of the afterlife, we search for new ways of living on – spiritually and physically – as queer individuals.