Event
Mapa Corpa
Visionary artist Guillermo Gomez-Pena and his company La Pocha Nostra creates a poetic interactive ritual exploring neo-colonization through acupuncture and the poetic reenactment of the post-9/11 "body politic." For twenty years, Gomez-Pena has been exploring intercultural issues with the use of mixed genres and experimental languages. Gomez-Pena creates what critics have termed "Chicano cyber-punk performances," and "ethno-techno art."
As the audience enters the space, they come across a troubling yet familiar image: a human body lies on a surgical table covered by the U.S. flag. Standing over her, an acupuncturist dressed in a lab coat intently prepares for surgery laying out 40 needles. On closer observation it becomes apparent that a small colorful flag is attached to the tip of each needle, representing one of the nations belonging to the alleged "coalition forces." Gomez-Pena (GP), in his techno-shaman-in-drag persona, walks around the tableaux and throughout the space, erasing the boundaries between viewer and performers.
In the second part of the evening, audience members are offered an opportunity to fulfill their "intellectual fantasies" and engage in "X-treme role playing." Supplied with costumes, make-up, and the support of the artists, they undergo an "identity make-over". Once transformed, GP integrates them into an ever-evolving living diorama: One that comments on the obsessive culture of role-playing and the mindless interactivity displayed in reality TV and at the same time invites audiences to become "instant performance artists" and co-create a vision of the future.
In contrast to the melancholic and sentimental feelings engendered by the first half of the evening, this second part tends to be much more playful and extravagant. However, audience members still have to make ethical and political decisions as they participate in this "performance Karaoke" game.
Guillermo Gomez-Pena
Performance artist/writer Guillermo Gomez-Pena resides in San Francisco where he is artistic director of Pocha Nostra. Born in 1955 and raised in Mexico City, he came to the US in 1978. His pioneering work in performance, video, radio, installation, poetry, journalism, and cultural theory, explores cross-cultural issues, immigration, the politics of language, "extreme culture" and new technologies. A MacArthur fellow and American Book Award recipient, he is a regular contributor to National Public Radio, a writer for newspapers and magazines in the U.S. and Mexico, and a contributing editor to The Drama Review (NYU-MIT).
Gomez-Pena's performance, installation and video work has been presented at over seven hundred venues across the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Europe, Australia, Russia, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Brazil, Peru, Venezuela and Argentina (see below). Most recently, he has presented work at Tate Modern (Londo
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LocationConsolidated Works
500 Boren Avenue North
Seattle, WA 98109
United States
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