This performance installation unfolds using contemporary dance and storytelling elements, to reclaim the piñata as a Mexican custom, lest we forget. A performance unpacking trauma in light of celebration and humor: Didactic and powerful, informative and thoughtful, kinda funny, intense and interactive. The only way to remind you the piñata is Mexican is by showing you how it dances. For the first 5 to 6 minutes, I personify a piñata by wrapping rope around my waist. Then, I throw my body without care, as if I'm being beaten by a bat. I call this the “Piñata Dance.” I do the “Piñata Dance” all while I sing, "Dale, Dale, Dale", a traditional Mexican song, sung during piñata-breaking rituals. The song is sung on and off for 30 seconds, mimicking the taking of turns during a piñata-breaking ritual. Even when my body falls to the floor from the impact, I still dance the "Piñata Dance" until the song ends causing a viscerally intense image. I finally get tired and say, "I am a piñata. Beaten and ripped apart but expected to pour sweets out of me… onto you." I then proceed to compliment each and every person individually around the room. Metaphorically, I am giving them my sweetness, again personifying a piñata. Afterwards, I give improvisational directions, humorously, on how to participate in a piñata breaking. Then I invite audience members one by one to hit a piñata, I have hidden away from the gaze of judgment. While a singular person hits the piñata, I sing "Dale, Dale, Dale" on the main stage, in between ad -libbing about my mother's assimilation to US customs, how I learned this traditional Mexican song on the internet not by Mexican relatives, diss Justin Bieber's cover of a Spanish song, and other semi-political funny things in defense of preserving Mexican identity. When the piñata broke, I picked it up and poured out the candy for the whole audience. There was nothing but joy, and laughter. The audience picked up the candy and engaged in lots of conversation about the Mexican piñata breaking, in particular the song "Dale, "dale, dale" and how it is often omitted from their personal experience.
areudirty
jbbartram-illu
kianamaiart