All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare. - Spinoza

"With Bright Spines" is q-Staff's fourth original performance creation. In collaboration with an expanded group of musicians and performers, q-Staff has crafted a unique exploration of things prickly. "With Bright Spines" embraces the cacti and other spiny denizens of our desert landscape, finding metaphors for prickly personages - artists, dissidents, and marginals - and delving into the philosophy and figure of Baruch Spinoza, a heretic and outcast whose name means "thorn" or "spine." "With Bright Spines" examines survival and defense, but also bloom - in a beautifully crafted performance world.