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(A bell tolls. Followed by the flutter of many wings. Palomas. And the sound of people in the distance speaking in Spanish emerges. A crowd. You could be in a plaza. A voice speaks forcefully.)
I make with the public.
(Bell tolls.)
I make with the public.
(Wings flutter. People speaking in the background in Spanish throughout the following text as if in a public space that occasionally, briefly drops out and returns, a lull, gentle lap of public murmur. The text is increasingly spoken rapidly, in a rush. Like a proclamation in a public square.)
I have complex feelings about gathering with an American public. I attempt to be transparent and generous about that—(Wings flutter) the civics of a Boricua “citizen,” a citizenship circumscribed by U.S. possession—I attempt to be transparent and generous about that. (Bell tolls) Difficult conversations are the stuff of radical democracy (Wings flutter)—necessary and requiring collective construction. Performance is the commons, a public engaged in negotiation of material, history, rules, and governance with one another. The public already participates inside systems of coercive power. The practice of that is generations deep; media, image, and propaganda deep. I offer an alternative practice. My work creates space (Bell tolls) for communal gathering, considering the ancient history of performance as a civic and social space. (Wings flutter) Around an emergent dance, we feel, pulse, become one body. Around the making of an image, we become uneasy. Around food, we ingest ingredients that have come together through harmony and conflict. Enacting our own words, gestures, (Bell tolls) memories, responding to our own activating presence in the public is how we confront our place in the world. (Wings flutter) I think discomfort is useful.
I
think
discomfort is useful. (Wings flutter)
Transformation requires you to become something you have never been. (Wings flutter as if backwards, sucked back in time.)
(In a whisper, a prayer.)
Esta es la bendición que exijo.
About
Yanira Castro’s work is rooted in communal construction as a rehearsal for radical democracy. She is an interdisciplinary artist born in Borikén (Puerto Rico), living in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn), and working at the intersection of communal practices, performance, installation, and interactive technology. She forms projects that center land and group governance in works activated and performed by the public.
Since 2009, she’s created and performed with a team of collaborators as a canary torsi. Her recent work includes a public art project during the U.S. 2024 election; a performance manual for reckoning; a participatory podcast to rehearse for a collective future; and a multimodal project for exorcising U.S. colonial possession. She is currently developing an installation grounded in cooperation, survival and land memory. She develops communal meals as a means of fostering connection and suturing histories and collective action.
Castro is a 2026 Guggenheim Fellow, and a recipient of two New York Dance & Performance (aka Bessie) Awards for Outstanding Production. She has been presented by The Experimental Media & Performing Arts Center (EMPAC), The Chocolate Factory Theater, New York Live Arts, MCA Chicago, The Invisible Dog Art Center, Danspace Project, Portland Institute for Contemporary Arts, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and ICA/Boston. Her work has been supported by Creative Capital, The MAP Fund, The Alpert Award for the Arts in Dance, and she is a Dance/USA Artist Fellow, NYSCA/NYFA Interdisciplinary & Choreography Artist Fellow, and a residency artist at Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography (MANCC), Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, MacDowell, Yaddo, and Marble House Project.
Castro is an advocate for arts workers, working towards community-held, horizontal, participatory models of mutual care. She is a founding member of Creating New Futures (CNF), a group of arts workers who gathered at the start of the pandemic to address deep-rooted inequities in the performance field. They co-authored two documents drafted as calls-to-action: “Working Guidelines for Ethics & Equity in Presenting Dance & Performance” and “Notes on Equitable Funding from Arts Workers.”
Recent Media
Daliana A. Otero Muñoz for The Center for Puerto Rican Studies’ RicanWritings, Exorcising Memory: Yanira Castro and the Choreography of Liberation
Nicole Loeffler-Gladstone for ALL ARTS Field Notes, In Yanira Castro’s Exorcism = Liberation: The Body is Land
maura nguyễn donohue for CULTUREBOT, What is a liberated body? “Talking” Exorcism = Liberation with Yanira Castro
Sebastián Meltz-Collazo for The Latinx Project, Yanira Castro on Exploring Memories Toward Collective Freedom
Contact
Artist
Yanira Castro
yanira@acanarytorsi.org
Studio Manager
Stephanie Acosta
stephanie@acanarytorsi.org
Creative Producer
Ariel Lembeck
ariel@acanarytorsi.org
Support
a canary torsi is dedicated to cross-collaboration and co-creation, inviting the public to construct and enact work together.
You can help us continue to deepen this work by making a tax deductible donation.
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Audio Design by Erica Ricketts