28-03-2025
Cinema Detroit fundraiser to feature concert film recalling memorable Satori Circus show
After 37 years of delivering the unexpected, the performance artist known as Satori Circus is virtually a metro Detroit legend — something few weirdly fascinating, envelope-pushing, avant-garde entertainers can say for themselves.
Now the theatrical purveyor of what he has described to the Free Press as 'pure energy' is the focus of an evening benefiting Cinema Detroit.
At 5:30 p.m. Sunday, Cinema Detroit will screen the world premiere of the concert film 'These Are My Friends: An Evening with Satori Circus' at Planet Ant's Ant Hall in Hamtramck.
It's described as a new film of the memorable Satori Circus concert held at Pontiac's Crofoot Ballroom in 2018 and featuring a roster of special guests: the Theatre Bizarre Orchestra, Pinch and Squeal of Wizbang Theatre, Josie Pace, Lushes Lamoan and Scotty D and lounge singer Konrad Lee.
As the the promotional material puts it: 'If you were there, you know. If you missed it, now is your chance!'
The event is a fundraiser for Cinema Detroit, which has built a reputation for serving the community with eclectic, often socially relevant movies. Launched in 2013 by founder and programmer Paula Guthat, Cinema Detroit had to leave its rented Midtown space two years ago.
Since then, Guthat has been keeping Cinema Detroit alive with pop-up screenings at venues like Planet Ant.
Following the movie, there will be a live performance by Lee and a question-and-answer session with Satori Circus and the filmmakers. Tickets are $25 and $30 and available at the Cinema Detroit website.
The artist who dons the wardrobe and makeup to become Satori Circus, University of Michigan School of Art & Design alum Russell Taylor, made the leap from rock and punk music to performance art as his signature character in 1988.
As he told the Free Press in 2017 about the evolution of his alter ego, 'One harebrained day, I decided that I was bored playing in front of people in that band manner and wanted to try something different, something more performative, more arty-farty, something that David Bowie might do. So it became something more stylized and glamorous and theatrical.'
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Neither a clown nor a mime, Satori Circus is more of a one-man provider of the unusual who blends elements of music, dance and storytelling in his pieces.
His 2023 work 'SeaStories: Part Three,' for instance, had him portraying a man who, as the Oakland Press vividly described, is 'kidnapped by clown traffickers (though he's no clown, despite his white face paint and attire) and winds up shipwrecked on a tiny island in the Bermuda Triangle for five years, using a large cache of (dental) floss to create items to help him to live.'
An artist like Satori Circus should feel right at home with Cinema Detroit's dedication to bringing unique, often hard-to-find works to the Motor City region.
Contact Detroit Free Press pop culture critic Julie Hinds at jhinds@
5:30 p.m. Sun.
Planet Ant's Ant Hall
2320 Caniff, Hamtramck
Tickets are $25 and $30 at Cinema Detroit website.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Cinema Detroit fundraiser features unique Satori Circus concert film
