The Enchilada Western with La Pocha Nostra

GUILLERMO GÓMEZ-PEÑA, SAUL GARCIA LOPEZ/LA SAULA, AND BALITRONICA GÓMEZ

Paseo Festival, Taos, New México, 2019 
Duration: 6hrs (2 evenings, 3hrs/night)

Team:

-Conceptualized & written by Guillermo Gómez-Peña & LPN

-Producers: Emma Tramposch, Jessamyn Lovell & Matt Thomas/Paseo Project.

-Performers: LPN en transito: Gómez-Peña, Balitronica, La Saula, Micha Espinosa, DJ Ricardiaco, Muza de la Luz, Holly Timpener, Nikesha Breeze, Aquarius Funkk, Pepper Pepper, Rob Evans, Shanna Robbins, Rob Evans, Josie J (divinebrick), Anna Valeska Pohl, Leni Hester, Arturo Herrera, Clare O’Brien, Jessica Fertonani Cooke, Polina Porras Sivolobova and Tess Martins.

-Live music: DJ Ricardiaco, Micha Espinosa & Gómez-Peña

-Live Video: Pepper Pepper & LPN


-Opera singers: Micha Espinosa, Gomez-Peña and name of opera singer TBA




The Enchilada Western
(A Living Museum of Fetishized Identities)
An interactive performance opera by La Pocha Nostra

The Living Museum of Fetishized Identities is the next step in LPN’s performance research to develop large-scale interactive performance/installations that functioned as “intelligent raves and art expos of Western apocalypse.” This “living museum” is site-specific and is realized from a pre-festival workshop featuring different groups of local and international performers. Original music (live or prerecorded), video projections, cinematic lighting, taxidermied animals and twisted ethnographic motifs helped enhance the high-tech “robo-baroque aesthetic.”

A two night large scale performance opera parodying living history environments & cultural heritage parks gone wrong; commenting on the dangers of cultural appropriation, race bending and queering the popular mythologies of the Southwest. Diving into the collective subconscious of Taos, New Mexico to develop highly stylized personas that reveal its contradictions & complexities; it’s dreams and nightmares.

In these intoxicating environments created by La Pocha, exhibit exhibited on platforms as intricately decorated “ethno-cyborgs” and “artificial savages”. With live music and video, the structure is open and non-coercive, allowing the audience to walk around the dioramas designing their own journey. They can stay for as long as they wish, come in and out of the space, or return later on, fully participating in our performance games or keeping to the sidelines as voyeurs.