“When I moved to New York at age 17, I was very repressed. “Dance floors are where I found freedom,” the Venezuelan-born artist said over a video call from her home in Barcelona, Spain, her lips painted a crimson red and a stainless steel choker clinging tightly around her neck. Since then, Alejandra Ghersi has become a multidisciplinary performance artist, producer and singer, but her years as a club kid - abundant with improvisation, spontaneity and openness - remain a foundational part of her identity.

Her relative anonymity allowed her to let loose in front of the small crowd, and those who clicked with the percussive, ululating machinations that filtered out of her USB hollered and jerked along. Only a handful of people in the crowd knew who she was - at the time, she was mostly an experimental electronic producer with a reputation for harnessing industrial dissonance, the high drama of classical composition and uncomfortable metallic grit. She plugged in her USB and grinned as she blasted unreleased treasures, filling the room with glitchy electronic shrapnel that would become her devastating self-titled album a few months later. Before long, Arca took over the turntables, and anticipation and curiosity percolated through the air.

An ensemble of art school kids and unsuspecting patrons milled about, while a D.J. On a frigid February night in 2017, Arca and a cabal of fashion and nightlife icons strolled into the Lower East Side basement dive bar Home Sweet Home.

Five nights at pinkies games