Selected works in performance and poetry, cosplay and film, zines and comics by ZiggZaggerZ the Bastard.
ZiggZaggerZ live performance at Pomona College, 2019
• ZiggZaggerZ artist website
• download TWO PAGE BIO
• PlanetNoir.net: manifestos, comix & cosplay images
SHORT BIO. ZiggZaggerZ the Bastard, a.k.a. Shannon Theus (Los Angeles), is a transmedia artist, performance poet, filmmaker and black cosplayer. She is author of the two-part zine The Bastard’s Manifesto (2018), in which she calls for the revolution of human identity through alien becoming, lived science fiction, and cosplay. As an artist, the cosmic world of ZiggZaggerZ explores how radical black becomings afford inventive escapes, reimaginings, and adaptations to markers of disability, gender, and race. Her radical black cosplay and performance poetry has been featured in the journals Women and Language, In Media Res, and the Journal of Future Studies. In 2018, ZiggZaggerZ starred in LOST ALIEN, an Afrofuturist short film that blends surrealist and silent filmmaking to capture ZiggZaggerZ as a photosensitive black alien marooned on a sunlit planet. ZiggZaggerZ has performed as an invited artist/poet for the Afrofuturistic Day at the California African-American Museum (CAAM) in 2019, at the 2018 Our_Futures conference at Quest University, Canada, at the 2018 Speculative Futures of Race Symposium at University of California Riverside, at the Los Angeles editions of BSAM (Black Speculative Arts Movement) in 2018 and 2019, and at the 2017 Science Fiction Research Association. She is Los Angeles Coordinator of the Black Speculative Arts Movement (BSAM) and Recording Secretary of the Culver City Democratic Club. As part of efforts to stop oil fracking in Los Angeles, ZiggZaggerZ has turned cosplay into cause-play, performing Gamora in public interventions at Culver City Hall. As a professional cosplayer, Shannon Theus debuted on The View with Whoopi Goldberg, performing as Frank Beddor’s Wonderland character Queen of Clubs. She has cosplayed at international comic-cons and festivals as JetSeer, Uhura, Queen Hippolyta, Wonder Woman, Kali, Kiko, Leeloo, and MadCatwoman.
PERFORMANCE POETRY
2019. Live at Afrofuturistic Day, hosted by California African-American Museum (CAAM) at Leimert Park
2018. Abominated in Women & Language 40(2)
2016–2018. ZiggZaggerZ performance poetry
• unreleased rehearsal versions that have since been performed in public
FILM
2018. Lost Alien • dir. tobias c. van Veen
—> private preview on Vimeo [password: lostalien]; film info here
• Features soundtrack of IO SOUND sound/art releases + new compositions
• Funded by Canada Council for the Arts New Chapter Program
• Commissioned & distributed by Cinema Politica
• Part of The Next 150: Documentary Futurism short film series
Blending documentary techniques with surrealist and silent filmmaking, LOST ALIEN captures the Afrofuturist cosplay of ZiggZaggerZ the Bastard as a photosensitive black alien stranded on a sunlit planet. Cinematography, editing & sound by tobias c. van Veen; performance cosplay by ZiggZaggerZ.
INTERVIEWS with ZiggZaggerZ
2018. ZiggZaggerZ on Other Planes podcast
ZINES by ZiggZaggerZ
In The Bastard’s Manifesto, ZiggZaggerZ calls for a black feminist + posthuman revolt against the violence of humanism & the patriarchy, advocating for cosplay, science fiction and radical performance to overcome Human Identity. Written & conceptualized by ZiggZaggerZ, with photography & design by tobias c. van Veen, published on the collaborative Planet Noir imprint.
2018. ZiggZaggerZ Zine #01: The Bastard’s Manifesto (Pt I)
• PDF web version available here (not for sharing); Etsy link
2018. ZiggZaggerZ Zine #02: The Declaration of Bastardy (Pt II)
• PDF web version available here (not for sharing); Etsy link
ARTICLES on ZIGGZAGGERZ:
2019. “Afrofutures of Cosplay: Deviance & DiY in Black Fantastic Performance.” Journal of Future Studies 24(2): 75–84.
2018. “Ab Homine: Notes on the Abominable.” Women & Language 40(2): 42–46. Accompanying text to ZiggZaggerZ’s “Abominable.”
2018. “Cosplay, Race, and Becoming.” In Media Res (13 September). Discussion of collaborative work with ZiggZaggerZ in cosplay and photography.
