ethno-techno The performance of “extreme identity” is familiar to us all through the medium of television (just switch on Jerry Springer). So where does this leave the critical practice of artists who aim to make tactical, performative interventions into our notions of race, culture, and sexuality? Guillermo Gómez-Peña has spent many years developing his unique style of performance-activism: his theatricalizations of postcolonial theory. In Ethno-Techno: Writings on performance, activism, and pedagogy, he pushes the boundaries still further, exploring what’s left for artists to do in a post-9/11 repressive culture of what he calls “the mainstream bizarre”. Extensive photos document his artistic experiments. The text not only explores and confronts his political and philosophical parameters, it offers an insight into one of the most daring, innovative, and challenging performance artists of our age. Guillermo Gómez-Peña is a performance artist and writer, and Artistic Director of San Francisco-based company La Pocha Nostra. His pioneering work in per- formance, video, radio, installation, poetry, journalism, and cultural theory explores crosscultural issues, immigration, the side effects of globalization, the politics of language, “extreme culture,” and the digital divide. His previous books include Warrior for Gringostroika (1993), The New World Border (1996), and Dangerous Border Crossers (2000). ethno-techno Writings on performance, activism, and pedagogy by Guillermo Gómez-Peña edited by Elaine Peña L ˙ L ` ˙ L ` ˙ First published 2005 by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk" Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group © 2005 Guillermo Gómez-Peña All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Gómez-Peña, Guillermo. Ethno-techno : writings on performance, activism, and pedagogy/ Guillermo Gómez-Peña ; edited by Elaine Peña. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Performance art—United States—20th century. 2. Gómez-Peña, Guillermo. 3. Mexican American art. 4. Politics in art. 5. Minorities in art. 6. Art and race. I. Peña, Elaine. II. Title. NX456.5.P38G67 2005 700—dc22 2004021796 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0-203-01276-3 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0–415–36247–4 (hbk) ISBN 0–415–36248–2 (pbk) DEDICATORY To my adored mother Martha who has waited so long on this earth just to make sure I don’t fuck up real bad; to make sure that my son grows up with a connection to our remote past Madre mía, every word I’ve written here is largely thanks to you Please stay a little longer ’cause we still need you so badly Doña Martha Peña de Gómez. Mexico City, 1942. CONFESSION Today, I’m tired of ex/changing identities in the net. In the past eight hours, I’ve been a man, a woman and a s/he. I’ve been Black, Asian, Mixteco, German, and a multi-hybrid replicant. I’ve been ten years old, twenty, forty-two, sixty-five. I’ve visited twenty-two meaningless chat rooms I’ve spoken seven broken languages. (I speak in tongues) As you can see, I need a break real bad; I just want to be myself for a few minutes. El Webback contents List of illustrations xiii Acknowledgments xv Introduction and thanks, Guillermo Gómez-Peña xvii Pedagogic interventions in the mainstream bizarre, Elaine Peña xxi track one Introductory essays and chronicles 1 Introduction: Elaine Peña 3 1 On the other side of the Mexican mirror 5 2 In defense of performance 19 Intro 19 The cartography of performance 21 Turning the gaze inward 27 Performance vis-à-vis theater and the art world 34 ix CONTENTS 3 Culturas-in-extremis: Performing against the cultural backdrop of the mainstream bizarre 45 Track #1 Confessions 45 Track #2 Corporate multiculturalism 48 Track #3 Uroboros: The spectacle of the mainstream bizarre 50 Track #4 The illusion of talking back 52 Track #5 The finisecular freak crosses the southern border 55 Track #6 “Extreme sexuality” and other hollow concepts 56 Track #7 Altered bodies and wounded bodies 59 Track #8 Collectable primitives of (“in” and “at”) the Great International Expo 60 Track #9 “Alternative” spirituality and “world” tribalism 61 Track #10 Performing the Other-as-freak 63 4 An open letter to the national arts community 65 track two Pedagogy: A useful guide to theL Pocha method 73 Introduction: Elaine Peña 75 5 Crosscontamination: The performance activism and oppositional art of La Pocha Nostra 77 Guillermo Gómez-Peña, with Rachel Rogers, Kari Hensley, Elaine Peña, Roberto Sifuentes, and Michelle Ceballos I La Pocha Nostra: An ever-evolving manifesto 78 II Pocha live: A crosscultural poltergeist 81 III Producing Pocha 85 IV Ex-Centris: La Pocha Nostra’s international cultural exchange as political praxis 91 V Ten questions we haven’t yet found answers for 93 6 La Pocha Nostra’s basic methodology 95 Performance as radical pedagogy 95 Convocatory and preparations for the workshop 99 The bare minimum 100 Initial notes to the workshop participants 101 Performance exercises, rituals, and games 103 Advanced jamming sessions 131 Workshop conclusions 135 x CONTENTS track three Performance radio 139 Introduction: Elaine Peña 141 7 Letter to an unknown thief 143 8 HSAC-TV: The Home-Shopping Art Channel 146 9 The imaginary effects of a Trans-American Free-Trade Zone 148 10 A sad postcard from San Francisco, Chilicon Valley 151 11 Postcards from Alaska: A chilling tale of performance artists in the snow Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Silvana Straw 153 12 Touring in times of war 157 13 On dual citizenship 159 14 My evil twin 161 15 Saddam in Hollywood 164 16 Frida lite or Fat-free dah 167 track four Performance literature: For the stage and cyberspace˙ 171 Introduction: Elaine Peña 173 17 Brownout 2 175 Introduction: Elaine Katzenberger 175 Border blessing 178 The script 179 18 Twenty-first-century Chicano newscast 215 19 America’s most wanted inner demon 221 I El Archeotypal Greaser 221 II El Mad Mex 222 III El Allatola Whatever 223 20 A declaration of poetic disobedience from the new border 227 xi CONTENTS 21 Helpful performance tips on how to avoid xenophobia and express solidarity with innocent Arab-Americans after 9/11 235 Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Elaine Katzenberger 22 The post-9/11 “rights and privileges” of a US citizen 237 track five Conversations with theorists 241 Introduction: Elaine Peña ` 243 23 Theatricalizations of postcolonial theory: A Colombian philosopher interviews a Chicano performance artist Eduardo Mendieta and Guillermo Gómez-Peña 245 24 The minefields of Utopia: A dialogue on the dangers of artistic collaboration Lisa Wolford and Guillermo Gómez-Peña 259 25 The minefields of Dystopia: The pervasive effects of 9/11 Lisa Wolford and Guillermo Gómez-Peña 271 26 Loose ends: The fluid borders between author and editor Elaine Peña and Guillermo Gómez-Peña 283 Index 293 xii illustrations ∫ Doña Martha Peña de Gómez v ∫ Natural-born matones 4 ∫ Mexican artists in search of aggressive US curator to domesticate them 9 ∫ El Techno-Shaman and his possessed performance assistant 20 ∫ The Samoan cyborg at The Museum of Fetishized Identities 26 ∫ Brownsheep 37 ∫ British curator presents his newly discovered specimen to his colleagues back home 39 ∫ Living diorama in The Museum of Fetishized Identities 46 ∫ Censored 53 ∫ The sexist and racist desires of men performed by Barbara Cole at The Museum of Fetishized Identities 58 ∫ Miss Amerika 66 ∫ The Pocha cartel 76 ∫ Audience member combs Guillermo Gómez-Peña’s hair during a performance of El Mexterminator Project 83 ∫ Performance action by Guillermo Gómez-Peña and audience members 84 xiii ILLUSTRATIONS ∫ The Museum of Frozen Identities included both performance artists and human-size wax figures playing a chess game with Mexico’s national identity over a three-day period 90 ∫ Ex-Centris 94 ∫ At the identity morphing booth 103 ∫ Diorama created by the audience during the performance of Ex-Centris 121 ∫ Juan Ybarra becomes the centerpiece for a human altar created collectively by one of the work groups at the Instituto Hemisferico gathering in Lima, Peru, 2000 124 ∫ Pop culture imitates art. Señorita Cactus 136 ∫ Performance art expropriates pop culture. La Superchicana 2 137 ∫ Anglo nomadic minorities illegally crossing the border into Mexico 149 ∫ Reanímese con Coca-Cola 166 ∫ Neither Diego nor Frida 168 ∫ Guillermo Gómez-Peña experiencing an acute identity crisis 174 ∫ Performance memory: The CruXi-fiction Project 185 ∫ Performance memory: Guillermo Gómez-Peña boxing with his tortured alter ego, a hanging dead chicken 194 ∫ Early involuntary performance. Ten-year-old Guillermo Gómez-Peña in drag at his Mexico City home, 1965 201 ∫ Guillermo Gómez-Peña as El S/M Zorro 211 ∫ La KKK nurse posing for the camera at the laboratory of desire 216 ∫ Generic terrorist 220 ∫ Evil Other #27846: El Robowarrior in The Museum of Fetishized Identities 224 ∫ Rito neo-Azteca 228 ∫ Before (1978) and After (2000) 238–9 ∫ Michelle Ceballos performing a full body minstrel with Barby Asante (crucified) during the final tableau of Ex-Centris 244 ∫ European anthropologist posing with a group of Amazonian women 252 ∫ Zapatista supermodel crucified by the IMF 258 ∫ Extreme fashion show at The Museum of Fetishized Identities 265 ∫ Cyborg violinist made in Taiwan 272 ∫ Audience interaction during The Museum of Fetishized Identities 277 ∫ Transvestite mohawk 284 ∫ The apocalyptic geisha 291 xiv acknowledgments Earlier versions of “In Defense of Performance” appeared in Art Papers, July/August 2003, pp.