La Pocha Nostra (Mexico)
Divino Corpo (Temple of improbable and invisible causes)
La Pocha Nostra is a loose interdisciplinary association of rebel artists interested in collaboration. Pocha’s collaborative model functions both as an act of civic diplomacy and as a means to create “ephemeral communities” of like-minded artists. They are more of a conceptual laboratory than a company, a strategic gathering of rebel artists thinking together, exchanging ideas and aspirations.
As part of the Mapa/Corpo series, this new work by La Pocha Nostra continues to examine the brown body as a site for memory, penance, activism, radical spirituality and corporeal reinvention. Posing as living saints and madonnas of unpopular causes (border crossings, prostitution, disease, prisoners, refugees, and the displaced invisible others), the artists will create a performative temple where the sacred and the profane intertwine with racy contemporary issues. The artists invite audience members to engage in ritualized interactivity and embrace a new form of radical faith, the belief in art as a personal and political transformative force.
Performance artist/writer Guillermo Gómez-Peña is artistic director of La Pocha Nostra. His pioneering work in performance, video, installation, poetry, journalism, cultural theory and radical pedagogy, explores cross-cultural issues, immigration, the politics of language, “extreme culture” and new technologies. A Macarthur fellow and American book award winner, he is a contributor to National Public Radio, and a contributing editor to The Drama Review (NYU-MIT). A founding member of La Pocha Nostra, Roberto Sifuentes has collaborated and performed with Gómez-Peña for many years, performing throughout the United States, Europe and Latin America. They are joined on this occasion by long-time associate Violeta Luna.
There will be an opportunity to hear the company discuss their work in detail with Prof. Robert Ayers.
Guillermo and Roberto will teach winter school (Conceptual Lab of Hybrid Art and Critical Culture) from Monday 11 to Saturday 16 February.