Performance artist and choreographer Karen Bernard will present her new interdisciplinary work, Lakeside, Thursday–Saturday, February 6–8, at 8pm, at the Salon/Douglas Dunn Studio, 541 Broadway (between Prince and Spring Streets), in Manhattan.

Karen Bernard presents a haunting new performance confronting the memory of trauma and its lasting impact on the body. Using a found costume from her past (a bright yellow and black body suit), Bernard conjures a scene where she and her collaborator Lisa Parra inhabit roles of victim, witness, and murderer, crisscrossing identities through minimalistic movements that have the power to deliver an emotionally charged wallop characteristic of Bernard's layered and introspective work. The costume itself is imbued with a personality that is passed back and forth between Bernard and Parra, pointing to a shared experience of physical terror. The act of watching and bearing witness to violence is subtly interrogated, leading us to question what spectatorship means in a culture that regularly transmits and consumes violent imagery done to female bodies.

Lakeside is performed by Karen Bernard and Lisa Parra. Dramaturgy by Andi Villa Stover. Soundscore by Boris Billier. Video by Karen Bernard.