Waking
The Dead

Cleo Wolfus is almost 6 feet tall. But in her street clothes, red hair pulled away from her pale, bespectacled face, she looks like just another Seattle woman trying not to drown on a typical windy, rainy January day in the urban Northwest. But the 30-year old Fremont performance artist does have the ability to embrace a "look" that is bound to attract attention.

Wolfus is the driving force behind Dead Awake, a protest organization struggling to be born. Wolfus said she is seeking help to "stop the zombiefication of Americans."

Wolfus posted a call for fellow marchers on the Internet and via fliers to turn out for the January 16 Martin Luther King Jr. march in the Central Area.

"From civil rights to anti-war efforts, help build and unify Seattle's activist community. Join us in representing the masses as 'Zombie.' Confront the apathy in yourself to give others the courage to do the same," Wolfus wrote in her marching orders on the Web and on paper.

The catch is that Wolfus and her followers dress up like zombies (the undead) in full makeup, which includes fake bruises and fake blood.

Last week, though, she was considering abandoning her plans for the debut of the Dead Awake Zombies as the annual M.L. King Jr. Day celebration of the slain civil rights leader. Her initial call on the Internet garnered an overwhelmingly negative response.

Wolfus said she received almost 70 e-mail responses in a mere 48 hours. She saw words like "disrespect" and phrases like "children of privilege." Wolfus, a novice in the politics of protest, seemed shaken.

"I really won't do it without permission. For this one, I need an invitation," the L.A. native who has lived in Seattle for the last six years, said last week. "I will go as an individual, with regular clothes, and maybe hand out fliers for a future event," she added.

Wolfus said she had planned to use local stilters (folks on stilts) to attack other folks dressed as "pig-faced imperialists." "It's a social experiment," she explained.

Wolfus said the Dead Awake have already had a couple of parades 'just for fun' in the Ballard and Fremont areas. Wolfus said more than 100 folks showed up for the Fremont event and that a similar Halloween parade in Ballard drew more than 75 people, most in full makeup. Wolfus said she expected a smaller turnout for the King march---"maybe 10 to 15 people."

Wolfus said she had always been more interested in art than politics but that a labor organizer who attended one of the Zombies fun events turned her on to "Rules for Radicals," union leader Saul Alinsky's 1971 handbook for fighting the system.

Wolfus said the book changed her way of thinking and made her want to try and effect social change in a way that might also be fun for her fellow protestors.

--- © 2006 North Seattle Herald-Outlook