by DAWN JANSEN of SWEVEN
In a provocative reinterpretation of the classic peep show, Sweven’s performance transported audiences into a dreamlike realm where eroticism and surrealism intertwined. With two distinct, ten-minute performances—echoing the fleeting yet vivid nature of dreams—the event blurred boundaries between high art and carnal spectacle.
Custom Couture: Handmade Lingerie Meets Vintage Erotica
The performers were adorned in bespoke creations: overt lingerie crafted from vintage materials, interlaced with handmade kink accessories sourced from Ukrainian artisans. These pieces were complemented by luxury European lingerie, grounding the avant-garde aesthetic in sensual elegance. Among the highlights was yoni egg body jewelry, a delicate fusion of fetish and fine craftsmanship, making each performer an art piece in motion.
A Soundscape of Hypnotic Eroticism
The soundtrack itself was an exercise in boundary-pushing creativity. Original tracks, mixed in-house, combined recordings of real female orgasms—gathered from an open Instagram call—with animalistic sounds of chickens and horses. This blend created a hypnotic, otherworldly soundscape that heightened the illusion of performers as half-human, half-barnyard creatures, teasing the edges of reality and fantasy.
An Interactive Peep Wall: Where Art Meets Voyeurism
The centerpiece of the experience was a peep wall disguised as a gallery installation. Framed peep holes provided tantalizing glimpses of the performances, while decoy frames added levity with their feigned opacity. A glory hole equipped with a hand invited moments of unexpected intimacy, and framed windows paid homage to the voyeuristic allure of the red-light district, transforming the wall into an interactive tableau.
Barnyard Erotica: Performance Art with a Wild Edge
The performances themselves reimagined women as barnyard animals in a series of surreal and boundary-defying acts. Highlights included:
• A cow dribbling milk over her body and spanking herself with a raw steak.
• A chicken balancing egg yolks on her tongue, melding fragility with control.
• A rabbit masturbating with a painted rabbit figure and simultaneously blowing a carrot.
• A horse engaging in a penetrative strap-on scene, an audacious nod to the mythos of the infamous donkey shows of Mexico.
Through these vignettes and more, the show transformed nudity into an exploration of power, absurdity, and the erotic subconscious.
Eroticism Reimagined
Far from mere titillation, this peep show celebrated performance art as a vessel for subversion and exploration. Each act invited audiences to reconsider the boundaries of desire, humor, and the human form—reminding us all that the erotic is as much about imagination as it is about flesh.
Sweven is an erotic performance art company and brainchild of Dawn Jansen and is redefining the sensual entertainment and off the wall experience landscape in Los Angeles. Sweven is not a sex party nor is the emphasis on sex. Although they have performed at plenty of secret affluent and not so secret local sex parties in Los Angeles. Instead, Sweven puts the focus on individuality, celebrating female expression and creative play, and presents women on their terms while perpetuating experimental erotic situations for the audience to ponder what it means to be “turned on”.
Founded in 2019 and emerging from a residency at Raspoutine nightclub, Sweven blends the provocative with the artistic, curating immersive and improvisational experiences that organically explore themes of kink and fetishism without relying on traditional notions of “sexy.” With an all-female cast, each intimate show draws from high-fashion photography, vintage erotic films, and avant-garde art, inviting audiences into a world where the elegant and the explicit intertwine. It was in fact at an Ellen Von Unwerth gallery show, long before Sweven was realized, that a seed in Dawn’s psyche was planted when she observed the free spirited, glamorous, and playfully erotic nature of the models and the way they were captured in the photographs and thought to herself, “I’d like to watch a photoshoot like this. There’s nothing more intoxicating than observing unhinged women playing together!”. Sweven’s unique performances transform historical or architecturally interesting private estates, nightclubs, and members-only spaces into voyeuristic journeys that challenge and expand the viewer’s understanding of eroticism.
A San Diego native, Dawn studied dance, specifically ballet, intensively for most of her childhood and teen years and attended The San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts which is where her formal education ended. Life school promptly began as she strived to keep her passion for the arts alive while entering the workforce and obtaining her first official job at Victoria’s Secret. Simultaneously, she became a professional cheerleader for the San Diego Gulls hockey team. When the team folded, she was offered a position as a “go go dancer” by a friend, a highly coveted role for dancers at that time in San Diego. Themes of sophistication and raunch and a life of constant contradiction would unfold from here on out. Starting in the window of a Hustler store in Downtown San Diego, she would go on to dance in many of the popular nightclubs and festivals downtown and eventually the Playboy Mansion and for big names at that time like Paul Oakenfold. She balanced this with an evolving career in the fashion industry, eventually moving to Los Angeles and landing a spot at the corporate office where she would begin a journey in talent acquisition, which ironically fell under the “Human Resources” umbrella. Something Dawn would constantly struggle with as it challenged her innate nature to bend rules and challenge the status quo. Again, she tried to nurture her performance background after being discovered by and dancing for an underground voodoo jazz artist. Everything changed under his wing and he would eventually be a huge influence on her, sexuality, art, and understanding of intuitive expression. After working for many industry heavy weights like Michael Kors and Equinox, she finally ditched her desk job and realized her talents and personality were best expressed through taboo when she was offered an impromptu chance to program entertainment for a new upscale French nightclub. In doing so, she brought her blended experience through experimenting and having fun with her friends within those red velvet walls into carving a new genre of entertainment in the form of Sweven.
