Philly fringe, September 2025

Ascension Death March is a dance-theater-clown ritual of ecstatic futility and sacred failure.

Ascension in stilettos. Strip-clown-theology. A mop becomes a cross, a chair becomes a tomb, and low art gets crucified. Lu Anima conjures a deadpan rebellion against the myth of endless ascent…a tribute to the beautiful wreck of dying into destiny.

At once absurd and sincere, this solo work asks what happens when ambition turns martyrdom, and performance becomes prayer. Through virtuosic movement, failed spectacle, and spiritual misfire, Lu embodies the grind of becoming: the ache to rise above, to be seen, to be sanctified, and the ways we destroy ourselves trying.

Drawing from a lineage of fools, strippers, mystics, and martyrs, Ascension Death March blends high drag with low ritual, sacred imagery with slapstick collapse. There are no easy answers…only big shoes, bigger questions, and a holy mess of striving and breaking.

This piece was made for anyone who’s ever burned out chasing transcendence. For anyone who’s tried to be good enough, high enough, healed enough, impressive enough. And for those beginning to wonder if the fall might be the sacred part after all.