White on White (a.k.a. W.o.W. and Win!)
A Site-specific, Participatory Performance Event, 2009
Performed at the international performance festival and conference, “Staging Citizenship: Cultural Rights in the America’s”, Hemispheric Institute for Performance and Politics: 7th Encuentro, Universidad Nacional, Bogota, Colombia, August, 2009
Universidad Nacional de Bogota, Bogota, Colombia, August 2009
South End Studios, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, July 2009
Mobius Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, April 2008
White on White (a.k.a. W.o.W. and Win!) is an interactive game of Twister on a white-on-white Twister board. It involves one or two performers and audience interaction. The project combines the commercial names of shades of white interior house paint (“Indian White”, “Nice White”, “Colonial Cream”, “Polite White”, “Natural Choice”, etc.) with the aesthetics, rules, and formulas of the children’s board game, Twister. Conceived in collaboration with Kim Cowperthwaite, the piece was developed and work-shopped in the U.S. and, finally, performed in Bogota, Colombia. Using competition, duration, language, and play, this piece publicly examines white privilege and the cultural and product-based marketing of racial privilege and oppression.
Performed as a site-specific promotion for a new play product, W.o.W. and Win!, I invite members of the public to play, competing for the winning title and a personal copy of the W.o.W. and Win! game. Performances begin when all game elements are removed from a set of white suitcases and end when the last participant is left on the board. I perform in Spanish, English, and/or Spanglish, using the three languages as expressions of different power/personae. Integrating these calculated language shifts and making visible the American body of the performer, the piece ties globalized media and marketing consumption into a discussion of racism, colonialism, and the international exportation of white privilege.
