La Pocha Nostra, The New Barbarian Collection US Premiere
Saturday Dec 6th @ 7pm
Special Event – Formal Opening of New Performance Space
The New Barbarian Collection appropriates the format of an X-treme fashion show, complete with red carpet, runway, and paparazzi. The work engages the audience with a variety of fashion-inspired stylized performance personas stemming from problematic media representations of foreigners, immigrants, and social eccentrics, as both enemies of the state and sexy pop-cultural rebels. Ten invited artists from the San Diego/Tijuana region will develop the performance personas during a five-day interdisciplinary workshop with Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Violetta Luna, and Roberto Sifuentes.
Founded in 1993 by Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Roberto Sifuentes and Nola Mariano, La Pocha Nostra is an ever morphing trans-disciplinary arts organization based in San Francisco with branches and factions in many other cities and countries. With an international performance history of over 800 events, La Pocha seeks to provide both a support network and forum for artists of various disciplines and ethnic backgrounds. La Pocha Nostra is neither an ensemble, nor a troupe, but more of a conceptual laboratory; a loose association of rebel artists thinking together, crossing borders, exchanging wild ideas, and political aspirations.
Guillermo Gomez-Pena, an interdisciplinary artist/writer, was born in Mexico City. He came to the US in 1978, exploring cross-cultural issues with the use of performance, multilingual poetry, journalism, video, radio, and installation art. Mr. Gomez-Pena is the recipient of a 1991 MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship and a 1989 Bessie Award; his work has been featured at the 1992 Sydney Biennale, the 1993 Whitney Biennale and the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival. Mr. Gomez-Pena has a rich history with Sushi performing in seven shows since 1985, most recently in 2006. Sushi co-produced his award-winning video Border Brujo in 1990, which was filmed at the original 8th Avenue Sushi space.