Performance Lectures
& Immersive Workshops
for Communities, Colleges & Universities
I see performance art as the bastard child of a drunken one-night stand between theater and the visual arts--a black-sheep offspring that remains difficult to define.
I employ performance art as a creative strategy to empower myself,
and cultivate the voices of marginalized communities of color
experiencing the trauma of political divisiveness
& lingering legacy of white supremacy.
---JTT
& Immersive Workshops
for Communities, Colleges & Universities
I see performance art as the bastard child of a drunken one-night stand between theater and the visual arts--a black-sheep offspring that remains difficult to define.
I employ performance art as a creative strategy to empower myself,
and cultivate the voices of marginalized communities of color
experiencing the trauma of political divisiveness
& lingering legacy of white supremacy.
---JTT
CAL ARTS Students from Performance Workshop Series & One-week Visiting Artist Residency
For the past twenty 25 years, I've employed performance art as a conceptual umbrella and creative cauldron for my hybrid-genre provocations. I explore the underbelly of the “North American Dream” mythology and the post-9/11 blind nationalism that has led to this rampant anti-immigrant hysteria gripping the United States of AMNESIA, which seduces you to embrace forgetting that this empire has a tough time living up to its press release as the beacon of democracy. ---JTT
Interactive Multimedia Lectures & Performance Workshops Menu:
Live Art Performance Lecture & Keynote: United States of Amnesia & the Anti-immigrant Hysteria
Performing the role of a shamanistic time-traveler, renegade scholar, and performance activist, José Torres-Tama dares to remind us that the United States of Amnesia seduces you to embrace forgetting, and the current anti-immigrant hysteria gripping this "freedom-loving" nation is nothing new. From the Fugitive Slave Act (1793), to Indian Removal Act (1830), to Japanese Internment (1942), to Operation Wetback (1954), and to the most brutal Zero Tolerance Policy of June 2018, these laws are all part of a dark and long legislative legacy to strategically dehumanize people of color and propel white supremacist beliefs.
Opening with an explosive live performance and maracas in hand to add to the percussive rhythms of his poetic text, Torres-Tama takes us on a hidden history ride of a nation built on genocide of Native Americans, enslavement of Africans to build the empire, and appropriation of the northern territories of Mexico from Texas to California to manifest imperial destiny. This is a forty-minute Live Art performance program with 20 minutes of engagement with students and audiences.
Torres-Tama's "Live Art" Keynotes have been hosted by the Americans for the Arts Conference in Austin, TX; the Florida International University in Miami, FL (hosted by renowned Harvard Scholar Lisa Delpit); and at the Association of Performance Arts Professionals (APAP) Conference in New York with a group of New Orleans poets and performers addressing the criminal abandonment of Post-Katrina New Orleans and its people by the Bush Administration.
Radical Live Art Lecture: What is Performance Art?
In this Radical Live Art Lecture, the artist, as renegade scholar, offers a provocative introduction to performance and its intrepid practitioners, who employ video/film, live action, visual tableau, spoken word/poetry, contemporary dance, personal stories, and conceptual movement. A challenging hybrid form to categorize, performance art is regularly demonized by mass media and misunderstood by the general public. Making a case for performance art as the most dynamic and daring genre of the latter 20th Century and new millennium, Torres-Tama offers a charged participatory experience that transforms the static "lecture" into a "Live Art" ephemeral installation. (This is a forty-five minute program with film projections and an audio sound-bed that can be facilitated in a smart room.)
Speaking Engagement for Conference Keynotes: The Performance Artist as Provocateur
Through a visually dynamic interdisciplinary analysis, the role of the artist as a socially engaged citizen and activist is explored, and MAP Fund award-winning José Torres-Tama discusses his critical writings, visual and performance practices, and empowerment projects with marginalized communities of color--all of which challenge the United States of Amnesia to live up to its press release as the beacon of democracy in the free world.
Audiences are encouraged to participate in an engaging program where art making is employed as a tool for social change. This is a forty-five-minute LIVE ART performative presentation with an additional 15 to 30 minutes for discussion. (Technical needs include a connection for the artist's MAC computer, large white screen for short film projections, and a wireless microphone).
Interactive Physical Workshops:
Exploring the Personal to Comment on the Political in Performance:
In this one-day or two-day interactive workshop process, the artist investigates the usage of autobiographical material as subject matter to explore larger issues concerning race, religion, gender, and personal politics within performance. The personal story is discussed as an imprint of an oral tradition because one's particular experience will always have universal resonance. Student or community participants are led through a series of improvised text and movement exercises designed to create a nurturing space for the sharing of personal experiences. Performance techniques that exemplify creative invention and aesthetic choices are discussed. (This workshop can last from two to three hours per day, and is best housed in a theater or community space with diverse participants.)
Immersive Artist Residency: Exploring Trauma through Performance Art & Lorca's Ideas on Duende
In this immersive workshop process, the artist employs performance as a means to unleash trauma for healing through collective "live art" rituals informed by corporal commitment, improvised personal stories, identifying mythic archetypes, and developing a nurturing space that honors the individual story as part of the greater human collective.
Offering an intensive and inspiring introduction to developing community performances, he guides and cultivates the physical, conceptual, and actual voices of the participants. He engages in ensemble building through collaborative trust and willingness to consider Federico Garcia Lorca’s ideas of “Duende” possession when delivering work that transforms all into avatars of difficult truths. Torres-Tama embraces Garcia Lorca's pedagogy of "Duende," and implores participants to make creative leaps and forge visually dynamic performance characters driven by movement and improvised text. He inspires participants to channel intrinsic creative spirits that are often trapped by the surroundings of the "real" world, and to jump into a cauldron of the surreal and fantastic--where imagination is unfettered.
This immersive workshop residency process is best served with a dedicated and diverse group of performers, poets, dancers, and community participants to engage deeply, and it can culminate in the creation of an original ensemble performance. This program is best served as a five or seven-day residency process, and the participants are encouraged to consider performing their "live art" pieces in a public or in-house performance.
I Carry My People's Stories on My Back: A Live Art Chronicle of Documenting the Un-Documented
From 2010 to 2019, José Torres-Tama embarked on a ten-year project to document the stories of "undocumented" people, and to develop a live art chronicle of immigrants dehumanized for political gains by right-wing zealots. He engaged in a docu-theater process of filmed interviews with immigrants who had crossed the Rio Grande Border to escape political persecution and economical despair. This work was inspired by the interview process of renown actor, playwright, and professor Anna Deavere Smith.
José developed filmed interviews in the cities of Houston, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Tulsa, and Washington DC., and his archive of nearly a hundred stories of immigrants living in the shadows of an empire that considers itself the "beacon of democracy" inform his many performances. In this program, he shares some performance excerpts of staging immigrant stories that speak to unspoken truths about a people branded with the "illegal aliens" moniker, which strips them of all human rights and likens them akin to terrorists. His clarion call is that, "NO HUMAN BEING IS ILLEGAL!" This is a sixty-minute program that engages participants in interactive dialogue on the current "anti-immigrant hysteria gripping GrinGoLandia" since the 9/11 tragedy. A smart room is ideal for projection of short films from his documentary in development.
Writing Workshop:
Creative Writing Workshop:
From Page to the Stage: Creating Bilingual Performances Inspired by Choreo-Poems & Movement
This is a creative writing workshop for students and community participants that explore’s Torres-Tama usage of surreal and fantastic imagery inspired by his studies of Latin American poets such as the Chilean master, Pablo Neruda, the surrealist Peruvian Cesar Vallejo, and the Spanish poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca. He takes on Garcia Lorca’s pedagogy of “El Duende” to have students / participants make creative leaps into a poetic world driven by fantastic imagery—where the “word becomes flesh.” He inspires writers to become avatars of difficult truths with rhythmic cadences that move poetry into a magical realist aesthetics.
All performance workshops are best served when there is a diverse group of participants, and they are offered bilingually to Spanish-speaking immigrant communities.
Torres-Tama’s interdisciplinary performance workshops have been hosted at national and international academic institutions that include BROWN University, CAL ARTS, Duke, LSU, University of Michigan, Ohio State University, University of Maryland, Roehampton University in London, the Bluecoat Arts Centre in Liverpool, and the Centre for Performance Research in Aberystwyth, Wales.
Some arts organizations that have developed Community Ensembles and Youth Performance Projects include GALA Hispanic Theatre in DC; CAL ARTS in Valencia, CA; California State University Northridge (CSUN) in Northridge, CA; the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, LA; the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque, NM; Tigertail Productions in Miami, FL; Duke University in Durham, NC; the Walker’s Point Center for the Arts in Milwaukee, WI; and MECA in Houston.
Such projects have been funded with the generous support of the National Performance Network; the National Endowment for the Arts; the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation; Alternate ROOTS; and the Philip Morris Foundation.
Torres-Tama's hybrid art practices cover the academic terrain of documentary theater and performance art, visual arts and new media, live art literature, poetry and spoken word, and the intersection of art and activism.
For the past twenty 25 years, I've employed performance art as a conceptual umbrella and creative cauldron for my hybrid-genre provocations. I explore the underbelly of the “North American Dream” mythology and the post-9/11 blind nationalism that has led to this rampant anti-immigrant hysteria gripping the United States of AMNESIA, which seduces you to embrace forgetting that this empire has a tough time living up to its press release as the beacon of democracy. ---JTT
Interactive Multimedia Lectures & Performance Workshops Menu:
Live Art Performance Lecture & Keynote: United States of Amnesia & the Anti-immigrant Hysteria
Performing the role of a shamanistic time-traveler, renegade scholar, and performance activist, José Torres-Tama dares to remind us that the United States of Amnesia seduces you to embrace forgetting, and the current anti-immigrant hysteria gripping this "freedom-loving" nation is nothing new. From the Fugitive Slave Act (1793), to Indian Removal Act (1830), to Japanese Internment (1942), to Operation Wetback (1954), and to the most brutal Zero Tolerance Policy of June 2018, these laws are all part of a dark and long legislative legacy to strategically dehumanize people of color and propel white supremacist beliefs.
Opening with an explosive live performance and maracas in hand to add to the percussive rhythms of his poetic text, Torres-Tama takes us on a hidden history ride of a nation built on genocide of Native Americans, enslavement of Africans to build the empire, and appropriation of the northern territories of Mexico from Texas to California to manifest imperial destiny. This is a forty-minute Live Art performance program with 20 minutes of engagement with students and audiences.
Torres-Tama's "Live Art" Keynotes have been hosted by the Americans for the Arts Conference in Austin, TX; the Florida International University in Miami, FL (hosted by renowned Harvard Scholar Lisa Delpit); and at the Association of Performance Arts Professionals (APAP) Conference in New York with a group of New Orleans poets and performers addressing the criminal abandonment of Post-Katrina New Orleans and its people by the Bush Administration.
Radical Live Art Lecture: What is Performance Art?
In this Radical Live Art Lecture, the artist, as renegade scholar, offers a provocative introduction to performance and its intrepid practitioners, who employ video/film, live action, visual tableau, spoken word/poetry, contemporary dance, personal stories, and conceptual movement. A challenging hybrid form to categorize, performance art is regularly demonized by mass media and misunderstood by the general public. Making a case for performance art as the most dynamic and daring genre of the latter 20th Century and new millennium, Torres-Tama offers a charged participatory experience that transforms the static "lecture" into a "Live Art" ephemeral installation. (This is a forty-five minute program with film projections and an audio sound-bed that can be facilitated in a smart room.)
Speaking Engagement for Conference Keynotes: The Performance Artist as Provocateur
Through a visually dynamic interdisciplinary analysis, the role of the artist as a socially engaged citizen and activist is explored, and MAP Fund award-winning José Torres-Tama discusses his critical writings, visual and performance practices, and empowerment projects with marginalized communities of color--all of which challenge the United States of Amnesia to live up to its press release as the beacon of democracy in the free world.
Audiences are encouraged to participate in an engaging program where art making is employed as a tool for social change. This is a forty-five-minute LIVE ART performative presentation with an additional 15 to 30 minutes for discussion. (Technical needs include a connection for the artist's MAC computer, large white screen for short film projections, and a wireless microphone).
Interactive Physical Workshops:
Exploring the Personal to Comment on the Political in Performance:
In this one-day or two-day interactive workshop process, the artist investigates the usage of autobiographical material as subject matter to explore larger issues concerning race, religion, gender, and personal politics within performance. The personal story is discussed as an imprint of an oral tradition because one's particular experience will always have universal resonance. Student or community participants are led through a series of improvised text and movement exercises designed to create a nurturing space for the sharing of personal experiences. Performance techniques that exemplify creative invention and aesthetic choices are discussed. (This workshop can last from two to three hours per day, and is best housed in a theater or community space with diverse participants.)
Immersive Artist Residency: Exploring Trauma through Performance Art & Lorca's Ideas on Duende
In this immersive workshop process, the artist employs performance as a means to unleash trauma for healing through collective "live art" rituals informed by corporal commitment, improvised personal stories, identifying mythic archetypes, and developing a nurturing space that honors the individual story as part of the greater human collective.
Offering an intensive and inspiring introduction to developing community performances, he guides and cultivates the physical, conceptual, and actual voices of the participants. He engages in ensemble building through collaborative trust and willingness to consider Federico Garcia Lorca’s ideas of “Duende” possession when delivering work that transforms all into avatars of difficult truths. Torres-Tama embraces Garcia Lorca's pedagogy of "Duende," and implores participants to make creative leaps and forge visually dynamic performance characters driven by movement and improvised text. He inspires participants to channel intrinsic creative spirits that are often trapped by the surroundings of the "real" world, and to jump into a cauldron of the surreal and fantastic--where imagination is unfettered.
This immersive workshop residency process is best served with a dedicated and diverse group of performers, poets, dancers, and community participants to engage deeply, and it can culminate in the creation of an original ensemble performance. This program is best served as a five or seven-day residency process, and the participants are encouraged to consider performing their "live art" pieces in a public or in-house performance.
I Carry My People's Stories on My Back: A Live Art Chronicle of Documenting the Un-Documented
From 2010 to 2019, José Torres-Tama embarked on a ten-year project to document the stories of "undocumented" people, and to develop a live art chronicle of immigrants dehumanized for political gains by right-wing zealots. He engaged in a docu-theater process of filmed interviews with immigrants who had crossed the Rio Grande Border to escape political persecution and economical despair. This work was inspired by the interview process of renown actor, playwright, and professor Anna Deavere Smith.
José developed filmed interviews in the cities of Houston, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Tulsa, and Washington DC., and his archive of nearly a hundred stories of immigrants living in the shadows of an empire that considers itself the "beacon of democracy" inform his many performances. In this program, he shares some performance excerpts of staging immigrant stories that speak to unspoken truths about a people branded with the "illegal aliens" moniker, which strips them of all human rights and likens them akin to terrorists. His clarion call is that, "NO HUMAN BEING IS ILLEGAL!" This is a sixty-minute program that engages participants in interactive dialogue on the current "anti-immigrant hysteria gripping GrinGoLandia" since the 9/11 tragedy. A smart room is ideal for projection of short films from his documentary in development.
Writing Workshop:
Creative Writing Workshop:
From Page to the Stage: Creating Bilingual Performances Inspired by Choreo-Poems & Movement
This is a creative writing workshop for students and community participants that explore’s Torres-Tama usage of surreal and fantastic imagery inspired by his studies of Latin American poets such as the Chilean master, Pablo Neruda, the surrealist Peruvian Cesar Vallejo, and the Spanish poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca. He takes on Garcia Lorca’s pedagogy of “El Duende” to have students / participants make creative leaps into a poetic world driven by fantastic imagery—where the “word becomes flesh.” He inspires writers to become avatars of difficult truths with rhythmic cadences that move poetry into a magical realist aesthetics.
All performance workshops are best served when there is a diverse group of participants, and they are offered bilingually to Spanish-speaking immigrant communities.
Torres-Tama’s interdisciplinary performance workshops have been hosted at national and international academic institutions that include BROWN University, CAL ARTS, Duke, LSU, University of Michigan, Ohio State University, University of Maryland, Roehampton University in London, the Bluecoat Arts Centre in Liverpool, and the Centre for Performance Research in Aberystwyth, Wales.
Some arts organizations that have developed Community Ensembles and Youth Performance Projects include GALA Hispanic Theatre in DC; CAL ARTS in Valencia, CA; California State University Northridge (CSUN) in Northridge, CA; the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, LA; the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque, NM; Tigertail Productions in Miami, FL; Duke University in Durham, NC; the Walker’s Point Center for the Arts in Milwaukee, WI; and MECA in Houston.
Such projects have been funded with the generous support of the National Performance Network; the National Endowment for the Arts; the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation; Alternate ROOTS; and the Philip Morris Foundation.
Torres-Tama's hybrid art practices cover the academic terrain of documentary theater and performance art, visual arts and new media, live art literature, poetry and spoken word, and the intersection of art and activism.
