AIRE

PERFORMANCE AS POETIC PROTEST

"Aire es pureza, suspiro, Aire está relacionado con oxígeno, con habla, con mensaje, con intercambio de ideas y pensamientos. Un aire contaminado nos oprime y atrofia, nos daña. Sin aire no podemos vivir."

<<Aire>> a performance co-created with artists Israel Bistrain and Federico Tello as a poetic protest to the horrific air quality of Mexico City and the lack of public outrage to this toxic situation.

The first of two performances was held on on August 11th in the historic downtown of Mexico City. It was a procession of 8 performers (8 is the symbol of air in numerology) that spanned the entire calle Madero and ended at the Zocalo.

The procession consisted of two performers representing the "typical man and woman" of Mexico wearing nylon face masks--which created a zombie effect--being led like puppets by an sinister religious character in a long red cape adorned with a black crown of thorns. The "priest" had the couple tied with a red rope, one around the neck of the woman, and the man by the leg. Behind the priest, a ha woman dressed as the golden eagle (the official bird of Mexico and is seen on it's flag) limps along burdened by the weight of a massive rope she is carrying.

Surrounding the characters are four "fallen angels" wearing gas masks covered in oil, wearing black, industrial clothing where bloody wings representing damaged lungs have all the diseases that occur when our air is contaminated. These angels all carry swords (the symbol of air in the Tarot) as they walk at an extremely slow pace until all eight performers reach the Zocalo.

Once at the Zocalo the angels form a square and the priest takes the massive rope from the eagle and begins to tie the couple together in the middle of the circle. Once the couple is completely engulfed in the rope, the priest faces the eagle, pulls out a dagger and kills her. She drops to the ground and he pulls out a poem he reads to the crowd about Air.

Suddenly, as if woken from a dream, the couple begin to free themselves from the rope, their breathing becomes extremely audible and once they finally are without the rope, they both remove their masks so that their true faces are revealed. They stare at each other for a minute simply breathing. Upon hearing their breath, the eagle is revived, a cellist appears from the audience and the eagle dances her last dance, meanwhile the four creatures shed their dark uniforms to reveal their angelic selves, pure white Air.