Rashad Pridgen
The Bio Spirit Safety Suit
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​Images: Biosuit with Johnny Nguyen - Photo by Tommy Lau. 
              Biosuit with Brit Frazier - Photo by Joan Osato.


​Artist Statement
The Global Street Dance Masquerade conceptualized by Rashad Pridgen presents The Bio-Spirit Safety Suit: an on-going six year long project, premiered in 2015 in San Francisco California. In collaboration with researcher & scientist: Patricia Defecherux, Sankofa Center & apparel designer Ronnie Shaw, Dance Mission Theater and program director Stella Adelman, featuring performing artists: Pippa Flemming, Brit Frazier, Johnny Nguyen, Adan Ortega, Dazie Grego, Sean San Jose with collaborating performers from Campo Santo and design partnership with San Francisco’s Praxis Clothing head seamstress Mary Hogue.
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The Bio Spirit Safety Suit is a: public art ritual, site specific procession, community outreach practice and transdisciplinary response to the 21st century HIV/AIDS epidemic. Exploring a variety of questions: How do the performing arts and science work together to fight the AIDS epidemic? What are the new visions of prevention? Who are the ancestors speaking to the medical and social justice community? How do we honor local and global icons we have lost to the AIDS epidemic?

An Afrofuturist Diasporic creation, the project honors lives lost to the HIV & AIDS crisis by re-envisioning the Orisha (angelic force) Babalu-Aye / Omolu, strongly associated with infectious disease and healing. The suit is sent out into community and festivals to communicate through dance movement. This futuristic approach invokes the masquerade practice with street dance, with red representing the blood and the design structure resembling the angelic force.



Rashad Pridgen
Independent Performance Artist
Is a multidisciplinary performance artist and creative director, he is the conceptual creator of the Global Street Dance Project & Masquerade, a multimedia presentation of street dance and Afrofuturist masquerade suits, presented in alternative environments. Rashad’s work’s span dance, theater, public practice, tech, video, film, fashion and creative project making. Recent works include: Today at Apple, Record A Global Street Dance with Apple Union Square San Francisco. Artistic director of The Black Lives Masquerade short film with national showings at the San Francisco Public Library, Berkeley Art Museum, Duke University and Portland Art Museum. He is the conceptual director and choreographer of Ethos de Masquerade, a theatrical version of the Global Street Dance Masquerade in partnership with Camp Santos and Strand Theater S.F The masquerade has collaborated with Sadie Barnett’s Eagle Creek Saloon presenting at the SF LAB San Francisco and the Institute Of Contemporary Art Los Angeles. 
For more of his artistry: www.rashadxsoulnubian.com


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