Premiere: Hess Is More - "It's Backwards No Matter What I Do"

The show was elaborated across five courses: BREAKING BREAD, THE MOUTH, THE CHEST, THE LEGS, THE FEET. With a menu conceptualized by Rotten Mother and Lys Berumen, we were treated to not only a performance before each dish, but also a curated variety of food to accompany it.

BREAKING BREAD began with two servers gracefully and carefully pulling the cloth off Von, revealing her motionless body. Von lay patiently while the servers decorated her body with red and black dips, red crackers, and crowns of bread placed around her head. The religious iconography was stark and recognizable, and Mass was in session. And the big reveal was: Von was the first course. She had us eat crackers and bread off her body.

THE MOUTH began when I looked back after fifteen minutes of conversation with the others at my table, and I saw her shivering. Von climbed onto the bar and was front and center, sitting with her legs wide open. This whole time, she was lying on top of a wooden cross, and the anticipation was definitely felt around the room when a group of seven or eight came out and joined, hand in hand. They proceeded with a Catholic “Sign of Peace,” which was followed immediately by Von sporting a sort of leather gag with an opening for her mouth before dishes for the second course were brought out. Eroticism as a theme was immediately present the second the first course was over. But after Von let the servers stuff some kind of fruit into her mouth, they brought two separate plates to her mouth; she spits onto them, yet again garnishing the courses with her own body; the eroticism is pushed further and further. The servers congregated back around the table, and they stood there for a minute, passing the numerous dishes amongst each other, and the receivers of the saliva-garnished dishes remain unknown. Von crawled across the bar, with the wooden cross resting on her shoulder, and she disappeared into the back.

THE CHEST featured Von crawling across the bar again, this time with an outfit change. She was wearing some kind of clear plastic bra, already filled with juices. I noticed the shift in music, which was a mixture of electronic beats over squeamish eating and drinking sounds. She prepared the dishes with a huge rosary of the same red fruit, which she prayed over before squeezing and juicing the fruit to a pulp, effectively destroying the rosary. A server grabbed some of the juice from Von’s boobs and threw it over the dishes. Alas, she crawled across the bar and exited again.

THE LEGS performance was some freaky shit. For the first time, the star of the show was not Von, but rather a sapphic couple. The relationship and chemistry between these two performers were absolutely electric. The priest donned needles, cleaned off the bride’s forehead with alcohol pads— this entire process was all very sanitary— and proceeded to pierce her. Not once, not twice, but at least six times, she pierced her forehead. After this, there is some slight bondage. Using rather large chain-links, the priest first tied up the bride. Then, rather shockingly, the priest revealed a scalpel— yes, a scalpel— to the audience, before bringing it to show the bride, who then nodded yes in response. She made incisions on the bride’s back in an X. They ended the performance by removing the needles from her forehead, and the priest guided the bride around the room with blood, REAL BLOOD, trickling down her face and back. They made out. This part was definitely the most unsettling and uncomfortable to watch. It was handled with such tact and precision, though, that it really allowed the performance to stay a performance. Consent was a decisive factor throughout the entire time, and the priest handled the bride with such concern and love. It was, simply put, beautiful.

THE FEET was high-energy and a great follow-up to the body horror that was previously presented. We were served a delicious dessert, and she crawled back out onto the bar. With a continuation of the religious imagery, she aggressively washed her feet, and the sonic environment intensified. She performed INSATIABLE; her stage presence was so enthralling, she danced around on the table and tore off clothes; the lights flashed. This was the performance of the night. She ended the same way she started, lying down flat on the table, covered with a cloth. This time, the servers worked together to carry her out of the room and out of sight.

EAT OR LEAVE HUNGRY was a thrilling and horrifying performance piece that addressed the distinctive intersection of eroticism, performance art, sonic excellence, fine dining, and religious iconography. Von, during the afterparty, expressed her gratitude and gushed over her team. "I think in a strange time when artists intake a lot of noise about why it's most optimal to reduce, condense, make more legible, more digestible literally, the work," she said, "I feel so grateful to kind of always find myself in a cohort of creatives that just ruthlessly reject that." EAT OR LEAVE HUNGRY was a fiercely provocative piece that wasn’t afraid of the fact that its content is shocking, or that it may not be palatable on a mainstream scale. Its artistic integrity is in the fact that you don't need to look far into Von to make the connection that this kind of work only comes from a deeply passionate, soulful person. So as I left that night, I was hungry. I was hungry for art, crazy sex, electronic music, dancing, and, most especially, Von’s god-damn album.