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<p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 140%;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;"><span style="color: black;">Post-Mexican writer and performance artist </span>Guillermo
<span style="color: black;">Gómez-Peña</span> will bring his unique combination
of embodied poetry, performance-activism, and theatricalizations of
postcolonial theory to The College of Wooster when he presents “<span style="color: black;">Strange Democracy: The border wars” on Friday, April 15, in
Freedlander Theatre (329 E. University St.). The presentation, which begins at
8:15 p.m.,<i style=""> </i>reflects on the post-9/11
era, the current “border wars,” and the formidable challenges facing President
Obama. Tickets are $9 for general admission and $6 for senior citizens. College
of Wooster students, faculty, and staff will be admitted free of charge.</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 140%;"><span style="font-family: Palatino; color: black;">Described
as </span><span style="font-family: Palatino;">“<span style="color: black;">Chicano
cyber-punk" and “ethno-techno art,” Gómez-Peña’s </span></span><span style="font-family: Palatino; color: black;">inimitable
</span><span style="font-family: Palatino; color: black;">solo performances have
been hailed by critics, including Jan Breslauer of <i style="">The Los Angeles Times</i>, who said his combination of multiple
“languages, wild theatrics, and guerrilla satire convey a new internationalism,
a borderless ethos." Actor Peter Sellars called him “</span><span style="font-family: Palatino;">one of the handful of great performance artists in
America today.”<span style=""> </span></span></p></div><div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 140%;"><span style="font-family: Palatino; color: black;">Gómez-Peña</span><span style="font-family: Palatino;"> moves the focus from the <span style="color: black;">mainstream
to cultural borders, which places audience members in the role of
"foreigners" or "minorities.” He uses acid Chicano humor, hybrid
literary genres, multilingualism, and activist theory as subversive strategies
in his performances. He shifts between languages and personae, and “bombards
audiences with his infamous border savvy techno-ideology, ethno-poetics and
radical aesthetics.” He also reflects on such issues as identity, race,
sexuality, pop culture, and current politics. He is especially critical of </span>the
anti-immigration hysteria, and he “assaults the demonized construction of the <span style="">US/Mexican border,” calling it “a literal and
symbolic zone lined with Minute Men, rising nativism, three-ply fences,
globalization, and transnational identities.”</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 140%;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">In his 10 books, as in his live performances,
digital art, videos and photo-performances, Gómez-Peña pushes the boundaries by
exploring what’s left for artists to do in a repressive global culture of
censorship, paranoid nationalism and what he terms<span style=""> </span>“the mainstream bizarre.” He examines where this leaves the
critical practice of artists who aim to make tactical, performative
interventions into our notions of race, culture, and sexuality.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 140%;"><span style="font-family: Palatino;">Gómez-Peña<span style="color: black;"> has received a number of honors and awards, including the
Prix de la Parole at the International Theatre Festival of the Americas (1989),
the New York Bessie Award (1989), a MacArthur Fellowship (1991), an American
Book Award (1997) and a Lifetime Achievement Award (Taos Talking Pictures Film
Festival, 2000). </span>He was also named Senior Fellow of the Hemispheric
Institute of Performance and Politics NYU (2010),</span><span style="font-family: Palatino; color: black;"> </span><span style="font-family: Palatino;">a title awarded to </span><span style="font-family: Palatino;">scholars,
artists, and activists whose work exemplifies the highest achievement in the
field of performance and politics. <span style="color: black;">In addition, he has been a regular </span><span style="">commentator<span style="color: black;"> for NPR’s </span><i style="">All Things Considered</i> and <i style="">Latino USA</i>, and a contributing editor
for <i style="">The Drama Review</i> (NYU-MIT). His
books include forthcoming releases <i style=""><span style="color: black;">Conversations Across Borders</span></i><span style="color: black;"> (Seagull Press) and <i style="">Radical
Performance Pedagogy: Exercises for Rebel Artists and Border Crossers</i>
(co-authored with Roberto Sifuentes. Routledge)</span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in; line-height: 140%;"><span style="font-family: Palatino; color: black;">Sponsored by Wooster’s Department of
Theatre and Dance, Gómez-Peña’s appearance is funded, in part, by the
President’s discretionary fund. <span style="">For additional
information about </span>Gómez-Peña’s performance, please </span><span style="font-family: Palatino; color: black;">contact professor of dance Alyssa Lee Wilmot at awilmot@wooster.edu. To purchase </span><span style="font-family: Palatino; color: black;">tickets please call 330-263-2241. <br></span></p>
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