Andrew Henderson, who has terminal cancer, will be putting on a performance art piece on Oct 21 and 23, when strangers will tell him their secrets and he'll get them tattooed on his body. LYLE STAFFORD / Toronto Star ) Order this photo Henderson plans to invite 100 strangers to tell him their secrets and then watch as they are tattooed on his body. ( LYLE STAFFORD/Toronto Star ) 
 
 Andrew Henderson is taking 100 secrets to the grave. The 28-year-old stage manager and performer who is terminally ill is holding a living funeral/performance art piece called Taking It To The Grave in Winnipeg, not far from where he grew up. Over the course of two, two-hour performances, he’ll invite 100 strangers to whisper their secrets to him, help him choose a symbol to represent each secret and then watch as it is tattooed on Henderson’s body. The former Torontonian was diagnosed with t-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma two years ago, after doctors found a football-sized tumour in his chest. It became incurable one year ago. Having come to terms with his terminal diagnosis, Henderson, an ebullient performance art lover with a flare for the dramatic, hopes to give these strangers the same release he now feels by letting them confide in him. 
 
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 “Death has been the greatest gift of my life because it allowed me to fully embrace my true and honest self,” said Henderson, a gay man who, after the diagnosis, was drawn into deep introspection and now identifies as genderqueer, meaning he feels both male and female. “Everything comes into perspective pretty quickly (when you’re dying). All you can be is your best self.” 
 
 Within 15 minutes of being given his terminal diagnosis, Henderson was cracking jokes. He says the prospect of death has allowed him to fully embrace his "true and honest self." ( LYLE STAFFORD/Toronto Star ) 
 
 When Henderson was given his terminal diagnosis in August 2015, his immediate reaction was shock and sadness, but within 15 minutes, he was cracking jokes. 
 
 “I was like ‘What’s the age all the rock stars die at?’” he recalled referring to Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix and other celebrities who died at age 27. He was 26 at the time. “It was like aiming to get into the 27 Club. I was already making light of it.” At the Friday evening and Sunday afternoon performances, up to 50 family, friends and strangers will enter the softly lit Aceart inc. gallery to find Henderson perched in his seat of honour — a giant champagne bottle that he and his team crafted from white tulle and chicken wire — in the centre of the room, surrounded by trinkets and pictures in gold frames. Champagne is his favourite drink, he says, and the universal symbol for celebration. There will be a manicure bar, cushions and cuddle spaces to “rest in peace,” — a nod to his dark sense of humour — and plenty of glitter and shimmery gauze. Hundreds of finger-sized gold foil rectangles will carpet the floor and Eroca Nicols, a choreographer and a collaborator on his project, will sweep the squares throughout the performance. She’ll also dance. One by one, guests meandering around the room can approach Henderson to whisper their secrets, then watch as Toronto tattoo artist Carly Boyce inks the secret symbols on his skin. At the finale, family and friends will cleanse Henderson with small cupfuls of champagne as he sits in a kiddie pool. Audience members can cleanse him too, with water. 
 
 Henderson already has 16 tattoos, including this one of the Titanic across his back, which he says represents recent events in his life: hitting an obstruction, facing certain death and going down with grace. ( LYLE STAFFORD/Toronto Star ) 
 
 Nicols, Henderson’s friend of five years, finds some relief in knowing she’s helping her friend ease into his death through the performance art, which she calls a death ritual. She recently spent years travelling the world studying death, talking to witch practitioners and others who work with the occult. “I’m here performing a sacred task,” said Nicols, whose research influenced her own performance, called Truthteller, running Saturday. “I feel in a lot of ways very honoured to be able to do this.” The two have been researching death rituals, meeting Winnipeg psychics, witch practitioners and alternative medicine practitioners. Their research was supported by a grant from the Young Lungs Dance Exchange, an organization for interdisciplinary artists, but the performance is an independent project. Henderson hired Sandy Klowak as production manager for Taking It To The Grave. She calls Henderson’s work “groundbreaking.” “I’ve never personally seen someone engage with their own mortality in this way,” said Klowak. “Death is something that, even though we all obviously are headed towards it, it’s not something we want to engage with as part of our Western culture.” On Henderson’s part, he’s excited to get the tattoos inked “anywhere there’s real estate” on his body. He already has 16, including “drop dead gorgeous” inked on his fingers, the Birth of Venus on his chest and an image of the Titanic across his back, which he says represents his life post-diagnosis: hitting an obstruction, facing certain death and going down with grace. 
 
 Henderson plans to invite 100 strangers to tell him their secrets and then watch as they are tattooed on his body. ( LYLE STAFFORD/Toronto Star ) ||||| Andrew Henderson, the Manitoba man who recently held a performance art show that doubled as his living funeral, died days after his final performance. 
 
 Henderson performed Taking it to the Grave for the last time on Sunday. 
 
 The 28-year-old had lymphoblastic lymphoma and was told in September 2015 it was incurable. 
 
 During the show, Henderson heard secrets from attendees and was tattooed dozens of times with symbols of their confessions. He promised to take those secrets to the grave. 
 
 Henderson's show received international attention in the days before it debuted on Oct. 21. 
 
 On Wednesday, he passed away. 
 
 Henderson had been on maintenance chemotherapy to extend his life but had briefly stopped the treatment. He had planned to continue the treatment soon.
– Andrew Henderson knew he didn't have long to live due to his lymphoblastic lymphoma, which doctors told him was incurable. And so he held a "living funeral" last weekend, per the CBC, and the "Taking It to the Grave" event was a testament to the "ebullient performance-art lover," as the Toronto Star puts it. What made the pre-death memorial service for the Manitoba native especially unique: Henderson listened to complete strangers spill their deepest secrets, then had those secrets tattooed onto his body in the form of specially designated symbols. Henderson died Wednesday at the age of 28, just a few days after he was inked up with everyone's revelations. Per the Star, the show was to include a giant champagne bottle for Henderson to sit in, as well as a manicure bar and "cuddle spaces" so that visitors could "rest in peace." But the draw of the combination macabre/motivational happening was the ability to whisper one's secrets to Henderson, who then had a Toronto tattoo artist translate those secrets to symbols on his skin. A friend says Henderson had been studying up on death rituals and says she was glad to be able to help him use his performance art to prepare for the end of his life. "I've never personally seen someone engage with their own mortality in this way," Henderson's production manager adds. And all of those secrets (Henderson had planned to allow up to 100 of them on his body) now that he's gone? "I'm going to die, and my body's going to rot, and that's where those secrets will lie," he told the Metro earlier this month. (The reverse of a living funeral: posing the deceased like they're still living.)