PROFÉTICO DE VIOLENCIA CINÉTICA: OPERA DEMBOW + LATIN TRAP
Performance + Collabortaion with Omar Abreu
Table, Set of knives, Pepper dispenser, Platano, Potato, Sweet Potato, Headphones, Tablecloth
2018

“PROFÉTICO DE VIOLENCIA CINÉTICA: OPERA DEMBOW + LATIN TRAP”

OMAR ABREU + MARIA DEL PILAR (PILI) LOPEZ SAAVEDRA

In PROFÉTICO DE VIOLENCIA CINÉTICA: OPERA DEMBOW + LATIN TRAP”, Omar and I began by covering each exit door with a large cardboard sheet. After returning to the table in the center of the room, we put our headphones on and started our music at the same time. We chopped + ate raw potatoes, platanos, and sweet potatoes while screaming along to Latine music we were listening to through headphones. There was a table in the center of the room which held the vegetables as well as a set of knives and a small plastic pepper dispenser. Omar and I fluidly interacted with all the knives to chop the vegetables down enough to put them in our mouths while simultaneously screaming the lyrics of our individual songs. We screamed and danced around the space while chewing the food until we felt like spitting. We proceeded to walk around the space and choose specific locations to bend and spit the food out in front of the audience. The pepper dispenser was rotated between us as we crouched and seasoned the small piles of chewed vegetables. The cycle of chopping, chewing, spitting, and seasoning was repeated multiple times. In moments of exhaustion, during the performance, our energy was renewed by interacting with one another at the center of the room.

After about 15 minutes, Omar and I mutually decided to end the performance. We pulled a dark brown tablecloth over the table and crawled underneath it. The table was too small and we were crammed underneath it, with parts of our bodies sticking out from underneath the tablecloth. Holding each other, Omar and I discussed the performance, our emotions, preoccupations, the materials included within the performance and their connotations. We discussed the decision to not receive a critique on this specific performance. We touched on subjects such as the racialized process of critiques, the disadvantages of being an artist of color and the reception of our work by a majority white audience. Like many times before, we spoke about the isolation and anger we feel as the few people of color at the new school. Omar and I addressed the audience and acknowledged that although there was a level of privacy to our discussion we were very aware of their presence and how still we held a position of teachers/laborers in which we are made to unpack our experiences and make them consumable to our oppressors. The post-performance discussion naturally came to an end as our friends approached us and people exited the room by moving the cardboard sheets.