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THE DANCE ENTHUSIAST ASKS: Yanira Castro/a Canary Torsi & Her Latest Public Art Event, “Exorcism = Liberation”
By Catherine Tharin
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Published on September 13, 2024
"I Came Here to Weep at Abrons." Photo courtesy of the artist
The Dance Enthusiast's Catherine Tharin speaks with Yanira Castro/a canary torsi about her latest work, Exorcism = Liberation, a multifaceted project that investigates relationship to land, self-determination, migration, and climate disaster that runs through November 2024. Alternative futures, imagined through the lens of Puerto Rican culture and the U.S.’s ongoing colonial history, takes place in three American cities that embrace Puerto Rican diaspora communities. Born in Borikén (Puerto Rico) and living in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn), Castro creates experiences for the public that include performance, installation, communal practices and interactive technology. “They require you,” says Castro.
Catherine Tharin for The Dance Enthusiast: Can you explain the premise of Exorcism = Liberation?
Yanira Castro: Exorcism = Liberation is an act of intervention, a rehearsal for collective action during a critical American election. This is the launch of a new public art project during the 2024 Presidential election and an elucidation of the current state of politics.
Exorcism is the act of liberating the body from an evil spirit. Many religions have rituals for exorcism. Catholic exorcism reminds me of choreography and dance. A person practices the exorcism ritual until the body is freed. This is very powerful; you cannot leave until the performance is done. I came here to weep, examines the treaties that bind Puerto Rico to the United States. Documents bind. What does it mean to be free, to not be owned, to be liberated? The word exorcism came up as I examined dances of world cultures, such as the ritual trance dances of Thailand.
In What is your first memory of dirt? the score is an invitation to remember. Each listener is guided to consider this one memory. Consider it a sensorial experience — color, smell, what it felt like. What was the context of that dirt? Does it relate to a fence or garden? Were there questions or rules around dirt? Were there places you couldn’t go? Begin from this place of the sensorial to society placing rules on land and what that does to us.
I kept thinking about this and came up with Exorcism = Liberation, a very powerful equation. It asks you to sit up and look and consider. We can utilize it as provocation, a lightning bolt: here, let’s attend to this for a moment. Our attention demands conversation. The equation Exorcism = Liberation, galvanizes our attention and from that comes communion and conversation. The public art arm and practice is galvanizing. Exorcism = Liberation considers the election season and my relationship to Puerto Rico. This public art piece is like an election. I had a conversation with myself, from a Puerto Rican’s perspective.
Does Exorcism = Liberation shift now that Kamala Harris is the presidential candidate?
There is a different energy, but the work hasn’t shifted. From the perspective of a Puerto Rican person, Obama did tremendous damage to Puerto Rico. He installed the Control Board or La Junta in Puerto Rico. The government of Puerto Rico is under the supervision of the Control Board - essentially financial advisors who oversee fiscal matters. It has the authority to approve or disprove the decisions of the Puerto Rican government. These things are complex.
Let’s say that the Puerto Rican government desires that the teachers receive their union pay. La Junta can say, no we are not going to give the money to the teachers but to the vulture capitalists to pay off their debt. Puerto Rican dollars are not controlled by Puerto Ricans but by those in the U.S. We are not taken care of in the same way as in the States. (However, Puerto Ricans were treated similarly to the people of color in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina devastated their city.)
Debts are accumulated by wealthy people on Wall Street and the debts must be paid off. This is a question of the ways wealth is distributed. As a result, the infrastructure in Puerto Rico has cratered and many hospitals have shut down. What are you prioritizing? Not the people, but the debts accumulated by the wealthy. Everything is structured by an outside source not aligned with the value system of the people. The electrical system used to be public, then it was privatized and now it's much worse. The wealthy people are making more money off the people. They are fleecing the people.
To many Puerto Ricans any talk of democracy is an illusion. For me – I would be seeking independence. Puerto Rico is a limbo state that favors the U.S. The indigenous are devasted, like the Hawaiians. Puerto Ricans do not want that to happen there. I dream for Puerto Rico a real coming to the table. What are the desires of the people and how does the U.S. repair the harm? These conversations have never been had. Is there an example of this kind of support? Yes, in the case of Germany and Japan after WWII in the Marshall Plan where the cultures were strengthened. We could then be in communion and relationship with one another. It would take honesty.
Am I grateful that Kamala is running? One hundred per cent. Will she deal with the Puerto Rican situation? No, she won’t spend her energy there. Her candidacy doesn’t change the project because these questions are still there: what is true liberation and what is true democracy? It is more than a vote. It is not democracy when there is separateness and isolation.
What is the disaster you are waiting for? Hurricane Maria (the Category 5 hurricane that devastated the island) is an inflection point; what the earth will or will not handle. We continue to exacerbate the situation. There are more intense hurricanes, tornados and heat, etc. What is the disaster you think you can save yourself from? We want to hold on to something desperately as some form of safety. We need to grieve and let go so that we really see each other. Exorcism = Liberation invites you to release and grieve. The skies clear and the birds sing after a storm. For me this is the potential for finding a connection again. It is not one of holding on and grasping.
What is your relationship to Puerto Rico?
I grew up in Puerto Rico until I was 7. Then we moved to Jersey. I didn’t know the language. I learned English from TV. My father spoke English but was gone and working. I learned body language and cues from TV reruns. I would look at circumstances, and even though I didn’t know what was said, I understood the tone. I understood the dynamics rather than what was specifically discussed. Laverne and Shirley was a show where two women had their own apartment. This was different from what I knew. I loved Good Times with its dark moments. As a child I recognized transgression and anger by watching the language of the body. This was very emotional and impactful. Gesture became magnified for me.
I always felt Puerto Rican. My grandmother sat me on her lap when we were leaving and told me that I would always be Puerto Rican and that I would always return. It made it hard to transition to the U.S. There was always this yearning to go home to land, and place, and culture. It was a giant culture shock moving to the U.S. Every summer we spent time with my grandparents. My grandmother was our base; she was home. After my grandmother passed away, I’ve had a different connection to Puerto Rico. What I’ve been doing (in my work) - I’ve been building home.
My first memory was the farm owned by my grandparents. We grew plantains, guavas, and pigeon peas. We had roosters and chickens. There was no running water or electricity. It was such a free place. I remember shelling peas and what it sounded like when the peas hit the pole. The adults used pickaxes and I had my trowel; the body moving against the dirt. In the evening, there were sounds of joy when the work was done. We’d sit around a lamp and listen to the birds. We played Parcheesi. More so than any experience, I felt integrated.
However, there was trouble with the neighbors who trespassed. There was and is poverty in Puerto Rico. People need to eat. There was a gorgeous view on the farm, but we had to put up a barbed wire fence. I was sad. Take down the fence! I'd rather have the view! Questions of control, desire and ownership come up. The land is central to the family. There is security and safety holding property. Many families held land in common with no deed and farmed for generations. This is a very different relation to community than in the U.S.
What is your first memory of dirt? came from my experience on the land.
There are months of events in New York City, Chicago and Western Massachusetts. What are examples of the events?
Each locale is populated by a strong Puerto Rican diaspora community. Beyond the Puerto Rican community, each represents displaced peoples: New York City — Lenapehoking; Chicago — Peoria, Potawatomi, Myaamia, Kaskaskia, Kiikaapoi Lands; and Massachusetts — Nonotuck, Nipmuc, Pocumtuc Lands.
New York City is a primary point for Puerto Ricans moving to the U.S.; they go back and forth. Chicago has set aside the only officially recognized neighborhood for Puerto Ricans in the U.S.: Paseo Boricua. In Holyoke, western Massachusetts, live the most Puerto Ricans per capita in the U.S. — more than 50% and they are very poor. (According to the Boston Globe, Holyoke has the highest poverty rate in Massachusetts.) What should we do about poverty? There are decades of damage. Puerto Ricans, through Operation Bootstrap, were encouraged to come because of the papermills. Factories and mills in towns in the Midwest brought entire communities from Puerto Rico. The labor is vastly undervalued.
When Hurricane Maria hit the island, many moved to the U.S. communities. Already poor, the communities had to consider how to hold these immigrants. These communities are amazing because they created whole new systems. In Holyoke, Nueastra Raices (Our Roots) established a farm and community garden. They grow aji dulce which is the pepper that provides the basis for sofrito and all Puerto Rican cooking. Spices are so important to taste things from home. A communal dinner held at the Holyoke public library is planned. Holyoke Media, run by Puerto Rican audio engineers, work with teenagers on how to use podcast mics, etc. Teenagers ask one another about first memories of dirt that is shared on the podcast. They take the aural score and bring it into their own personal experience. It is a springboard.
In Massachusetts, busses are the main artery and connect so many areas. There are some lawn signs, but the signs are primarily inside the busses. They offer scores as a way of public sharing.
In Chicago during the Democratic National Convention, we covered the boulevards with over 600 lawn signs. Our signs were alongside Kamala and Trump’s who put out their own political signs. There were conversations between signs. Voting is important but it is the minimum. We need more conversation about who we are voting for today and tomorrow. There needs to be a deeper experience. How do we want to be with one another? These scores bring this out to the public.
Gentrification is part of the story – where they started and where they are now. Puerto Ricans arrived in Lincoln Park (a neighborhood in Chicago) in the 1930s and 1940s. Then, to Logan Square and finally to Humboldt Square and the Paseo. Puerto Ricans enliven an area and are then pushed out. Lincoln Park is now primarily a wealthy, white neighborhood.
Trusting in the power of empathy, the project’s audio experiences offer space for the public to feel and to act while reflecting on difficult questions.
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I am interested in learning about the Exorcism=Liberation aural scores. Could you please describe them?
There is a collective score as we move with the same action. When watching a performance each of us has a different experience but our bodies are experiencing the same action. Our bodies are in kinesthetic response when we’re sharing the experience together. This is also why I love having meals in performance. There is an acknowledgment that we share this together.
There is an invitation in I came here to weep to hold your face in your hands. In What is your first memory of dirt? the main action is to recollect and hold your hands open. In Exorcism = Liberation the hand, in a fist, opens. Each, What is your first memory of dirt? I came here to weep, and Exorcism = Liberation has a physical manifestation. All have a simple gesture that makes a difference. Your body is doing it just by listening to a prompt. The body responds in its own time. It hits us later. One person told me that they had an intense dream that night. But I also welcome and engage the action in public. People make art, and value freedom and love. What the world values is so limited. If you’re riding on the bus and invited to open your hand, and see someone else doing the same, you’re not alone. Even one person witnessing another makes me hopeful. These are ways of rethinking and recreating the world.
Yanira Castro’s work is rooted in communal construction as a rehearsal for radical democracy. She is an interdisciplinary artist who develops performance scores and scenarios where the work unfolds in real time in response to the presence and participation of the audience. Co-creating with her collaborators and the public under a canary torsi (an anagram of her name), she investigates choreography as a practice of collective embodiment, grappling with agency and communal action as a body politic. The process of gathering, witnessing, and decision-making is where performance and civics merge and, for her, is the critical, challenging, and transformational work of performance. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including two "Bessie" awards for Outstanding Production, and has recently been in residence at LMCC, MacDowell, Yaddo, and The Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography. More info about Exorcism = Liberation events: CLICK HERE
