Xavier Lopez Performance: When the Body Speaks Act 2: Performed on November 9th, 2017. Supported by an Artists Up / Grant LAB Award from the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture, 4Culture & Artist Trust. When the Body Speaks Act 2: Sheet Ghost/The Diabetic Luchador (Nothing but a Nothing) finds the Diabetic Luchador confronting the ghosts of his past. Starring: Xavier Lopez, Grace LaRenard, Basil Mahan and Lily C. Munn as "The Guardian Angel." Live Music Editing by Kaz. Directed by Loren Herrera, originally edited by Loren Herrera, project by Xavier Lopez, Filmed on location at INARTSNW, November 9th 2017.
I was to present a short "one-man performance" dealing with issues of "Latinoness," entitled "When The Body Speaks," it would be about Illness, specifically illnesses targeting Latinos and which run through my family tree, directly through my body and in my blood!
Ultimately, I would craft a longer, more complex event than initially planned, enlisting five other artists--a first for me! I did a forty-five minute performance and I was extremely nervous because of my ailments. Would the nerve-endings in my feet flare up? Would I suffer from vertigo? Before this, my longest performance was 25 minutes and I was much younger then. But over the year of practice I brought my weight down by twenty pounds and when I hit the stage I was certain I could do it.
The event, itself was part biography, part endurance and part conceptual art. I introduced Seattle to "Putoh" a mestizo hybrid of cultures and performance genres! On top of that, I did something I thought I never could have--I sang in front of a live audience! That night I grew as an artist, possibly even extended the definition of Latinx art today and expressed the way that I see the world. I was overjoyed, proud of what I had accomplished!
What exactly is Putoh?
Putoh is a hybrid in every sense of the word. Putoh celebrates individuality and intersectionality. Invented in the year 2000 at the university of California Davis, it is a portmanteau of ideas, vision and philosophies. Linguistically, the term "Putoh" is a fusion of two languages and two words. Of course there is the Japanese Butoh, meaning, literally Dance But also the Spanish-in this case-Mexican, gutter word Putoh. Which has many meanings, but which has a very similar etymological history to the word "Punk" and it is in that spirit that the two words were married.
The performance form itself was created by a Chicano, pre-Latino, pre-Latinx, a Mexican American, one Jewish and one post catholic, two feminists, two performance artists, two university students, a painter, two sculptors and a science fiction fan. Katherine Adamenko and Xavier Lopez came from very different backgrounds Xavier, a California Mexican American complete with a Valley girl brogue and Katherine Adamenko New York City Jewish and Cuban/Spanish ("on my dad’s side") feminist performance artist with a huge personality were destined to create something that the world was not prepared for--something that refuses to be categorized, meshes forms and cultures. So sit back, relax and enjoy the "Return of the Putoh" and enter the Post-postmodern a world of intersectionality at every turn.
In this performance, I returned to an artform that I created alongside the wonderfully Feminist performance artist and Butoh artist Katharine Adamenko, when we were both taking graduate courses at UC Davis. Entitled "Putoh,"
I'll say more about it in a bit, but November 9th's performance reminded me of a series of performances that we did together in the late, late nineties. It was the birth of the Soft Cyborg and of "Putoh" and it was a heady time that stands in direct contrast to today wherein we felt as though we could accomplish everything--where we didn't feel as though the world was on the brink and it is in that that spirit that I present you with the description that I wrote about one particular performance that I put on as part of a series of salons put together by my very dear friend Katharine Adamenko, what follows is the paper--the last paper I wrote for the last class I took at UC Davis, before embarking on a five year trip to Europe--modified only enough to keep it from sounding too strange.
When the Body Speaks. (Augmented Mix.) Performance Art. InArtsNW.
No comments:
Post a Comment