Kaylla Journal of Performing Arts

Staging Temporalities

Sandra Bonomini Martínez — 2024-11-14

El presente Dossier de Kaylla articula diversas perspectivas y metodologías de investigación que parten de performances y procesos creativos individuales-colectivos. Les artistas-investigadores que aquí reflexionan sobre su trabajo ofrecen nuevos modos de entender la transformación de los espacios que albergan diferentes hechos escénicos, la suspensión del tiempo cotidiano, y la generación de nuevas conexiones identitarias desde la acción colectiva, tanto corporal como sonora. El punto de encuentro de estas propuestas son las preguntas que nos rondan al pensar en espacios colectivos: ¿hasta qué punto las artes escénicas pueden ofrecer una forma diferente de relacionarnos con nuestro entorno, una forma que cuestione la “productividad” deshumanizante del capitalismo neocolonial? ¿Cómo es que la sonoridad puede transportarnos a un espacio-tiempo alternativo que revela la artificialidad y la occidentalización de un espacio-tiempo lineal, individualista y atomizante? ¿De qué manera estas alternativas son formas de resistencia y reexistencia en la contemporaneidad latinoamericana hemisférica y global?

The Body as Territory

Amira Ixchel Ramirez Salgado — 2024-11-14

This article presents a fragment of the findings obtained as part of a practice-research process in dance, focusing on the theme of Body and Territory. The concept and metaphor of the body as territory are introduced as a dynamic framework that emerges from the interplay of physicality, thought, memory, and sensitivity. Through movement-based workshops, which form part of the research methodology, the moving body is mapped and witnessed, revealing its poetic, sensory, and narrative dimensions. Moreover, drawing on Latin American and feminist epistemologies, the concept of territory is approached from a relational perspective rather than as a closed, one-dimensional definition. Building on these reflections, the notion of "felt territory" is explored, which implies a distancing from individual identity, allowing the body to be affected and move towards a collective sense. In this process, the political, social, and cultural dimensions of these delineations of the body-territory are recognized. Finally, through the testimonies of participants from one of the workshops discussed in this article, a conceptual and methodological framework is proposed to define the body as territory, enabling it to be inhabited through a movement-based experience.

Body-earth between Collapses and Refugio

Katiuska Azambuja — 2024-11-14

Refúgio is a performative work carried out with women in the city of Várzea Grande, Brazil, in 2023. The proposal develops in poetic stages, composed of drawings, sounds, letters, and video art. This reflection is based on the text The Burnout Society (Han, 2015) relating to climate collapse. Based on it, we ask ourselves how to have a radically alive life, evoking the ideas of Ailton Krenak (2020) and Dènetém Bona (2020). The objective was to activate listening to the body-earth, an expression by artist Ana Mendieta, in relation to the idea of the Earth-Body, bringing the original concept of aisthesis, a term in which building decolonial subjectivities (Mignolo, 2011). These ideas go beyond the culture-nature duality (Mignolo, 2017) and resume the perception of nature as a living being and the ancient relationships that sustain life and humanity (Walsh, 2008). Cartography was chosen as a methodological tool, as it is an anti-method that requires careful attention to forming subjectivities while the need to follow processes requires inhabiting an existential territory (Barros & Kastrup, 2015). From the creation exercises, the participants revealed a more attentive perception of rhythm/space, and a greater awareness of listening to the body-earth and the earth-body.

Receiving the Mute Language

Lucas Martins Dalbem — 2024-11-14

This text articulates two acousmatic situations about the language studies of the philosopher Walter Benjamin: the sound of the word and the relationship between the language of men and the language of things. Concerning this, an artistic investigation is presented involving sounds based on texts and vocal experiments that stand against the arrow of linear and empty time in the tradition of the capitalist West. Finally, it reverberates in a critical reflection on sound and listening to sound, combined with studies by sound artist Frederico Pessoa on the sounds produced in mining companies during the catastrophic extraction of minerals in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Soundwalking in Space-time

Andrew Brown — 2024-11-14

This article analyzes features of the author’s artistic research in which he investigates space and time through soundwalking, an immersive and embodied practice with the capacity to engage critical attention and reanimate otherwise familiar surroundings. Inspired by social geographer Doreen Massey’s (2005) conception of space as “a simultaneity of stories so far” and “always in the process of being made,” the author’s soundwalks explore the points of intersection at which space is produced. In this paper, the author analyzes the temporal and corporeal aspects of the soundwalking, and their approach based upon an initial capture of sound recordings while walking a particular route, before returning them to be experienced in their original context, thereby exploiting the consequent temporal shift. Through the deliberate blending of these field recordings with the live soundscape during the shared experience of the group soundwalk, perceptions can be destabilized and new relations constructed to the socio‑political realities facing particular communities (LaBelle, 2018). Soundwalks challenge assumptions of present-day lived experience and invite the imagining of alternative pasts and potential futures. The author offers the soundwalk Pentrich Rising – South Wingfield (Brown, 2017) as a case study, sharing insights into their original methodology. Soundwalking is shown to be an effective means of spatio-temporal exploration, with potential to be investigated by researchers from artistic, sonic, spatial, social-historical, socio-political, and environmental disciplines.

The Ch'ixi Methodology in Antiperformance: Palimpsest

Juliet Rashell Pacahuala Mallqui — 2024-11-14

This article focuses on the process of the scenic composition of the project Antiperformance: Palimpsest through the ch'ixi as a performative methodology. The ch'ixi refers to the power in permanent contradiction (Rivera, 2018) confronting the dichotomous and static worldview of the colonial western tradition. For this reason, Rivera Cusicanqui proposes the ch'ixi gaze as an approach that invites the colonized subject to assume the multiple contradictions he/she inhabits. In relation to this anticolonial approach, a methodology is proposed in the performing arts to approach an anticolonial performance, as a praxis focused on corporealities that alter their colonized gaze. For this, the taypi or “ch'ixi space” (Rivera Cusicanqui, 2023) is recognized as indispensable to understand what happens during the contact of perpetual contradictions that detonate the critical energy necessary for a new sensoperceptive gaze in the movement of each corporeality, in this way the scenic space in the anticolonial performance is understood in the logics of the taypi. The objective of this article is to validate the ch'ixi methodology as a paradigm that links western and indigenous scenic knowledge, recognizing its relevance in the processes of artistic creation, developing new ways of perceiving the scenic-performance composition.

Rite and Desformance in the Subalternization of the Sodomizing Agora

Álvaro Eduardo Fernandez Melchor — 2024-11-14

This text offers an autoethnographic analysis of the performative action Polvo de Caballo, carried out in 2023 by Antonio Palacios and local artists during the 5th International Performance Encounter “No Lo Haga Usted Mismo”, in Aguascalientes, Mexico. The performance, executed in Plaza Jesús F. Contreras in the Historic Center, presents a critical reinterpretation of the surrounding public monuments. Additionally, the concept of desformance as a ritual is explored through a hermeneutic interpretation, encompassing the conceptual characters of Deleuze and Guattari in What is Philosophy? and confronting them with Latin American performances that subvert, modify, or destroy historical and popular icons from the region. The analysis focuses on Polvo de Caballo to establish a dialogue between the theory and practice of performance, understanding the action as a dialectical space between both. This interaction generates a "performativity of writing," extending the lived experience of the performative act into a theoretical and reflective realm, thus amplifying its impact. In this way, the performance is not only contained within its execution but is also projected into a written domain, enhancing its relevance beyond the initial performative moment.

Camasca, a Scenic Gift in Amantaní, Puno (Peru)

Carlos Vargas Salgado — 2024-11-14

This article discusses the generative elements of the project Camasca, a scenic gift in Amantaní (2024), starting from proposing the validity of the concepts of theater, aesthetics and epistemology when accounting for performative discourses present in festivities, rituals and similar, in the Andean world. The article at the same time discusses the Andean notions present in the original play, Camasca, as well as the function and value of oracles both in the past and as a veiled presence in our days. The text aims to share the general approach that the producers decided to put into practice, and it advances some theoretical conclusions about the Project.

"Are our deaths worthy of dignity?"

Leticia Robles-Moreno — 2024-11-14

Germain Machuca is a Peruvian performance artist and activist, whose work for LGTBIQ+ rights has tirelessly demanded more humane politics towards communities living with HIV/AIDS. They have performed artistic protests against Peruvian state violence toward the most vulnerable populations: Indigenous, racialized, marginalized, and queer/cuir bodies. Germain’s work centers on bodily narratives that emerge from personal explorations in dialogue with a myriad of marginalized and stigmatized bodies rendered disposable by the state. Both in performance spaces and in the streets, Germain offers their body to ask who has the right to dignity after death. In their performance work, Germain intertwines contemporary body art explorations and research of pre-Hispanic traditions and Andean cultural expressions. Their body is at the center of their creative process, highlighting the intersections of gender, sexuality, and race. The characters, or more accurately, avatars that emerge in Germain’s performances wear drag-style make-up, platform shoes, and lingerie. The bare portions of their body are open to be touched by the audience, who are invited to acknowledge a racialized presence that makes visible those Indigenous-mestizo queer bodies marginalized by the Peruvian government and society at large. At the same time, these avatars sometimes don traditional masks that have been part of Andean festivals for centuries, or dialogue with Indigenous cultural expressions that were proscribed as part of the colonial project of erasure and control. In this sense, Germain’s body traces connections between current systems of oppression that target queer, Brown, disenfranchised bodies, and the history of colonization in the Americas.

Breaking the Silence is Personal, Political, and Collective

Sandra Bonomini Martínez — 2024-11-14

Eliana Monteiro holds an MA in Performing Arts from Universidad de São Paulo (USP), and she has been Teatro da Vertigem’s director for the past 26 years. She is a theater educator and art/performance festivals curator. Her most recent work as a director includes the following productions: Intervención Florestania, Autoexamen de cuerpo de delito, and Levante, a project about love and resistance in lesbian women’s couples throughout Brazil’s recent history.

The Influence of Cuban Abakuá Music on Afro-Peruvian Music

Laureano Arturo Rigol Sera — 2024-11-14

The article focuses on exploring the presence of Afro-Cuban elements, specifically of Abakuá origin, in Afro-Peruvian music, with a particular focus on two significant record productions: "Ritmos negros del Perú" (1968) by Nicomedes Santa Cruz and his Conjunto Cumanana, and "Juan de Mata" (1978) by Conjunto Perú Negro. After a thorough analysis of the musical production of groups associated with the Afro-Peruvian movement post-1968, the artistic proposal of Conjunto Perú Negro emerges as particularly interesting. While their first album, Gran Premio del Festival Hispanoamericano de la Danza y la Canción (1973), contains a reference to the Abakuá theme in the song "Canción para ekué", it is in their second production, Son de los diablos (1974), where elements specific to Abakuá culture can be more clearly identified in one of the tracks. Through this study, the aim is to contribute to understanding the influence and interaction between Afro-Cuban and Afro-Peruvian musical traditions. The detailed analysis of the selected compositions reveals connections, similarities, as well as differences and evolutions in the musical expression of these two Afro-descendant cultures. The article seeks to deepen the understanding of how these influences intertwine and manifest in Afro-Peruvian music, thereby enriching knowledge about the diversity and complexity of Afro-descendant cultural expressions in Latin America.

“I Want to Depatriarchalize my Bookshelf” or the Theatrical Aesthetics in María Velasco’s Dramaturgy

Markel Hernández Pérez — 2024-11-14

In this article, two theatrical works by one of the most recognized contemporary Spanish playwrights, María Velasco, Líbrate de las cosas hermosas que te deseo (2015) and Talaré a los hombres de sobre la faz de la tierra, both premiered and applauded by theater critics, as well as awarded, will be analyzed. The point of convergence of these two works is found in their performative aesthetic and the political and poetic perspective with which they portray the situation of their protagonists. Both dramatic proposals have an innovative and contemporary scenic aesthetic, so we will approach them through the paradigm of performative theater, liminal theater, and perfopoetry, since both are an artistic object that escapes reductionist interpretations due to their multidimensional nature. However, it will be verified that the purpose of the pieces is to portray a political structure, without any of them renouncing the use of a wide range of dramatic possibilities proposed from the text, stage directions, and the corresponding scenic proposal.