This performance is a ritual of resistance

Visiting artist Yanira Castro is known for immersive, participatory performances that blend dance, theater and visual art.

This weekend, as the cap of a two-week residency focused on design in the School of Communication’s theatre department, Castro presents a performance at the Wirtz Center for Performing and Media Arts on Northwestern’s Chicago campus titled “I came here to weep.”

The performance examines U.S. territorial possession of Puerto Rico and Puerto Rican sovereignty. Castro invites the audience on stage into what she calls a “shared ritual of release and transformation.”

“I came here to weep” is a part of the Chicago Latin Theater Alliance’s Destinos, 7th International Latino Theater Festival. Performances are at 7: 30 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 15, and Saturday, Nov. 16, in the Wirtz Theater Chicago at Abbott Hall, 710 N. Lake Shore Drive. Tickets are available online.

In the lead-up to the shows, Northwestern Now asked Castro to share thoughts about creating and presenting the performance following what has been, for many, a very stressful election season.

Following are Castro’s words.

My body is tense. Poised. Alert. Exhausted. Yours?

If we are to be together in performance post-election, I am going to insist on immersion, on our mutual complicity, in collective action and putting our bodies to the work, and as collaborator Kathy Couch said to a group gathered, “to be each other’s concern.” I want to tap into memory, sound, voice, embodiment, decision-making, grappling with refusal, resistance, abandonment and discomfort — to catapult us.

If we are to be together in performance post-election, I am going to insist on immersion, on our mutual complicity.”

Performance’s calling card: Interruption. Being Unfathomable. Uncontrollable. Ungovernable.

Performance dives into the underbelly and comes out holding our guts.

In Room 203, we are practicing “us;” as in all of us — audience, crew, artists — the us of the room and gathered in this one moment to do one of the most dangerous things we can do: attend.

During our time in Room 203, we will make our interjections, our choices, construct our experience. We can’t know in advance what that will look like, feel like. There will be those that play witness, play facilitator, play activator, builder. Unassigned and emergent, people will make impact and we will observe and make ours.

In all of this…

Unknowing.

Trepid stepping.

Reaching out for a hand.

Darkness…

Reach out for a hand.

We will practice fumbling.

Rehearse: I don’t know. Consider. Continue.

Practice: Try again. Listen.

Practice: Attention. Embody.

Practice: Screwing up. Empathy. Try again. Practice: Mess.

Rehearse: This could be it.

Being awkward and unsure is useful. Breaking through inertia is a must.

Performance is rehearsal. Get ready. Act.