glitter pains

We feel the pain we allow ourselves to feel, we touch the glitter we allow ourselves to touch.

Cuauhtemoc Peranda @ UCR

Cuauhtémoc Peranda

cpera001@ucr.edu

Cuauhtémoc Peranda, MFA (Mexica/Aztec & Mescalero Apache) is a First-Year PhD student in the Critical Dance Studies Program at the University of California, Riverside. He is a Benjamin E. Mays Mellon Fellow, and a recipient of the prestigious Dean’s Distinguished Fellowship. He has had to honor of presenting his award winning research on Vogue/Voguing at the Queer People of Color Regional Conference at the University of California, Davis, and the Queer Yo’ Mind Conference at San Francisco State University. In 2009, he studied under Dr. Ramón Rivera-Servera, PhD at Northwestern University through the competitive Research Opportunities Program Fellowship, and graduated in 2010, with Honors, from Stanford University with a BA Degree in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity. While training at Mills College for his MFA in Choreography and Performance, he established his art & dance company: Mitote Choreographics. 

Cuauhtémoc’s artistic and academic interests examine Contemporary Dance’s decolonial possibilities by ways of the imbedded Native American dance protocols; additionally, he explores Queer & Quare Fierceness in Voguing as a tool for gender and identity resistance, and a vehicle for healing and preventing suicide. His dance work has been presented throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, New York, Seattle, Cambridge, London, Germany, and he has traveled through the United States, Canada and Mexico as a performer. His writings on decolonial dance practices will be published in the forthcoming Queer Chicana/o Xicana/o Spiritualities Anthology. 

Auto-Choreographic Questions

Auto-choreographies. Could this be a thing? Auto-Choreographic? What happens when we choreograph ourselves, or try to dig into ourselves? Is the choreographic something already self described and inscribed?

What of the glitter shaman? Or Ralph Lemon's Geography? Or Adrianne Piper's Mythic Being? With the emergent choreographies and performances, don't we also see the emerging person, the emerging artist? Isn't choreography as much self work as it is artwork?

Dance USA Question

Question

In this much more expensive world of dance training, lack of part-time sustainable jobs, little to no low-income housing, low scholarships and high loan debt, how do prospective dancers become a part of a company? How can they finance training for a specific style, genre, company, or choreographer while also fulfilling personal obligations? In the time before a contact is even given, how do dancers survive? And, even if a contact is given, if it is part-time, or per project, how do dancers sustain themselves and plan for their financial future?

dream

I have a dream.
That one day we can talk about ‪#‎racism‬ openly and with compassion.
That we could look at business, education, policy, law, and any system and openly state: "this is racist. This seems to be built on old racist ideas, let's change this" -- and the rest will say -- "I agree, this irrationally oppresses a group and supports white supremacy, let's change this for the better and work for a more perfect union and collaborative country" .... Without the fighting, killing, and ‪#‎WhiteFeelings‬....

I dream of a day when racism can be discussed freely, without fear...

It is possible, I know it. Because that is freedom!

Adventures

Boo: I think grad school made me more racist. 
Me: confused_rev emoticon 
Boo: well, maybe I can be more racists cuz I learned how to be in school. 
Me: >.> 
Boo: well ummm you know what I mean...
Me: shhhhhhhh

Adeventures

Boo: when you go to LA you can't kiss no more Asian boos. 
Me: FINE! Then you can't kiss any more Latino boos up here! 
Boo: confused emoticon but they're my weakness! 
Me: I know colonthree emoticon