For nearly three years now, I’ve lived ten minutes away from The Center for Arts at the Armory in Somerville, MA. For nearly three years now, I’ve wanted to check out the community art space. But for nearly three years now, I’ve been mostly holed up in my apartment due to a little global pandemic and other fun facts of life.
At LAST I visited the Armory this past weekend to see queer performance artist and musician Bitch perform her one-woman musical, Bitchcraft.
The most surprising thing about the Armory to me (and this isn’t obvious in pictures online) is that it is located very much in a residential neighborhood. At first the Lyft dropped me off in front of someone’s house on Highland Ave and I was like, “excuse me?” until I saw the strange stark white building up ahead in the dark.
As a concert venue (at least for this particular concert), the Armory had a laid-back, communal DIY, “we just built this tonight” vibe that personally I really like. Think folding chairs, bulletin boards, volunteers, and a beer-and-wine-only bar.
The charming scrappiness of it all was made even more apparent when it came to the show, which had some sound and technical difficulties that derailed the musical for a good ten minutes. Bitch and the Bitchcraft crew made light of it, engaging with the audience as we patiently waited for things to resume (this was definitely NOT a boo-hiss kind of crowd). “So what the microphone doesn’t work? We’re all going to die someday anyway!”
These pauses allowed me time to take in my surroundings. The Armory is an odd building both inside and out. The ceiling in the performance hall has exposed pipes, beams, and insulation. Curtains only partially cover the half round windows. The shape of the room was is a bit irregular. Naturally, I found myself wondering about the history of the place.
“Here we are, together, in an old weapons hall,” Bitch joked at one point during the show. I thought, oh, right. Armory. Arms. Weapons.
According to the History page on the Arts for the Armory’s website, the building was constructed in 1903 for the Somerville Light Infantry of the Massachusetts Volunteer Militia. It housed the MA National Guard for nearly 70 years and has been a community arts center since 2008. And that’s about all I can find online about it.
Now knowing I was in an old military building singing along to Pussy Manifesto with a buncha dykes just makes the whole experience feel that much more surreal (and wonderful).