A brown trans masculine person is sitting on the ground wearing cream linen trousers, a cream binder and black durag. They are holding up a candle encased in glass and sitting under a warm red glow in front of an audience.

Image credit: Tara Florence

 

forgive me Lorde, for I am not a warrior
Sym Stellium

Tickets

Thur 16 April | St Ninians Church
3.00 - 5.00pm
Duration: 120 mins
Access Key: BSL, V

“The dichotomy between the spiritual and the political is also false, resulting from an incomplete attention to our erotic knowledge. For the bridge which connects them is formed by the erotic - the sensual - those physical, emotional, and psychic expressions of what is deepest and strongest and richest within each of us, being shared: the passions of love, in its deepest meanings.”

– Audre Lorde, Uses of the Erotic: The Erotics as Power

forgive me, Lorde, for I am not a warrior is a ritual of collectivity. Calling upon our trans and queer ancestors*, Sym will channel the energies of courage, experimentation and the erotic. You are invited to commune in the space and share an attempt at finding ways to endure these times together.

Using Audre Lorde’s Uses of the Erotic as a grounding force – Sym re-centers notions of trans embodied presence and eroticism, through the ability to show up wholly and feel deeply; in lamentation and joy.

The performance is receptive to the energy, wisdom and resilience of trans and queer people who have come before us, who have paved the way in fighting for trans and queer liberation globally. Looking back allows us to bear witness to the struggles they lived and died through; to see transphobia and (trans)misogyny in the wider context of liberation, and tap into wisdom that existed long before us.

forgive me, Lorde, for I am not a warrior exists as a ceremony of (self)possession.

* Ancestor, in this context, is used knowing that trans people everywhere, in every time, are our kin.

Credits:

Performed and devised by Sym Stellium

This performance ritual was first presented at SHOUT's Talk of the Town'event curated by Hassan Hussain in July 2025, as a more text & ritual based form.

Content Notes:
Partial nudity, artist and participating audiences may create loud sounds such as yelling and screaming, and wax being poured onto skin.

This performance will take place in the chapel of St Ninians Episcopal Church beside Tramway, where regular St Ninians services are held. Our event they will be staffed by BUZZCUT’s Front of House team.

Throughout this performance people are free to come and go as they wish.

 
A brown hand with astrological finger tattoos holds three red taper candles. The candles are melting wax over the hand's fingers.

forgive me, Lorde, for I am not a Warrior | Image credit: Sym Stellium

Sym Stellium is a live artist, community facilitator & ritualist – with the exploration of connection/communication on micro/macro levels situated at the core of its practice. Its work mainly revolves around: healing justice, bodily autonomy, ritual & intuition and disconnection from time constructs.

Using a combination of movement, soundscapes, chanting and meditative practices, Sym attempts to create embodied expressions of the ethereal and break down internalised colonial belief systems.

Sym has performed in spaces such as Eastside Projects, Graves Gallery, Mimosa House, NN Contemporary and Ban Workshop, Dakar. Sym has offered artistic access and spiritual care in the UK & Europe - and facilitated workshops for groups such as BLM, Peaks of Colour, MAIA, Birmingham Hippodrome and UNMUTED. Sym has featured in moving image works that have exhibited in Mimosa House, Graves Gallery and Grand Union.

Image Credit Sym Stellium | A sigil for Audre Lorde's energy of the Erotic, a sigil for Marsha P. Johnson's energy of courage, and a sigil for SOPHIE's energy of experimentation