On Saturday, May 11, Atlas Obscura will present Ascend Ascend with Janaka Stucky at the San Damiano Mission Catholic Church (85 North 15th Street) in Greenpoint.
Written over the course of 20 days coming in and out of trance states while secluded in the tower of a 100-year-old church, Janaka Stucky‘s new book ASCEND ASCEND is rooted in the Jewish mystical tradition of Hekhalot literature, which chronicles an ascent up the Kabbalistic Tree of Life to witness the “chariot of God.” Equal parts Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” and Funkadelic’s “Maggot Brain,” this long poem documents the ecstatic destruction of the self through its union with the divine.
Janaka will be presenting this new work in its entirety as an immersive, multidisciplinary performance involving light, scent, and sound to create a visceral interpretation of ritual that invokes mythography across cultural and corporeal boundaries.
Atlas Obscura and Third Man Books will be taking this on a seven-city tour with D.C. up next. The May 11th Brooklyn appearance will kick off the tour with a special appearance from Mark Korven playing an instrument of his own creation, the Apprehension Engine.
Tickets, $38 each, include a copy of Stucky’s book, with an option available to acquire a deluxe, limited-edition only available on this Atlas Obscura tour. Tickets available for purchase here.
ABOUT JANAKA STUCKY
Janaka Stucky is a mystic poet, performer, and founding editor of the award-winning press Black Ocean. In 2015 Jack White’s Third Man Records launched a new publishing imprint, Third Man Books, and chose Janaka’s full-length poetry collection, The Truth Is We Are Perfect, as their inaugural title. He is the author of four poetry collections, is a two-time National Haiku Champion, and has taught or performed in over 60 cities around the world.
