ABOUT THE SHOW

What if you buried your phone and something else came back to life?

Phoneral is a 60-minute participatory street ritual performed by Mycah Hogan, who appears as the last living member of the Breakers — a fictional sect of Rhode Island transcendentalists in the lineage of Quakers and Shakers. For generations, the Breakers have quietly destroyed technologies that sever human connection. Now, only one remains.

Dressed in plain American garb and accompanied by live drums, the Breaker shares tall tales of the machines his people have broken, then invites audience members to surrender their phones for ceremonial burial in a soil-filled casket. What follows is song, story, and dance celebrating presence and connection. The ritual concludes with a "resurrection": participants dig up their phones — now potted with a living plant — receive a blessing, and share a moment of collective silence before returning to the world.

No one is required to give up their phone. The piece welcomes passersby, skeptics, and the deeply committed alike. Phoneral meets people where they are — scrolling, rushing, distracted — and offers a brief, strange, joyful interruption. Audiences leave carrying something growing.

ABOUT THE ARTIST