An analysis of Latin perscussion and indigenous ancestry
by Jesús Muñoz
La Mama de mi Mama, a B2 Creative Residency in the Atlas Institute by Jesús Muñoz (MFA in Dance candidate) is intended to create a Latinx centered space that will highlight the wisdom of its vernacular/cultural dance & music as a decolonizing practice. In collaboration with Natasha Tia (Artist in Residence), Victor Mestas (Lecturer, College of Music), Brad Gallagher (B2 Graduate Creative Fellow), & Sean Winters (B2 Scholar in Residence), this project includes a multidisciplinary performance that explores live music, dance, and technology (motion capture, ambisonic sound, & lighting). Through movement, experimental musical making, and the use of technology, this project aims at integrating, alienating, and harnessing new ways of performativity in Latinx artmaking.
From the artist:
What’s behind? What’s below? To shake and be shaken, my body, more bodies, dressing for the occasion. To illicit tension, to take a chair and play, vibrations that spark something within. The thought of movement, the lack of thinking, keeps me on my feet, sound that makes the body tremble, difficult to stay collected. A limit story, images of anguish, of exhausted feet. Multiple faces in many spaces, a constant in-betweenness, mellow sounds of sunrise, urgency of a thundering storm, attempts to reason. To multiply human capacity, the ancestry of skin, the honoring of flesh, two wooden sticks, the drum, the honoring of the animal, the energy of the tree, the human ritual. To visit new routes, new ranges of motion, emotion. To claim the intricacy of song, of tradition, of culture, a new syncretism. A sense of constant death, taming faith, a shocking spectacle, notions of non-literate sensation. To enact transformation, to feel each other, and life around us. To regain what’s leftover, vessels of nuance, channels of the body. You are free to do anything as long as you know where home is, ¿Y Tú Abuela Donde Està?
This work was made possible through the B2 Creative Residency Program. Learn more here.