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photo
by: Roberto Sifuentes |
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As
part of the Encuentro, many of my colleagues and I participated
in work groups. My particular work group was “Sexuality
and Religion: Seduction and Surrender.” The mission
of the work group was a bit unclear, but we knew that we would
have a final presentation to give at the Encuentro. “The
Sexuality Group”, as we had been dubbed, spent most
of its time reading papers, leaving us one day to decide how
to give a presentation. Ironically, the group chose to do
a performance. The performance was split into three parts,
a Talk Show, a Chorus of Women, and a “faith healing”
performed in Washington Square Park. I participated in the
Chorus of Women, organized by performance artist, Reona Brass.
Reona’s idea was to create a chorus of the sounds of
women- not words or songs, but the sounds women make. I was
enthralled by the grand marble staircase of the new Kimmel
Center, and suggested we take our chorus down the stairs.
We began at the top of the stairs and descended upon Encuentro
participants and unknowing spectators wailing, laughing, screaming,
giggling, groaning, crying and making all the sounds our bodies
could create. We were each dressed in solid colors, creating
a visual and auditory energy that filled that hall. The power
of our action was that we were reclaiming a space with sounds
that are usually stifled. We were reclaiming our own bodies
as vehicles of communication beyond the written or spoken
word.
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photo
by: Roberto Sifuentes |
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photo
by: Roberto Sifuentes |
| For three days, during
three-hour workshops, I had the pleasure of participating in
a group of students gathering with Rosa Luisa Márquez
and Antonio Martorell “to create all from nothing.”
Márquez and Martorell told us that we would “transform
the space and the body that defines us through nine hours of
aesthetic contact by the use of graphic imagery and theatrical
actions. We [would] present the product of our workshop to all
who wish to interact with us/it.” Our performance/installation
was built with a lot of paper, our own bodies, boxes, a ladder
and our inspirations. We were thrown into an ensemble and given
the task to create a performance out of images and chosen texts.
We contextualized the images so they flowed into one another
and we titled the piece Bon Voyage. Once contextualized, the
installation was a flight, and our performance, the “in-flight
movie.” We had images of flying bodies, and an image of
our bodies spilling over the ladder and boxes; we even built
a city sky-line. Airplanes, city sky lines and bodies- I couldn’t
help but be reminded of September 11, 2001. We did not set out
to create a political commentary, but somehow in our traversing
of boxes and paper cut-outs, we found ourselves speaking words
about strewn bodies and exploding architecture. We were in fact
responding to and depicting our present time. |
photo
by: Roberto Sifuentes |
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photo
by: Natalie Herlinghaus |
During
the Virgin Cabaret, I had the honor of performing a brief
scene called “Our Lady of Perpetual Freedom” from
a recent performance collaboration with Roberto Sifuentes
called 14 Unnatural Acts. 14 Unnatural Acts examines the current
global and domestic climate of fear and religious zealotry,
and the resulting demise of civil liberties for the sake of
security. The piece is a series of episodes with characters
and images distilled from the “official” sexual,
ethnic, and religious profiling found in popular media, morphed
into creatures from a political horror film. “Our Lady
of Perpetual Freedom” portrayed two frightening creatures-
part military, part scientists, part mutants, part game show
hosts- who create an altar of survival. When all pieces of
the altar have been properly zip-locked and duct-taped for
security, the mad scientist realizes the final icon is missing,
and turns on his assistant. She becomes Our Lady of Perpetual
Security, wearing a gas mask, shrouded in a zarape and draped
in “Police Line- Do Not Cross” yellow tape. This
piece was a response to the futility of preparation and the
desperation of a so-called security.
Roberto Sifuentes is an interdisciplinary artist from Los
Angeles and now living in New York City. His work combines
live performance with interactive technologies and video as
a presentation medium. As a member of La Pocha Nostra from
1994-2000, Sifuentes collaborated with performance artist
Guillermo Gómez-Peña, presenting performance
and installation work at over 200 venues throughout the United
States, Europe and Latin America. Sifuentes is currently the
Artistic Director of the Trinity/La MaMa Performing Arts Program
NYC.
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