A performance interrogating the pressures of queer and marginalized groups through sound and movement

As the third iteration of Pulsing Equis, this movement-sound performance integrates and operationalizes the theoretical philosophies of Audio Intersectionality and Recovecos. Motifs of interior and exterior define this piece and play on themes of the human and non-human. Pulsing Equis speaks to how marginalized peoples navigate a society that relies on "control" to survive. Equis (Spanish for the letter "X"), Lau's alter-ego, is altered by exterior pulsing in the form of manipulated sound.

 

Shawn Trenell O'Neal

CU Affiliation: Department of Ethnic Studies PhD Candidate

Shawn Trenell O’Neal is a fifth-year PhD candidate in the Department of Ethnic Studies at University of Colorado Boulder, in addition to a renowned DJ and audio producer. His research includes African American studies, Africana studies, musicology, ethnomusicology, queer and trans of color critique, and women of color feminisms. Shawn is a founding member and researcher in Lyripeutics Storytelling: Remixing Our Reality Through Hip Hop Education. He is currently developing an interdisciplinary, and intersectional theoretical concept called Audio Intersectionality (A.I). A.I. are interdisciplinary herstories and histories, active responses, self-narratives, self-defenses, traumas, and celebrations, regarding race, gender, and sexuality communicated through sound, music, and performance. The dissertation title is Audio Intersectionality: Self-Identification Within the Processes of Interdisciplinary Explorations in Sound, Music, and Performance. Shawn O’Neals’ work appears in Routledge Handbook of Pan-Africanism (2020).

Lau Malaver

CU Affiliation: Department of Ethnic Studies PhD Candidate

Lau is a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Ethnic Studies and their research focuses on how trans of color and queers of color negotiate their/our identity and embodiment across time and space, and the performance practices of resistance, refusal, and joy that result. Lau advances a new critical theory they call recovecos (Spanish for nooks, hidden turns, and twists), which examines the ways that trans of color embody multiple realities and propose a multi-dimensional analysis of power, and a practical decolonial offering for and not against trans life. Their work appears in Chiricú Journal, Decolonizing Latinx Masculinities, Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present (ASAP/Journal), among others.