Posts tagged Steve Joyner

Point 84: CoRE-Constructs of Ritual Evolution

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The following is a blog post on the International Suspension Alliance website entitled “We Are CoRE” dated 9/13/2010:

““I try to remove bricks off the wall of society. In my lifetime, I will probably remove one brick from that wall, and that’s the whole point of this.” –Steve Joyner

Trying to write about Constructs of Ritual Evolution, or CoRE as you might know them, may be one of the most challenging subjects I have taken on. I think a lot of that comes from the fact that what they are doing on stage is more about what you personally take away from it than anything else. It’s emotion; it is about making you think. The beautiful pictures here can’t begin to do justice to watching the real thing and no amount of words could tell you what you would experience seeing it in person. I’m just here to tell you who they are and what they do. As for the rest… well, you would just have to see them yourself to figure that one out.

With an anniversary right around the corner, CoRE is coming up on ten years of performing, educating, and evolving into what it is today. What they are may be the trickiest question to answer. Are they performance art or suspension, actors or educators? The simple answer is all of the above. For as much as they put into entertaining the crowds on stage, just as much is put into their work with the suspension community. With links on their website to educational resources and their classes that range from cross contamination and aftercare to suspension safety, saying that education is an important part of what they do would be a drastic understatement. They take time to attend suspension conventions worldwide, traveling everywhere from Dallas to Israel to share what they know and with the classes he has taught through the Association of Professional Piercers and Professional Piercing Information Systems, CoRE’s founder and director Steve Joyner is a familiar face among both the suspension and piercing communities. Even the live show is a chance for them to teach through their actions on stage. Steve worded it best when he said that whether or not you consider yourself an educator, every time you step on stage, the people in that audience are taking with them what you have done.

CoRE founder Steve Joyner conducting a tour of the BPA exhibit at the APP Conference in 2018.
Photo by Matte Erickson

As for what to expect from CoRE’s live show, it tells us stories that could be taken differently by each person in the audience. Like any good work of art, it is made to reach you on a very personal level. They have worked to bring us something far greater than just people hanging from hooks, what they do on stage is nothing short of breathtaking. Having a cast of performers that range from elegant belly dancers and contortionists to bold and daring fire-breathers and suspension artists, CoRE’s show encompasses a unique blend of rituals, suspensions, and stage performance. Their well coordinated use of light and sound to compliment the acts on stage adds yet another dimension as you watch the show. With a rehearsal schedule that could rival Cirque du Soleil’s, this certainly isn’t just a group fooling around on stage. Every act is carefully prepared, edited, and rehearsed with special attention to the safety and well being of all of those involved.

I am so excited to see what the next ten years has in store for this remarkable group of people. I know we will continue to see many more shows coming up for CoRE in the future and if you have the chance to see them live be sure not to miss out on the opportunity to witness a spectacular performance by this one-of-a-kind theatrical group. You can keep up with upcoming dates, news, and educational events on their website We Are CoRE.

Thank you so much to everyone in CoRE for what you have given to all of us, both inside the suspension community and out. A special thank you to Patricia and Steve for being such a huge help in writing this article.

https://www.facebook.com/wearecore/

Point 84: Piercing with Steve Joyner

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Reprinted from Inkspired Magazine issue 22, 2014, with permission of the publisher.

Story: Sean Dowdell

Photography: Sean Hartgrave

Number of years piercing: 27

SD: What do think is something positive that the comes from the piercing industry, if anything?

SJ: It is adding cultural diversity to our society. It can give individual meaning as an outlet of expression to people.

SD: What would you like other piercers to know that they might not know about you?

SJ: Not a damn thing! Just kidding…! know that I have worked hard to push our industry but at the end of the day, my door is open to anyone who would like to talk to me about piercing. I love teaching and talking to everyone and learning myself. I’m more sensitive than people think. I don’t like arguing or arrogance.

SD: Being a veteran piercer, what advice do you think that most new pierc­ers should be aware of as they climb into our industry?

SJ: Piercers need to SLOW DOWN. Take the time to learn A-Z correctly. They need to go through a real apprenticeship and take it for what it is meant to be.

SD: Is there anything you wish to learn or get better at in the piercing industry?

SJ: Oh yeah! There will always be more techniques and newer equipment. I would love to learn to do hand poking tattoos. I am on my way to learning as well!

Point 83: Conference Performance Art Highlights

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Ron Athey Portrays St. Sebastian with arrows and a hypodermic crown of thorns. From his work in progress “Martyrs and Saints.”
The photo first appeared in issue 49 of Piercing Fans
International Quarterly, 1996

Piercing in Performance:

Recollections from Five Artists

The artists will discuss some highlights of their ca- reers and look back at thematic arcs and motivations for their use of the body in performance.This evening’s event is in three parts: Allen Falkner, Steve Joyner, Lukas Zpira and then Ron Athey with Darryl Carlton. (Open to All)

Speakers:

Ron Athey was born in 1961. Self-educated (not to mention schooled) in the Westcoast punk and exper- imerimental music scenes, he started  making  noise  and body-based performance work with his partner Rozz Williams in 1980, under the name PE. Ron Athey & Co.’s ‘90s work is known as the torture trilogy; it was often a direct or esoteric response to the AIDS pandemic, bodMod, the queer body, the polemics of blood. Solo work and operatic collaborations include Solar Anus, The Judas Cradle, Sebastiane, and the automatism opera, Gifts of the Spirit. Athey is a visiting lecturer at Roski School/USC, teaching a seminar on the history of California-centric countercultures, and periodically facilitates immersive performance art workshops.

Lukas Zpira is a body modification artist, nomadic performer, documentor of the contemporary fringes, and one of the major figures of the contemporary un- derground.

His works, closely related to nouveau realism, dif- fered in style to his writing and photography, which were far more influenced by surrealism and Dadaism, notably Duchamps and Man Ray’s rayographs. It was in 1993 that he took on the name Lukas Zpira, an anagram inspired from the surrealists. Multiple experiences and various exhibitions still left him unsatisfied, and he felt he had quickly reached the limits of his medium. He left the collective in 1995 to turn towards body art.

Soon after, Lukas opened Body Art/Weird Faktory in Avignon, the first studio in France dedicated to body modification.

In early 2004, in Japan, Lukas Zpira developed and wrote the body hacktivism manifesto, an artistic and political movement that asseverates the corporal biodiversity facing beauty standards imposed by Hollywood. More inspired by the bestial extra-terrestrials of Star Trek than the tribal references of the modern primitive movement, this activism of a new genre asserts the heritage of science fiction in the battle for body autonomy.

Additional Speakers:

Darryl Carlton, Allen Falkner, and Steve Joyner

Still image of David Wojnarowicz from his film,
A Fire in My Belly (1986–7).
Photo from issue 49 of
Piercing Fans International Quarterly, 1996.

Body Probe:

A History & Theory of Piercing in Performance Art

Since the late 1960s, performance artists have challenged the limits of art—and frequently courted controversy—through practices of strategic wounding or self-injury. Piercing the skin has been a core technique for testing the performing body’s capacity for pain, pleasure, or endurance—alongside controlled cutting or scarification, repetitive, or sustained action over prolonger durations, sadomasochistic techniques, or the appropriation of medical technologies, including surgery. This lecture will survey a range of uses of piercing in performance; and situate the use of piercing among a broader range of uses of pain, endurance, and body modification in art and performance. I will then proceed to distinguish piercing as a distinct technique or technology in performance art, by teasing out what might be uniquely meaningful in the probing and puncturing of skin, and the spectacle of the permeability of bodies. (Open to All)

Speakers:

Dominic Johnson is Reader (Associate Professor) in Performance and Visual Culture in the School of English and Drama, at Queen Mary University of London. He is the author of Glorious Catastrophe: Jack Smith, Performance and Visual Culture (2012); Theatre & the Visual (2012); and The Art of Living: An Oral History of Performance Art (2015). He is the editor of five books, including most recently Pleading in the Blood: The Art and Performances of Ron Athey (2013); and (with Deirdre Heddon) It’s All Allowed: The Performances of Adrian Howells (2016). From 2005 to 2012, his frequently bloody performances (solo and in collaboration with Ron Athey) were shown around the world, including at festivals of performance and live art in Copenhagen, Ljubljana, Rome, Toronto, Vienna, Zagreb, and elsewhere, and throughout the United Kingdom, including most notably at the National Review of Live Art in Glasgow, and at the National Portrait Gallery in London as part of ‘Gay Icons’.

Point #60: President’s Award Winner: Steve Joyner

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Steve Joyner

One of the things I looked forward to most when I first took my leadership position with the organization was that I would have the pleasure of presenting the President’s Award. As a prior recipient (in 2006), I knew what a great honor it was to receive this recognition. I began to consider a deserving candidate. One name stuck with me: Steve Joyner, my esteemed colleague and friend. Mr. Joyner is a long-time, major contributor to the APP mission of disseminating safe piercing information. He has served admirably as an advocate and representative of our industry for many years and in numerous situations. He’s been a body piercer for a quarter century, and a member of the APP for sixteen of those years. Steve has been a mentor to many and often has worked behind the scenes. His presence and expertise has proved instrumental in many situations. As an instructor, he’s taught classes about suspension and body piercing at APP Conferences, BMXnet (in Germany), and other conferences throughout the world. He’s also founder, director, and executive producer of the suspension performance troupe, Constructs of Ritual Evolution (CoRE). I had the pleasure of serving with him for a three-year term on the Board of Directors when he was vice president of the organization. He founded the Legislation Committee during that term. He has continued to serve on that committee, and on both the Membership Committee and the Executive Committee. In working with legislation, he has helped with body art regulations for at least twenty-five states and five different countries. More recently, he’s been involved in assisting the legislators and Health Departments in California on the regulations for that state. Congratulations to the 2012 recipient of the President’s Award, Mr. Steve Joyner, and thank you for your dedicated service!