In AIR, Valencia creates a performance where she pays homage to the work of artists of Mexican descent, such as the Los Angeles based collective ASCO, and Mexican television and film characters like Don Ramon, El Chavo, Cantinflas or Maria Felix. She acknowledges that exposure to these figures has informed her work as much as New York’s experimental downtown dance history. It is a nod to generations of mestiza and Latinx artists who grew up in the United States existing in a hybridity of cultures, positioned in-between, learning how to belong and not belong to the one or the other.
In AIR, Valencia draws commonalities and kinships to this diaspora as they synthesize within her body of work and research as a Latina artist. Valencia shows us we are all listening through osmosis. This is all in her air, so to speak.
*ASL will be available on January 11. If you have any questions please email boxoffice@PerformanceSpaceNewYork.org.
Commissioned by Performance Space New York. AIR is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.