Youth.Out at The Neutral Zone (Ann Arbor, MI), APRIL 19

Fantastic upcoming event (APRIL 19) at Neutral Zone in Ann Arbor! Come support local youth LGBT initiatives! http://www.neutral-zone.org/events/997/youthout

TEDxSanJuan 2011 - Queer Migration

On December 9, 2011 I spoke at TEDxSanJuan, held at the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, about gay migrations and Puerto Rican culture.

You can see the live-stream video of the afternoon events here; I speak at minute 17 for 15 minutes.

The edited video is forthcoming.

(Photos: Rachid Molinary, TEDxSanJuan photo set on Flickr)

Aravind Adyanthaya in Michigan

Aravind Enrique Adyanthaya at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, this week! Performance and talk, Thursday, 6pm, G634 Haven Hall. Workshop, Friday, 1-5pm, requires preregistration: contact Larry La Fountain.

Thursday, January 19. The Latina/o Studies Program invites you to a performance by Puerto Rican artist Aravind Enrique Adyanthaya: "TRANSLATION/TRADUCCIÓN" with post-performance discussion. "TRANSLATION/TRADUCCIÓN" is an episode from Adyanthaya's piece "Prometheus Bound," a re-envisioning of Aeschylus' work. In this episode, Prometheus meets Io, a "cow-vaca woman".  The performance resembles a song, its lyrics ramifying through verbal and written scores, the rhythm of phonetics and the typing carrying it through. Body movements are often drawn from Latino popular singers and dancers, trying to explore the iconographic context of translation specific to the artist (a Puerto Rican living between the island and the mainland). What begins as Spanglish transforms into yet another idiosyncratic sign system.  The episode questions cultural images and specificity.  It dramatizes different registers of language precisely through this encounter with, Io, a maiden with the horns of an ox, a monster ("monstrua"), the other (foreign, creature, mutant, paradoxically the self) and in the untranslatable in it. The performance will be followed by a discussion about "escritura acto" and about Adyanthaya's work with Casa Cruz de la Luna, a grass roots experimental company based in the historical town of San Germán, Puerto Rico.  A short clip from "The Marquis de Sade is Afraid of the Sea", a project expanding escritura acto to a group/ensemble practice will be shown.  This presentation, which took place at a public square in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico will also serve as a springboard to talk about the different dynamics and politics involved in the occupation of public spaces. Cosponsored by Arts at Michigan/Course Connections, the Center for World Performance Studies, Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Romance Languages and Literatures, and the School of Art and Design. Free and open to the public. 6pm, G634 Haven Hall.

Friday, January 20. "Escritura Acto" Workshop with Puerto Rican artist Aravind Enrique Adyanthaya. (4 hours, limited capacity, please contact Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes to pre-register.) "Escritura acto" is a form of theatrical poetics that explores the staging of the act of writing. Its setting is based on letting the spectators view the contents of what is written through a video projection of the document as it is being produced in the computer.  This mode of representation examines relationships between the writer and the written, the medium and the message, the audience/spectators and oral and written perceptions.  It also works to performatively explore notions of language hybridization and belonging in different cultural contexts. Automatic writing and contact improvisation principles will also be presented in the context of escritura acto. Some of the exercises will take the form of brief unipersonal and group pieces performed by the participants.  Participants can work in any language they choose. To register please contact Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes. 1:00-5:00pm, G634 Haven Hall.

ALIEN ALIEN - SAMBACA

Here's a video with the DJs (Rodion & Hugo Sanchez):

ROCCODISCO & SLOWMOTION
present

Rodion & Hugo Sanchez in

ALIEN ALIEN
Black Guru Ep
File under: Disco voodo / Dark tropical / Urban primivitism

ALIEN ALIEN is the shadowy side project of Hugo Sanchez and Rodion (Gomma, Eskimo, Bang Gang) who
have distilled for us two stone cold cuts of percussive, rolling disco for the dance-floor backed up
with remixes from Horse Meat Disco's Severino and The Heels of Love.
Black Guru is all about shaking cowbells and a synth line that is somewhat reminiscent of the Tom
Tom Club. However a creepy vocal line and neon lasers take the track to a whole different
stratosphere, where all the colours and creeds of the galaxy throw down as one for some fists in the
air future-disco action. Severino's LDB-NYC mix breaks things down to a less frantic pace, but makes
up for the change in energy with some seriously heavyweight bass and classic house piano stabs.
Flip the record over and it's all about the cosmic flex of Sambaca. Low and sleazy with a speaker
troubling low-end, this hypnotic workout takes you on a journey through oceans and forests , beaches
and jungles where shaking tambourines and rattling drums envelop a vocal that brings to mind classic
Northern Exposure mixes of old. Finally The Heels of Love take Sambaca and add just a touch more
urgency with bubbling synth swooshes, extra drums and a bass so thick you could chew on it for
hours. One for those more intense moments on the dance-floor.
As LIEN ALIEN, Hugo Sanchez & Rodion together in Rome they gave life to the ROCCODISCO label.
Their cosmopop anthem ROYGBIV, an obscure BOARDS OF CANADA cover, has been featured in the first
ROCCODISCO split release, in Summer 2008. Their TAPE OXYDE number, released on the Honey Sound
System label (San Francisco) and then on the Glasgow's SOLARDISCO, topped many disco and house
charts and has been featured in a Hercules and Love Affair mix for Mixmag. The new BLACK GURU ep is
out on berliner Slow Motion label on yinyls and on Roccodisco in digital format.

Catalogue: ROCCO04
Release Date: may 2011
Release Format: Digital / Vinyl
Vynil: SLOWMOTION / Intergroove Distribution (Berlin)
Digital Distribution: GROOVEATTACK (Cologne)
Artwork: Tso http://tso.superfluo.biz/

Track listing:
Sambaca
Black Guru
Sambaca (The Heels Of Love remix)
Black Guru (Severino - Horse Meat Disco remix)

Early feedback:
“Forget Ghaddafi! THIS is the b.o.m.b.” (Munk)
“I couldn't listen to it all the way through because I started hallucinating”
(Haules Baules)
“Bomba” (Claudio Coccoluto)

http://soundcloud.com/roccodisco/alien-alien-sambaca-heels-of

Gay New York Symposium

I will be speaking at the Gay New York and the Arts of the 20th Century Symposium (February 11, 2012) at the Museum of the City of New York. http://www.mcny.org/ Hope you can all come! Promises to be fun.

Delicious coquito!

A new episode of the ever popular Cooking with Drag Queens: How to Make Coquito! With the glamorous Lola von Miramar and her friends Saltina Obama Bouvier and Daphne Dumount! Brought to you by the Feast of Fun.

Christeene Is Incredibe

CHRISTEENE "African Mayonnaise" from PJ Raval on Vimeo.