BRUISING FOR BESOS
BRUISING FOR BESOS
This two-act solo play explores domestic violence in queer and and non-queer relationships. Yoli Villamontes, a 20-something Xicana, recreates distant and not-so-distant memoria to explore the effects of physical and emotional violence. Her fraught journey is tempered with doses of good humor and reflection.
Many thanks to Cherríe Moraga, artist-in-residence at Stanford University, where as a graduate student Adelina penned the first drafts of this dramatic work.
ARTIST STATEMENT:
THE XIQANA XRONICLES:Solo Offerings
On Dec. 31st, 2004, my family and I lost our mother, Irene Anthony-Zepeda. Despite the precariousness of her health for many years, it was still an unexpected and profound loss. For my part, this traumatic rupture changed me in ways that I'm still trying to understand and grapple with in my daily life. I wish I could say the traumas and losses ceased after my mother's death, but in fact, a deluge of life challenges nearly consumed me.
Surviving such an intense two-year period has helped me to comprehend
and accept that my mother's passing marks a pivotal point in my life.
La vida has truly required me to examine my purpose, my character, and
my vision as an artista/human being. I do not think it a mere
coincidence
that the loss of my mother occured simultaneously with my serious
study of Xicana-indigenous thought and practice. If anything, my
loss of my mother accelerated a raised
spiritual-intellectual consciousness.
At the end of 2006, I recognized that a new body of work has emerged. This new solo work is absolutely rooted in personal/familial/communal history—in my mother. It is (as my mentor once pointed out) my spirit work. Still, I am a grand payasa. I have much faith in the healing power of humor, so, hopefully, it's not like I'm creating a series of mournful dirges—ay qué boring!
I want to distinguish this series of work from other performance or comedic work that I sometimes create to "pay the bills." So, welcome to my/our initial journey of The Xiqana Xronicles. I do not know where the work will take me/us. I just know that I'm trying to travel well. For the next few years, I will begin to offer some solo performance pieces to my mother, to my ancestors, and to my comunidad. A small testament to our continued survival and our hunger to heal.
The first solo performance piece in The Xiqana Xronicles series is entitled, BRUISING FOR BESOS.