Most days, when I’m alone or just in my own space, there is no guard up. However when I walk out into the world, especially when I’m making moves to create, the armor is on, in all its gleaming splendor. I am at full attention, with my inner coding to be ‘on point’ taking priority. I have to be unshakable, even if my own mind has any question or doubt.
I have often been told I’m intimidating. At times it’s blatant, but lately, more often then not its a feeling – a sense that I’m being avoided, watching folks go out of their way to avoid the discomfort, or straight up being ignored. Sometimes I wonder, ‘Is it better they want to stay away, or am I missing out on something? What is it about me that causes people to feel uncomfortable?’ And the best one… ‘Why am I doing any of this? DOES ANYONE EVEN CARE?’
And then I remember – art is made to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. I move through life as a conduit for art as a living, breathing, moving, changing entity, one that cannot help but express its truth. My body has learned how to exist in these spaces, even when my conscious mind is a little behind. Often in these moments of making people ‘uncomfortable’, I am fulfilling my purpose in this world, being a visible icon of the reality of otherness.
The truth is that I have and can mold myself to fit many shapes, but there is no contentedness in that. I have had to unlearn, and continue to unlearn the idea of fitting myself into whatever shaped opening is around. I cannot fill all the spaces, I’m only shaped to fit one. And by one, I mean that one specific space that each of us has in the world, the reality that is our own, that no other person can be or take from us.
Performance is that space for me, and crucial to that is the idea that the space of performance is not limited to a stage, or venue, or any organized thing bigger than just myself. I am performance. I live performance daily. I recognize the performativity in every day situations; societal expectations, personal ideals, the energy of a space, or the history of an entire culture – the mingling of these and many more factors create actions that are literally that – an act. Often, a subconscious one. How many people are out there, doing what they think they should be doing, what someone before them did, or what someone else wants them to do? Billions. How many people are taking the time to put intention behind nearly every action they make? Or even being merely being more conscious of the actions they take? Not as many, or the world would likely be a very different place.
I don’t have a deep academic understanding of performance, but what I do know is this: body intelligence is a cornerstone of performance art practice. And the thing is, we all have it – but its like any other skill – it has to be nurtured, trained, and listened to. Body intelligence is part of intuition, and in my opinion, intuition is the energy of our higher evolved self, giving us clues to navigate situations. Its like the air traffic control of our existences, looking out over the field of our life, able to see everything that was and is and will come to be.
In my performance practice, intuition comes into play every time I enter any space, every time I step in front of an audience, every time I expose the ideas inside of my head to the world that I exist in. Intentional acts allow me to inhabit a space in performative way – consciously, but as a vessel. I like to believe that I am channelling an energy that does not belong to me, one that is of my ancestral lineage, one that is of the earth, of the universe. And each time I engage in this practice, my knowledge of self and of that history is strengthened. I use performance to merge between the worlds of spirit, magic, art, and the surreal.
I closed the year of 2018 with a performance art workshop in Queretaro, Mexico, taught by members of the radical art troupe La Pocha Nostra, as well as performance artists La Fulminante and Leche de Virgen. Being my 4th workshop with Pocha, I’ve come to an understanding of their style of performance which has allowed me to integrate with their work in a way that I can only describe as second nature. Working with Fulminante and Leche gave me two other distinct viewpoints of performance art – the highly technical, and the esoteric – which I want to integrate into my practice in 2019. The performance which followed the workshop, titled Opera Sacramental, was a movement in 4 parts, featuring international performance artists spanning 4 generations.
The images I have created within that performance are meant to be interpreted as a visual representation of my experience around intimidation. As I revisit them now, the juxtapositions of hard and soft, masculine and feminine, beauty and gore; these were my intention. I took inspiration from the Empress in the tarot, and sought to channel that archetype in a futuristic way. Reflection is always present in my work, which can be seen with the mirror mask, the reflective tape, and the handheld ‘mirror’ light, which is giving ‘who’s the fairest of them all?’ I feel that I created images that draw you in while making you feel a little on edge, a little unsure, a little like like backing away while keeping your eyes fixed to see what happens next. So, job well done. I came into this performance with a strong idea of what I wanted to explore physically and visually, and this experience, as it always does, gave me perspective into my personal life which could not have resulted from any other source.
All photos courtesy of Roberto Ibarra
Some images may contain artistic nudity.
