TBA:19 CONVERSATION
Miguel Gutierrez & San Cha with Roy Pérez
Miguel Gutierrez and San Cha discuss how queer Latinx experience informs their respective experimental practices in dance and music, including discursive debates around aesthetics, abstraction, and cultural identity in performance making.
ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS
Roy Pérez teaches and writes about gender, sex, and race in contemporary Latinx literature, art, and performance. He is an assistant professor of Ethnic Studies and Critical Gender Studies at the University of California, San Diego. His poems and essays have appeared in Trap Door: Trans Cultural Production and the Politics of Visibility (MIT Press, 2017), Narrative, Race, and Ethnicity in the United States (OSUP, 2017), Women & Performance: a journal of feminist theory, the Best of Panic! poetry anthology, Bully Bloggers, and FENCE Magazine, and he is co-editor with Kadji Amin and Amber Musser of “Queer Form,” a special issue of ASAP/Journal. He is writing a book titled Proximities: Queer Configurations of Race in Latinx Literature and Performance.
San Cha is a singer-songwriter, based in the City of Angels, increasingly known for her visceral and explosive live performances. Her name, derived from the Spanish word sancha, which translates to ‘mistress’, is a mischievous reference to the title of ‘San’, given to male saints in the Catholic tradition. Fans of cumbia and punk, bolero and electro, flock to see San Cha’s emotional renditions of traditional Mexican rancheras and original songs that queer conventions of identity, power and love. Her striking stage presence is accompanied by the one-of-a-kind garments she adorns, aesthetic reflections of the years spent performing in drag and club scenes in the Bay. San Cha was most recently the headlining act at the kickoff of the 2019 Red Bull Music Festival, with upcoming performances at the Levitt Pavilion, Getty Museum, and Santa Monica Pier.
Miguel Gutierrez lives in Brooklyn, NY. He creates dance-based performances, music, and poetry that focus on desire, identity, and the search for meaning. He is a 2016 Doris Duke Artist. His work has been presented in venues such as Centre National de Danse, Centre Pompidou, ImPulsTanz, Fringe Arts, Walker Art Center, TBA/PICA, MCA Chicago, New York Live Arts, Live Arts Bard, and the 2014 Whitney Biennial. He has received support from Creative Capital, MAP, National Dance Project, and Jerome Foundation, and has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, United States Artists, New York Foundation for the Arts, Tides Foundation, as well as a Foundation for Contemporary Art award and four NY Dance and Performance Bessies. He currently performs a music project called SADONNA, where he turns Madonna’s upbeat songs into sad anthems. He runs LANDING, an educational initiative at Gibney, and his book When You Rise Up is available from 53rd State Press. www.miguelgutierrez.org
ABOUT TBA:19 INSTITUTE
TBA Conversations are an opportunity to hear directly from festival artists about their practices, processes, and the ideas behind their work through presentations, panel discussions, and dialogues with guest artists, curators, and scholars.
All TBA Conversations are FREE of charge and take place on the PICA Patio unless otherwise noted. TBA:FOOD service will be available, including grab-and-go lunch, snacks, and drinks.
Please note that some conversations will be ASL interpreted.
The PICA Patio is ADA accessible. For any other access needs or requests, please contact the TBA Box Office at boxoffice@pica.org or 503-224-PICA.