Two Long COVID-focused performances show the power of art for reflection and solidarity

Shut out from traditional performance venues, chronically ill artists imagine new spaces for themselves and their communities.

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Two performances on April 24, in New York City and online, demonstrated how arts and theater spaces have become increasingly inaccessible to people with Long COVID, other chronic illnesses, and disabilities over the course of the ongoing pandemic — and how those artists are creating new spaces for themselves.

In the first event, an anonymous collective of artists called Holy Erotic Propaganda Arson (HEPA for short) offered a series of monologues about artists and community members whose lives have drastically changed due to COVID-19 and Long COVID. The show was titled “Wake Up and Smell the COVID: An Evening Without Eric Bogosian.” (Eric Bogosian, an actor and playwright known for a film called “Wake Up and Smell the Coffee,” among other works, was not affiliated with the performance.)

Later that day, an audience gathered in Brooklyn, New York, for artist Anna RG’s “AIR CHANGE PER HOUR,” a concert in which the lead performers were air purifiers and, via audio recordings, “sick/tired/disabled artists,” as the show described them. Anna RG, who has Long COVID, developed the show as part of their residency at the innovative music venue Issue Project Room.

Both shows uplifted people with Long COVID and related diseases and disabilities, creating collaborative spaces where their lived experiences were celebrated, not dismissed. “AIR CHANGE PER HOUR” also demonstrated new ways to make an in-person show more accessible to chronically ill audience members, inviting people to lie down and building in frequent rest breaks. The performances may serve as examples to other artists and advocates, and show that audiences crave art that addresses the continuing pandemic head-on rather than ignoring it.

A collective grief ritual

In the days leading up to the “Wake Up and Smell the COVID” performance, members of the HEPA collective and their comrades staged a decentralized action: people placed signs reading “Wake up and smell the C*VID” on empty chairs in different locations around the world. Some placed these chairs in cities’ theater districts, including one at the Public Theater in New York City, while others joined from more remote regions. A collaborator group called Mask for Pleasure also distributed free masks to NYC theatergoers in early April.

These actions did not advertise the show itself, but instead asked passersby to stop and consider how COVID-19 has devastated theater and arts communities. The event similarly focused on this theme of loss and grief, and embodied refusal to simply “move on” from COVID-19.

In introducing the show, a pair of anonymous emcees described it as a “grief ritual” and an opportunity to connect. Rather than a polished theater experience, the show — which was developed in about a month — shared windows into common experiences for those living with and/or trying to avoid the long-term consequences of SARS-CoV-2 infection. It included a series of six monologues, shared as audio files played for the audience, as well as songs at the beginning and end.

The show’s organizers originally planned for an in-person venue in New York City but decided to forgo that option after considering how the cost of a venue rental could better be reinvested in their community, one member of the collective explained in an email to The Sick Times. In lieu of tickets, organizers requested that attendees donate to Mask Bloc NYC and artists with Long COVID.

The monologues covered a range of forms and genres: some were more satirical, others more earnest, one a romance scene between two people with very different approaches to COVID-19 risk. But all shared common questions and emotions.

While watching, we noted evocative descriptions of the physical changes many people have experienced due to COVID-19, such as this depiction of cognitive symptoms from the first monologue: “It’s like someone wiped my hard drive with bleach and shame.” Or the description of tachycardia from the sixth monologue: “My pulse is a metronome gone feral.”

All the monologues circled around the idea of absence. The narrators missed their personal connections — colleagues, friends, family members, lovers — and many also felt lost without their art. 

Some of them lost their audiences. In the second monologue, “Joke’s On Us,” a comedian with Long COVID reminisced on how his mentor would help ease the stage fright of new performers by telling them the audience was not a firing squad. “But it kind of is now, isn’t it?” he said. “All the people facing one direction, breathing pathogens at comedians, standing center stage.”

Similarly, in the sixth monologue, “The Fourth in the Fire,” a theater performer reckoned with losing theater spaces. “I used to say theater was the church where we told the truth,” he said. “But we didn’t, not really. We told the truth that got reviews. We missed the truth about the air. The goddamn air. The fundamental medium we share.” 

Most of all, though, the performers expressed the keen grief that comes with the loss of the ability to create. “I miss it [performing],” the second monologue said. “But I miss having a functional brain more.”

I miss it [performing]. But I miss having a functional brain more.

“Joke’s on us” monologue

Duet with air purifiers

“AIR CHANGE PER HOUR” similarly responded to art institutions’ broad abandonment of performers with Long COVID and those trying to still protect themselves from SARS-CoV-2 infection. The show’s program featured anonymized messages that disabled artists had sent to colleagues, explaining that they would need collective masking to perform in person — a heading among the emails read, “NO RESPONSE.”

In addition to mask requirements, some artists have tried to improve COVID-19 safety at their shows by bringing air purifiers. Anna RG herself is part of Artists in Resistance (A.I.R.) NYC, a local organization that operates a free air purifier lending library for arts and community events. The show featured five air purifiers from A.I.R. NYC’s library, selected and placed based on RG and colleagues’ calculations for how to achieve expert-recommended airflow in the venue.

When artists request air purifiers at events, they often face pushback: “they said purifiers were too loud” and “held silence over safety,” the program read. Challenging this notion, RG’s performance put the air purifiers in center stage — not only sitting in the center of the room, but also a central instrument for musical composition. Sound from the purifiers echoed throughout the two-hour show, mixed with more traditional instruments (piano, guitar), singing, chanting, and other sounds recorded by disabled artists.

“Too many rooms still sound like they did in 2019,” one of RG’s fellow A.I.R. NYC organizers said during the performance. “They are missing this B-flat,” referring to the musical tone at which the air purifiers whir. The organizer described how A.I.R.’s purifiers have played duets at a variety of events throughout the city, ranging from “duet with saxophone” to “duet with know your rights presentation.”

Too many rooms still sound like they did in 2019 … They are missing this B-flat.

Air Change Per Hour

In another central piece of the concert, RG presented a chorus of breathing. Fifteen “sick/tired/disabled” artists had recorded their breaths, which RG compiled into a musical collage titled “sounds for sick breath/rest.” The chorus, with a slow rise and fall from silence to near-cacophony and back again, reflected the long periods of stillness that often come with chronic illness, but it also captured a sense of community. Even though the artists recorded this piece alone in their bedrooms, on the auditory stage, they were a collective.

Near the start of the show, RG apologized to the audience that the chairs at Issue Project Room were not more comfortable, and then clarified: “I’m sorry that the chairs are not beds.” Despite this constraints of the space, “AIR CHANGE PER HOUR” invited audience members to make themselves comfortable: pillows and yoga mats were available for people to lie down. The show met other access needs by requiring masks, offering live captions and audio and image descriptions, and including several rest breaks throughout the performance.

The performance also invited audience members to make connections between the challenges facing people with Long COVID and those in Palestine. Via a recording mixed with music and sound effects, Jenna Laila Bitar read passages about their experience as a Palestinian with Long COVID (adapted from their essay originally published in The Sick Times), explaining that it’s impossible for them to “rest” by avoiding the news: “I’m never going to prioritize my healing over anyone else’s.” RG also asked audience members to consider donating to fundraisers for people in Gaza.

“AIR CHANGE PER HOUR” closed with the audience humming together, while “Wake Up and Smell the COVID” closed with the event’s Zoom chat staying available for conversation long after the program had officially closed. Both performances had packed, engaged audiences — suggesting that even when events like this may be suppressed by social media algorithms that don’t want us to think about COVID-19, the community who refuses to “move on” is still hungry for spaces where they can connect.

Through creating new community spaces, artists who have been shut out of more traditional venues can lift each other up. Toward the end of “Wake Up and Smell the COVID,” one of the emcees said: “The grief is too big to mourn, but together we can hold it.”

The grief is too big to mourn, but together we can hold it.

“Wake up and smell the COVID” emcee

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Heather Hogan contributed reporting and writing.

“Wake Up and Smell the COVID” was not recorded and will “live as community memory,” per one organizer. Follow the HEPA collective on Instagram for further updates.

“AIR CHANGE PER HOUR” was recorded; Anna RG told The Sick Times that an asynchronous version of the piece using that recording will be available sometime this summer. Sign up for their mailing list at sickcenter.net for updates.

Editor’s note, April 29, 5 PM Eastern: This story has been updated to clarify the requested donation policy for “Wake Up and Smell the COVID.”

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