Before the one year mark ends
Before I dismember completely
My body wasted on foreign soil
The bicycle is a curious vehicle. Its passenger is its engine.
Bicicleta was written by me as part of The Ashley Chronicles, a cyber project directed by Dr. Judith Rudakoff. The project consisted of a cycle of short-devised, site-specific performances. In this case, Ashley appeared in the name of "Mercedes Bravo," a pseudonym which represented the voices of several Cuban women. I gave voice to Mercedes Bravo and her meomories of a distant Cuba through this song.
Bicicleta
His bicicleta propels his brain like a hurricane
When his bicicleta cycles him forward eases his pain
Ay! Bicicleta over your wheels he finds a friend
His bicicleta might be too small, but brakes his chains
Oye, don’t you dare to stop me, I need to go, I ‘m on way
His bicicleta takes him to work and to el malecon
With his bicicleta he marches every month to la interrogacion
A little office with a big light bulb over his head
For many hours he proves his loyalty una y otra vez
Oye, don’t you dare to stop me, I need to go, I ‘m on way
When he can go, only his bicycle patiently waits
He grabs the handle bars, and then takes off, nowhere to go
like in ET, he gets to fly over the fence
Rides to the sea where every body waits for a change
Oye, don’t you dare to stop me, I need to go, I ‘m on way
He sees a lady with a blue dress above the waves
He hears the clamor of those who ask her to bring love back again
As he gets near, he cycles faster, he knows this is the end
His bicicleta flies the blue ocean over the straight
Oye, don’t you dare to stop me, I need to go, I ‘m on way
His bicicleta flies him to freedom, Yemaya waves
His tears fell in the sea where many souls have found eternal rest
He doesn’t know why he is the chosen one to make it safe
He prays for them as his bicicleta rides him away
Oye, don’t you dare to stop me, I need to go, I ‘m on my way
"It is often forgotten that (dictionaries) are artificial
repositories, put together well after the languages they
define. The roots of language are irrational and of a
About RelationShips
Relationship: Is it really like a ship? Is that where the word comes from? Perhaps by association, someone created this term to describe, based on its root, the combination of two words, relation and ship. However, even if this is not the case, I think it is a good analogy. If people decide to create a relation, this relation can be like a ship. If the relation goes well, the ship will arrive safe to its destination, but if not, it sinks. However, I do not think that the origin of the word relationship is related to this analogy.
The Online Etymology Dictionary tells us that the word relation was born around 1390, from the Anglo-French word relacioun, then from old French relacion in the 14 century, from the Latin word relatione and from the nominative relation. The meaning "a bringing back, restoring," came from relatus. The meaning "person related by blood or marriage" was first attested in 1502. This means that by the time the Spaniards made it to our continent in 1492, the term was already in use. However, the word relationship, a "sense of being related" is from 1744. Is it pure coincidence that it is also during this time that Romanticism, Lord Byron and his Don Juan originated in Western Europe? Yet, the way in which we use the word now days, meaning "an affair, a romantic or sexual relationship" is attested from 1944, ironically, a year in which WWII was fully developed.
But the word relationship is much more than just an empty definition from an online dictionary. Our first accounts of what a relationship means comes from fairytales and stories such as Snow White, Cinderella, etc. The idea of a “happily ever after” life becomes, early in life, a goal of those who aspire to build a successful relationship. This, I consider is mistake number one. As far as I know, no one tell us that a relationship is something real that does not happen out of magic. It requires instead, a great deal of maturity and commitment, which must be based on concrete guidance. Parents, relatives and significant others hardly know how to prepare anybody for this important task. Forget about film and literature doing this task.
Most people get together after searching for what they call their “other half, la media naranja.” This is mistake number two. Halves do not make a whole. Codependency is neither love nor commitment. It is only need and want. Any relationship born out of this kind of dynamics is destined to fail sooner or later. Once one of the partners satisfies his/her needs and grows, the relationship with the other person becomes rather obsolete. Next comes the rupture and the disappointment. If, on the contrary, the needs are not met at all, then the relationship turns into resentment.
There are people who consider that a relationship is a contract. This, I think is mistake number three. Just think about how severe the word contract sounds. Contract sounds like contraction, the opposite of relaxed. It is shouting obligation, stagnation and death. Truly, anything beautiful about a relationship dies when one feels forced to comply with rules and demands in order to keep the other person in. One may save one’s marriage or “relationship,” but in the process one may lose one’s own very essence, one’s dreams, one’s aspirations, one’s uniqueness, one’s self-identity and one’s freedom to just “be”. What could one offer to anyone after losing so much?
I propose that in order to initiate a fruitful and everlasting relationship, one has to first solve one’s own emotional, psychological, financial and even professional issues. It is not fair to bring them to a relationship with another person. Getting rid of baggage, allows one to get closer to becoming a complete, whole person, instead of someone else’s half. In doing this, one is more able to identify potential partners who are also complete and ready. This may sound cold, but it is not. It is objective. It is getting away from the fairy tale model as one gets closer to a more realistic and responsible one.
Codependency and contract are poor substitutes for a healthy and mature understanding of what it means to develop a true relationship. This is, the willingness to allow the other to exist on his/her own terms and share that which is only the result of a spontaneous desire to do so. One may ask, what about love? Love is precisely born, not out a temporary infatuation or mere physical attraction, not out of obligation or false expectations, but out of a patient, unconditional, unselfish and committed desire to support one another in achieving each other’s full potentials. If materialized, this in turn would solidify the relation- Ship as it creates bonds based on mutual respect, confidence and trust, all perfect ingredients for love growing.
Resources
Online Etymology Dictionary. July 12, 2008. <http://www.etymonline.com/in
Friday, June 13, 2008
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Baled, Gary Ernest Smith Channel Farm, Wayne Thiebau Green River, Wayne Thiebaud
"The flat linear world of California's heartland is a landscape of work. From the air, circles, rectangles, and squares mark the checkerboard of agricultural endeavors."
Love at First Sight
From up above I see Patches of dark and light green, Light and dark brown quadrilaterals, Waves of shapes designed by men,
Wearing men's live drawings Punctum goddess Canela y Green Aphrodite Sun
The joyful eye again mirrors you, The making of the human will Covering your own design,
No other living creature, but me Alone the witness of your paradise
I feel the warmth of your fertile soil Generous earth, Maroya toda Wombs, wounds and all Opened to my arrivals I'm finally grounded Dame a Luz Exiless |
Hometown. Camajuani's Bulevard. Cuba I was ready to write a sad story about me, but why? Why continue dueling in the sadness that comes from the past. I advised myself: one must write about something fresh and positive; one must write about something beautiful; one deserves to remember that which makes one happy. I wonder why most of us humans have this tendency to focus on the sad part of life. It is in a way a melodramatic approach to life that does not help me or anybody else to move forward. It is not that I am embracing an escapist approach to writing and therefore living. It is more of a desire to feed my mind with memories, images and stories that can heal the sadness that the world seems to have in a surplus amount. I am realizing that sometimes the greatest satisfaction comes from very simple pleasures one may take for granted. Son aquellas pequenas cosas … I am rediscovering a new sense of childhood that comes from the simple act of riding my bike. I pedal slowly as if wanting to elongate this moment of rediscovered emancipation. The breeze that comes with my riding on the street, by stop signs and through intersections, rejuvenates me. The aroma of wild rose gardens inundates me with new hope. I am a child again. Could it be possible to cut and paste this moment. If I go back to my happiest childhood moments, I can cut that moment when I was riding my bike in my little town in Cuba, cut the rest and paste this moment in this little town in California. I am still riding my bike, riding my new bike. Is it that what is happening? I feel complete when inhabiting this moment. I feel as if life has given me a new chance to exist as a child. I am submerged in wheeled innocence. I am a knight, a Quixote, a Little Prince. I discover new planets in every corner. I have seen a red barn, just like the toy one I had when I was little. I have seen giant geraniums, a whole garden full of them, simple, unpretentious, untamed. I have seen amazing houses with round roof tops, Californian igloos, hippies and Quakers. I have discovered secret bike paths that take me nowhere but to a reborn sense of awe; I cut and paste again. I see eyes that look into my eyes. I see smiles that mirror mine. I see other bikes and bikers, many of them, friendly, courteous. A cashier asks: what are doing after lunch? I am going to take a nap, I said. A courier recognizes in my name un paisano mas and asks: are you Cuban? I ask myself: - Could this be the Promised Land?
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I was born in a country where I was never part of any decision making process in electing Fidel Castro Ruz as the Chief Commander of the Revolutionary Forces of Cuba, the president of the State and Minister’s Council of Cuba, the Cuban Communist Party’s First Secretary. He was for 49 years the leader of a revolution that betrayed its very meaning as it moved away from the democratic ideals that propelled it.
I was taught about this revolution that took place before I was born. I had nothing to do with that revolution’s outcome, except that my family and I became at one point, as many other Cubans before and after us, the victims of its institutionalized repressive policies and practices. My father, who actually fought with the revolutionaries with the goal of replacing Batista’s dictatorship by a democracy, would often correct my textbook learned historical facts about the revolution. He would then warn me not to tell anyone what he told me because he would go to prison for it.
After trying to write about the officialized transferring of powers from Cuban dictator Fidel Castro Ruz to his brother and Chief of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba, Raul Castro Ruz, I feel a sense of hopelessness and helplessness. As an exile, I cannot stop thinking about Cubans in general and Cuban artists and intellectuals specifically, whose only choice is to live under a 49 year old dictatorship whose newly "elected" president has been its Military Chief for all these years of violations of their most basic human rights.
As a human who is free to choose what I say, where I live, and what I do, I feel for them Cubans and for all of those who live under dictatorial regimes. I cannot feel completely free if I know they are not. I realize that writing about it makes me regain a sense of hope and power, perhaps it is that sense of power exercised by artists through their work that it is so feared by the enemies of freedom.
Very seldom do I get to consciously consider the importance of the senses in performance practices and how neglected has the exploration and use of the senses been in this field. I realize that it is probably only in recent times that the use of the senses has been forgotten and avoided. In theatre, for instance, the senses used to be part of one whole spectacle where olfactory, tactual, visual, auditory, gustative, and kinesthetic experiences combined to enhance and heighten the very experience of living; Ancient Greek Theatre comes to mind. In a modern world invaded by entertainment and pop art, divided in very specific fields of performance and immersed in a sanitized version of reality, where the senses are all transposed, camouflaged, distorted and avoided by industrial, first world, urban, manicured and/or marginal environments, the exploration of performance through the senses becomes a refreshing alternative to performative numbness.
I believe that performative pathologies have emerged due to the neglect of the senses. They have been segregated from each other in very rigid and specific genres and in their separation there have been created disjointed perceptions. I feel it is necessary to reverse this kind of performance sanitation by bringing not only the actor, but the audience, into the experience of the senses. I feel that when it comes to realism, for example, actors need to address theatrical illusionism and the importance of the senses in the representation of realism’s internal dynamics. Paradoxically, it would also be helpful to think about the economy of the senses in a society where spectacle is always in function of entertaining and pleasing those who can pay.
I feel we are invaded by an overwhelming array of technological visual stimulation. The performance artists’ use of tactilism and tactile synesthesia could turn him/her into a body in function of counter-representational devices. In the midst of globalization, it is still rare to see an interesting exposition about the differences that exist between the cultural mapping of Western cognitive sciences and Eastern systems of emotions. I advocate for the contemporary artists’ right and duty to find viable possibilities for the exploration of the senses as a resource to consider in the development of a cross-cultural model of sensorial performance.
There is also something to be said about performance and the political undertones caused by sensorial hyperstimulation. Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty and his notion of “body without organs” could illustrate the impossibility of proximity between the body of the patron expectator and the architecture of traditional western theatres, which we need to overcome. The emergence of new architectural projects in universities and art centers, in the west, for instance, seems to ignore the implicit sensorial anatomy of architecture and its role in sensorial experiences. The senses, political power and theatre could merge to communicate regulated ways of perceiving and making meaning in performance practices. An interesting theatrical correlation between edible and human performances, the importance of smell in theatrical performance, the sense of smell and its historical influence on Western theatre and ritual, are just a few of the multiple directions the study of the senses could take us. As a result I propose a merging of the cognitive and the emotional in performance.
I argue it is important to develop an understanding of performance in order to open a discussion about phenomenology as a new methodological tool related to recent trends in performance art. This understanding can bring to one’s attention recent performance art and body art which establish language dialogues with the body in an attempt to explore the non-verbal, in an attempt to explore the dialogue between the visual and the auditory, to explore the dialogue between the image and its absence, the word and its many meanings and the voice and its silence in actor training techniques. I hope to find in that exploration a new world of performance possibilities born out of the womb of ancient rituals where human performance and the senses were an indissoluble part of the art of living.
(Self -Performance) Miami. 1992
“I look at cultures from around the world, and from within
“There are days when I want to scream out, “I don’t belong here! This is NOT my home!”
A Way Out
I agree 100% with the statements made by Heather Annis in reference to the environment in her January 25th, 2008 blog entry. I would like to add to her argument one more aspect of human societies which, from my own perspective, it is hardly acknowledged by people living in democratic countries with thriving market-oriented economies, and that issue is the effect of totalitarianism. A totalitarian system represents the opposite end of the spectrum from democracy and a socialist/communist dictatorship the extreme end of consumerism. Deemed as a social aberration, a capitalist ill, consumerism becomes the dialectic devil. I, like you, feel that we consumers are destroying the planet, and that there are ways we can, and must, compromise to get what we need to survive in urban societies without destroying our natural resources.
I feel alluded by the statement above. I must say that being born and educated for twenty years of my life, in “socialist”
After 47 years of Socialism in
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“The sewage treatment plants are inoperative. The water and sewer pipeline network is in shambles. There is almost no trash pickup; there are garbage dumps everywhere and medical wastes are mixed with trash. Environmental laws are not enforced and industrial facilities are causing air pollution all over the country. Bays and bordering seas are increasingly being contaminated. During recent years, monitoring of environmental and contamination problems has been eliminated. Facilities that handle hazardous wastes lack treatment and safe disposal. Forests are irrationally being use for fire wood, which is causing an accelerated pace of deforestation and, at the same time, a lost of biological diversity. The depletion of farmable soils requires urgent measures because agricultural lands are disappearing. Environmental health conditions have deteriorated to such a degree in human settlement areas that they are virtually creating a total crisis for the lives of the populace.”
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For Solares, “the environmental damage that the Cuban government has caused is almost irreparable and it will take years to achieve a return to normalcy.”
(http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43b/1
City dwellers, whether living in capitalist or totalitarian societies, have a great impact on the environment. Unlike farmers and people who work the land, we only produce five main organic products, feces, urine, carbon monoxide (cars), carbon dioxide and garbage (methane). Every time I see a new high rise being built in
.
When I sometimes think about the remote possibility of going back to my country of birth, I can not avoid thinking about how much of what I knew in that country will still be there, by the time I am allowed to return. As sad as it may sound, not all is bad news though. It seems clear that we, as humans, are the source of environmental degradation, but since it is us humans who ultimately make, operate and control governments in all their forms, we still retain not only the responsibility, but the possibility of protecting our environment. As an exiled urban dweller without a community to host my own sense of displacement, I at times also feel like crying out “I don’t belong here! This is NOT my home!” And I do, I cry, intimately and broken heartedly, to then go. It is in the rituals of my own theatre practice that I have resisted the changes that take place around me. It is in the performance of new and creative rituals that I find my own ecological balance, a home, and a way out to a more loving world.
"The critics of Juragua's viability to operate properly point to the following concerns: deficiencies in construction, lack of safety and quality control during the installation process, the poor Russian design of the instrumentation and control systems, the poor training and experience level of the Cuban personnel who were trained on Soviet model 230 reactors which were different from Juragua. Historically, accidents at nuclear power plants (Three Mile Island, Chernobyl), were due in large part to human error. As a result, critics see the possibility of an accident occurring at Juragua as a strong possibility and the effects of which would be environmentally cataclysmic to the Caribbean, Latin America and the United States. "
“The more I live, the more I realize who I was supposed to be at the very moment of my conception.” Jorge Luis Morejon
(Excerpt from Neither Here Nor There, a performance piece presented at the European Graduate School in
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There are questions about my condition as an exiled person that guide me through life in search for some explanation, some way to help, some way to justify my life, my choices, to reconcile myself with my destiny, with my karma, with my community. Those questions persist as it persits mi exilio. Soy caminate y en busca de la verdad hago preguntas. I am a walker and in search for the thruth I ask questions.
I want to Know...
the origin of rituals and how rituals came to be an important part of the socio-historical health of communities.
how violent displacement without return, can be assuaged through the restoration, recreation and customizing of performance rituals.
the specific aspects of the social environment which can aggravate displacement.
about the social behaviors manifested by exile communities and in what degree are those behaviors the result of an ongoing sense of displacement.
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about the relationship between displacement and post-traumatic stress syndrome in displaced communities.
the meaning of liminality and go deeper into the idea of liminality being more than just part of a process, but instead a permanent stage in the lives of displaced communities.
about my own sense of displacement and PTSD and how the ritualistic aspect of art making has helped me to cope.
myself as a case study and analyze the ways in which I can apply the knowledge of my personal experience to the larger aspect of the research.
my own performance pieces through the understanding and recognition of performance as a ritual.
Perhaps, after knowing, like a good old Cuban caminante, I can just turn around, and con paso lento, go back home….
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