Naked breath

Tim Miller is an internationally acclaimed performance artist. Miller's creative work as a performer and writer explores the artistic, spiritual and political topography of his identity as a gay man. Miller's performances have been presented all over North America, Australia, and Europe in such prestigious venues as Yale Repertory Theatre, the Institute of Contemporary Art (London), the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Miller's most recent book 1001 BEDS, an anthology of his performances, essays and journals, was published by University of Wisconsin Press in 2006. Miller has taught performance at UCLA, NYU, the School of Theology at Claremont and at universities all over the US. He is a co-founder of two of the most influential performance spaces in the United States: Performance Space 122 on Manhattan's Lower East Side and Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica, CA. After a nine-year stint in New York City, in 1987 Miller returned home to Los Angeles, California where he was born and raised. He currently lives there with his partner Alistair in Venice Beach.

The sound and physicality of breath comes to the forefront when sexual climax, life, and death intertwine. Presenting vignettes of life, love, suffering, and humor, Tim Miller offers a compelling storytelling about his own life in NYC in the 80s, signaling breathing as life assurance in a moment when the AIDS epidemic and the work with ACT UP dwelled in-between survival and disappearance. This solo piece emerged from Miller's aesthetic ambition to mirror gay society's cultural conflicts while 'trying to find an artistic, spiritual and political response to the AIDS crisis.' 'Do it like your life depends on it,' Miller declares, breathing rhythmically and deeply, 'which it does. In and out. Breathe. Breathe out the lie that we don't belong together. Breathe in the love. Run naked through the streets of L.A. Proclaim the end of sadness. Celebrate the miracle of us.' Song and water make the body vulnerable and strong at the same time, in connection with all those that might be dead but not really gone.