Charo Oquet - Performance Work

PERFORMANCE WORK Charo Oquet

Charo Oquet PERFORMANCE WORK

“ Miami Rara “, Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, Fl 2017.

“Paletero Waltz“, Index - Miami/Santo Domingo

Performance Festival 2017, Spanish Cultural Center of Santo Domingo and the Duarte Park.

Arrayanos, Multi-psciplinary performance, Edge Zones Gallery, Miami, FL, 2017. (Photo: Sarah Bowers)

“ Arrayanos “, Multidisciplinary performance, Edge Zones Gallery, Miami, FL, 2017 (Photo: Sarah Bowers)

“Irma“, Edge Zones Gallery, 2017 (Photo: Javier De Pinson)

“Arrayanos“, multi-media performance/installation -Audio Foundation, Auckland, New Zealand., 2017

“Impulsos”, Performagraphikos Territorio, Tiempo e Iteración en Arte de AcciónARTerial El Cubo,Valparaiso, Chile, 2016

“The Miami Flyers”, Miami Light Project, Here and Now Festival, Miami, FL, 2016 (Photo: Vlad Zavatte)

“Cuatro Vientos“ (Four WindsACCIONArar, Anolaima, Colombia), residency and performance 2016. (Photo T.Barrantes)

“Between Here & There (Entre Aquí y Allí)“

Km 0 Int’l Performance Festival. Santo Domingo D.R. 2016

“Double Blind“ Quinta Dominica, Santo Domingo, 2016

“The Sweeper“, INDEX International Performance Festival Santo Domingo/Puerto Rico/Miami” Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, 2016

The Sweeper in the Dominican Version of Rara, Gaga is the person who carries the spirit in a sack (bones pertaining to a dead person whose is now considered the spirt protector of the group) and he heads the group with a broom sweeping away bad spirits to clear the way for the Gaga/Rara group to travel safely. Most of these rituals take place in rural areas in the sugarcane growing areas. I like the concept of the sweeper as a motor or a big broom that clears the way for good things to come clearing and cleansing the way for the community to enter the pathway he/she has created.

“Between Here & There (Entre Aquí y Allí)“, Km 0 Int’l Performance Festival, Santo Domingo, D.R.,

2016. (Photo: Vlad Zavatte)

“Enramada” - Edge Zones, Miami, FL 2015 (Photo: Vlad Zavatte)

“Talk Back“ -Miami Performance Fes>val,15, Edge Zones, Miami, FL 2015 (Photo: Vlad Zavatte)

“I am Blood, I am Water,“ Independence.do International Performance Festival, Santo Domingo, Puerto Plata, D.R., 2015. (Photo: Nancy Viscaino)

“Poison“, Ballhaus Naunynstraße, Berlin Germany and Art Labour Archives; 2014

“Una Isla Dos Banderas/One IslandTwo Flags” - performance, INDEX Performance Festival Santo Domingo, Museum of Modern Art Santo Domingo 2014.

“Soy Blanca/Soy Negra (I am White, I Am Black)“ INDEX - Santo Domingo/Puerto Rico/Miami ’15, Parque Colón, Santo Domingo, 2015. (Photo: David Brieke)

Photo documentation of performance in Dominican Republic at Independence.do Festival. (2013) Based on the concept of “crazy wisdom”-- unconventional, outrageous, or unexpected imagery, sound and movement used to convey spirituality--this, references the Trickster in Voodoo and Shamanism... Throughout I combine chants of a noted Healer and Shaman with chants of my own, the latter reflecting: the contradictions pertaining to gender, nationality (Haitian/Dominican)

Chants of Maria Sabina

(Translated by Charo Oquet)

Ah, Jesu Kri

I am a woman who shouts

I am a woman who whistles

I am a woman who lightnings, says Ah, Jesu Kri

Ah, Jesusi

Woman santa, says Ah, Jesusi

hmm hmm hmm

so so so si

hmm hmm hmm

Woman who resounds

Woman torn up out of the ground

Woman who resounds

Woman torn up out of the ground

Woman of the principal berries, says

Woman of the sacred berries, says Ah, Jesusi

Woman who searches, says

Woman who examines by touch, says hmm hmm hmm

She is of one word, of one face, of one spirit, of one light, of one day hmm hmm hmm

Woman who resounds

Woman torn up out of the ground

Ah, Jesusi

Ah, Jesusi

hmm hmm hmm

so so so

Justice woman

Saint Peter woman

Saint Paul woman Ah, Jesusi Book woman

Morning Star woman

Cross Star woman

God Star woman Ah, Jesusi

Moon woman

Moon woman

Moon woman

hmm hmm hmm

Sap woman

Dew woman

Ah, Jesusi hmm hmm hmm

so so so

Justice woman

hmm hmm hmm

Saint Peter woman

Saint Paul woman

Ah, Jesusi

Book woman

Morning Star woman

Cross Star woman

God Star woman

Ah, Jesusi

Moon woman

Moon woman

Moon woman

hmm hmm hmm

Sap woman

Dew woman so so so

She is a Book woman

Ah, Jesusi

hmm hmm hmm

Lord clown woman

Clown woman beneath the ocean

Clown woman

Ah, Jesusi hmm hmm hmm

so so so

Justice woman

Saint Peter woman

Saint Paul woman

Ah, Jesusi

Book woman

Book woman

Morning Star woman

Cross Star woman

She is a Book woman

Ah, Jesusi

hmm hmm hmm

Lord clown woman

Clown woman beneath the ocean

Clown woman

Ah, Jesusi hmm hmm hmm

Woman who resounds

Woman torn up out of the ground

Because she is a Christ woman

Because she is a Christ woman

ha ha ha

so so so

Whirling woman of colors

Whirling woman of colors

Big town woman

Big town woman

Lord eagle woman

Lord eagle woman

Clock woman

“Red“, Miami Performance Int’l Festival ’13, Miami Beach Botanical Garden, Miami Beach, FL 2013

“Engungun in White“, Performia1, International Performance Festival, Edge Zones, Miami, FL 2013

“White Balls/Black Balls “- Caos and Conclusion - Independence International Performance Festival, Museum of Modern Art of Santo Domingo, 2013

“Soy la mujer que brota/ I am the Woman Who burst” Independent.do Performance Festival, Santo Domingo/Puerto Plata 2013, Spanish Cultural Center of Santo Domingo, (Maria Sabino Chants)

Soy la mujer que brota (I am the Woman Who burst)

Soy la mujer Arrancada (I am the woman with nothing)

Soy la mujer que llora(I am the woman who cries)

Soy la mujer que chifla (I am the woman who whistles)

Soy la mujer que hace sonar (I am the woman who makes sounds)

Soy la mujer Tamborista (I am the woman drummer)

Soy la mujer Trompetista (I am the woman trumpeter)

Soy la mujer violinista (I am the woman violinist)

Soy la mujer Que alegra por que soy la payasa sagrada

(I am the woman who makes people happy because (I am the sacred clown)

“Blood, Fire and Water“

Live Performance - 2012 Independence. dom Performance Festival, Museum of Modern Art of Santo Domingo

“Dance of the Cosmos “- International Festival of Performance Art, INDEPENDENCE – Pop, Puerto Plata, DR 2011

Is a performance which takes inspiration from dance of whirling dervishes and the writings of Plato. Accompanied by a large group of 40 volunteers and musicians.

“Performance with Non-Grata“, Edge Zones, Miami,FL 2007

“We are all bound together“, Galleria Carmen de la Guerra, Madrid, Spain 2006

“In Search of Mami Watta“, Museum of the Royal Houses, (de las Casas Reales) , Santo Domingo ReMapping the Caribbean, 2008

“All Tied Up/Amarre“ - Museum of Modern Art of Santo Domingo, Santo Domingo, D.R., 2006 Reassessing the Diaspora Project

“Tomatoes and Chocolate“ - Performance with Pip Brant, Chocolatera, Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, ReAssessing The Diaspora Project, Edge Zones, International Exchange Project 2006.

“The Offering“ - 20”x 24” Polaroids, J.Johnson Gallery, Jacksonville, Fl, 2004

“Mami Wata Performance“, Galeria Senda, Mermaid Song (Canto de Sirena) installation/ performance, Barcelona, Spain 2001

The Kingdom of our World”, Ambrosino Art Gallery, Miami, FL 2000

“Mambo” A+ Resources, Refle ctions of the Soul, Miami, FL 2001

Bodies, Differences and Performance Poetics

Charo Oquet

I was born in the center of the Caribbean, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, in 1952, where the waves and palm trees were always telling me something with their particular rhythm, with their power. Then looking for new lights I settled in the city of Miami, where the coast still wanted to talk to me, to offer me its insular imaginary, the border. I explore in my work poetics linked to the construction of a new imaginary in the contemporary Caribbean through painting, photography, performance and installation, I try to construct images and scenarios where a process of mestizaje capable of arming dissident ways of live, intertwines with my family history. I focus on their ritual qualities and I always thinking that we can eradicate the silences in which these contexts and imaginary have been built.

My interest is not highlighting all the violence that has befallen the colonized people, but promoting joy, the emancipated body, the party. My artistic practice focuses on “radical hope”; which requires flexibility, openness and what Lear describes as “imaginative excellence” and the belief as Junot Diaz states that “it will help us create a better and more affective future”, which I believe is at the core of Dominican and other Caribbean nation’s idiosyncrasy and culture and it is that which has helped us to survive all the blows we have received as a people since the beginning of the colonies delivered by the colonizers, dictators and by nature itself with its frequent hurricanes and its devastating tremors.

The bright and often blaring colors I use in my work reflects and gives form to the idea of “radical hope”. Whenever I am most sad or troubled I will wear orange or bright pink. I will often play very loud salsa or merengue.

This is our elixir. In Dominicans parties or restaurants, the music is often very loud, not allowing anyone to speak or tell their troubles. We are here to be happy, we are here to forget. It is not that we do not face our problems but, that by dancing, we can continue to work past the hardship. From windows in Dominican neighborhoods in New York music is blared out of windows, a form of sharing happiness. Dominican migrants work very hard all week in grueling regardless of the pain of adaptation and loneliness. It is the way we interact and react to the complex and painful process of insertion and adaptation in a new social context.

I understand de-coloniality as the exploration of the historical resistance of the subject subjugated, I concentrate on potentiating possibilities in this uncertainty. For this I have always guided my research in popular Dominican religious practices, I constantly visit bateyes, spaces where sugarcane workers continue to reinforce traditions that cross the Taino, African and Creole ancestry as the Gagá, a ritual that taught me how from simple resources I could transform an art room. In my installations, I could invent scenarios that show the richness of their cultural focus, through the visibility of their colors, sounds and images.

I have lived different periods in countries where the presence of people of African descent is practically nonexistent and these migratory processes have been important in my life and work as they have allowed me to reflect on questions such as transnational identity, borders, cultural differences, but above all to educate.

When I moved to New Zealand in 1982, for example, I generated a lot of attention in the local environment for my work “Mami Watta”, a deity known as “Santa Marta the Dominator”, that gives material goods, personal power, beauty and achieves impossible loves. There I realized that I was irrevocably linked to my ancestors. She is the most popular amongst Dominican women and sex workers of all the spirits of the Dominican voodoo pantheon, the wife of St. Elias, the Cemetery Baron. I learned of her in the fire of the fearful Petro spirits of Batey La Ceja, in the midst of Gaga rituals.

For me, the body and movement have always been very important. In the Dominican Republic not dancing well is almost like missing a leg . From an early age, we learn to move our bodies to the rhythm of merengue. I never took formal dance classes. At the time of deciding the course of my life, I chose the visual arts. I never thought I was a performer. Even so, I always include performance in my artistic practice. At first, I only performed in front of the camera. It would take me many years to overcome fear and launch myself to do live performance.

What led me to deepen the performance were two things: the first, my encounter and research of Dominican Voodoo, Haitian, Cuban Santeria and then wanting to get away from the object in art and, therefore, the art trade. I was already

but their very presence. This was what attracted me most to deepen my involvement in performance art, and focus not only my artistic practice but also that of my organization Edge Zones, from 2012 in the art of performance.

Among my performances, I attach great importance to the aesthetic and spiritual dynamics of the Gaga festival, where we all together build a spiritual festival, where we dance to the depths of our spirits and where human life is transformed into a constant and sovereign living space. The gaga is an elaborate aesthetic pursuit linked to the postcolonial approach of the performing arts such as theater, music and dance, and merging with these individual biographical aspects, life, biographies and subjectivities taken by the rupture of memories that means the displacement, migration and the critique of hegemonic identities.

Gaga, pubic spirituality for better days. Bodies, differences and performance poetics.

Gaga corporality plays a central role. There is no petition, prayer or mantra without a body of execution, available to celebrate the spirituality of the living, the sanctity of the living. The altar can be trees, seas, mountains, too. The more bodies there are, the greater the power of peace. The greater its contribution to the community based on an idea of cultural communion.

I look for it in the performance in these forces, these encounters between the community that have strived to maintain a decent life expectancy. Women and men who follow their best convictions to make this place a place of inclusion, tolerance and respect for what is different. These bodies are essentially diasporic, coming from various territorial and conceptual geographies that are the instruments of connection between today and the past and a new future. These bodies, yesterday discriminated and socially accused, today appear with dignity and strength of their differences to make this a better world. They know the struggles and the efforts, they bring their physical and symbolic memory fighting modern forms of slavery like racism, sexism and gender violence. It has been a peaceful fight, carnival tactics, this convictions, the right to happiness.

The radical hope is the carnivalising of sadness which has encouraged many exploits of oppressed cultures. Behind the great carnivals you can find very valuable information. In singing or dancing there are reasons and convictions, reasons for freedom.

Part of my project “Arrayanos” is the investigation of the

are figures of light. My performance work proposes beautiful and mysterious bodies that are an invitation to be discovered. The important, perishable flows, sounds, and movements stagnate and disappear. What flows visible, like a restless torrent of water, pushes whatever is in its path, burgeons what is around. In my project, the art of performance is that river that moves this living water.

My research project addresses the creation and imagination of Gaga through an interdisciplinary approach. I study it from the conception of movement and flow, understanding it as the field of cultural mutation that is located in the places where it is organized. It could be said that this expression is capable of taking cultural elements and merge them indiscriminately in places where it is. Thus, in Haiti or in the Dominican Republic, it acquires particular characteristicssyncretism, coloring, gestures and sounds form a particular dance.

A feast for the gods still born

Gaga is an area of information transfer, image transfer and citation of dissimilar territories. It is key to understand the history and the imaginations of the Arrayanos. Both are built of cultural remnants, pieces of living intermediaries of visual culture. All these cultures have strength in the idea of a living and vital nature, vibrant and transforming.

The human being in these ceremonies is conceived as part of nature itself. The human being is thought as an extension of the creative chaos that originated life. It’s power also expands with the expansion of natural forces. It dances and moves so that the water moves and flows. So that the winds oxygenate the earth or purify the energies that give movement to life.

Dancing for the fire that makes life that lives in the world would be the responsibility of all gaga dancers. To move energy to the life that calls.

Throughout this call, the fundamental tool for generating life is the body. The body is an antenna for gaga. In this antenna are the energies of the deep earth that floats on the air and in the wind. Here, in this encounter, the body is a channel, without this energetic conjunction this would not be possible. It is a unique and unrepeatable body and without that.

CHARO OQUET About the Artist

New Zealand, Govett-Brewter Art Gallery, N. Z., Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Wellington, N. Z., Museo de las Casas Reales, Dominican Republic.

Charo Oquet is an artist, organizer, cultural producer, curator and founder of Edge Zones, Zones Art Fair and The Miami Performance Festival. Oquet’s art practice moves beyond the bounds of the studio, gallery and institution and extends into the realm of the social, where she explores systems of movement and migration, assimilation and resistance. With her work, the artist seeks to “engage with issues and contexts that affect Afro-Caribbean people both in their native countries as well as in the USA. Oquet works in a range of media: performance, installation, video, photography, paintings, sculpture and printmaking. The thread that connects her work is an engagement with social questions confronting decolonizing narratives, migration and aesthetics and a desire to push formal and conceptual boundaries while challenging stereotypes of African Americans. She has produced a wide-ranging body of work across multiple media

Her recent live works Arrayanos, (2014 -) draws its form and content from Gaga, a Dominican folk tradition that came to the DR from Haiti, where it is called rara, via the migration of sugar cane plantation workers.

Oquet’s work is part of the permanent collection of The Frost Art Museum in Miami, The Bass

Oquet’s has had numerous international solo exhibitions at museums and galleries such as the Bass Museum in Miami; Casal Solleric, Palma, Mallorca; ICA, Miami, Fl, ’17, Convento de Santo Domingo, Lanzarote Canary Islands, Spain and has participated in prestigiously curated group exhibitions such as Art Religion and Politics (2005) curated by Jean-Huber Martin; Mami Wata, curated by Henry Drewal at the Fowler Museum at UCLA, (2008); After Columbus.com, Kunstnerne Hus, Oslo, Norway, (2003); V Caribbean Biennial’03, Museo de Arte Moderno de Santo Domingo; En Ruta PR’02, M&M Projects Puerto Rico, curated by Antonio Zaya; Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno (CAAM) Gran Canarias, Spain; and Convento de Santo Domingo, Los Aljibes, Lanzarote. In 1996 Oquet founded the non-profit arts organization Miami Arts Collaborative, which in 2004 assumed its current title Edge Zones. With Edge Zones, Oquet has curated numerous exhibitions and showcased Dominican and Miami artists nationally and internationally by creating year-round programs and has authored four books (Miami Now (2005), Wet (2006), Wet II (2007) and Supermix (2008)) which include the works of hundreds of Florida and internationally based artists. Oquet is also the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards including: Map Funds 2014; Florida State Artists Fellowship Award; State of Florida Artists Enhancement Grant; South Florida Cultural Consortium 2015 and ’05 Visual and Media Artists Fellowship Award; Creative Capital Grant; South Florida Cultural Artists Access Grant; New Forms Florida Grant; and QE II Arts Council of N.Z. Artist Fellowship 84, 85 and 86. In addition being reviewed by Art in America, the Miami Herald, Atlantica Art Journal, African Arts, Art in America, Art Nexus and Art New Zealand, Oquet has been included in many publications including but not limited to New Hoodoo Art of a Forgotten Faith (2008); Files by Octavio Zaya; Miami Contemporary Artists; New Zealand's National Museum Te Papa Calendar (2009); Dominican Contemporary Artists, Supermix and a book dedicated to her work that was published by Antonio Zaya in 2002.