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Rebecca Burwell
THE PIÑATA DANCE: THE HUMOR IN BREAKING APART THIS BRIDGE CALLED MY BACK

first performed on February 25, 2017
Experimental Action Performance Festival at The Secret Group, Houston, TX
performed three times in 2017

CHRISTIAN CRUZ

Dallas, TX
ms.christiancruz@gmail.com
christiancruzperformance.com

THE PIÑATA DANCE: THE HUMOR IN BREAKING APART THIS BRIDGE CALLED MY BACK
CHRISTIAN CRUZ

This fifteen-minute performance occurs within an installation that includes contemporary dance and storytelling elements, and it reclaims the piñata as a—lest we forget—Mexican custom. It is a performance that unpacks trauma in light of celebration and humor. Didactic and powerful, informative and thoughtful, kinda funny, intense and interactive, the only way to remind you the piñata is Mexican is by showing you how it dances. For the first five to six minutes, I personify a piÑata by wrapping rope around my waist. Then, I throw my body without care, as if I’m being beaten by a bat. I call this the “Piñata Dance.” I do the “Piñata Dance” all while I sing, “Dale, Dale, Dale,” a Mexican traditional song, sung during piñata breaking rituals. The song is sung on and off for 30 seconds, mimicking the taking of turns during a piñata-breaking ritual. Even when my body falls to the floor from the impact, I still dance the “Piñata Dance” until the song ends causing a viscerally intense image. I finally get tired and say, “I am a piñata. Beaten and ripped apart but expected to pour sweets out of me… onto you.” I then proceed to compliment each and every person individually around the room. Metaphorically, I am giving them my sweetness, again personifying a piñata. Afterwards, I give improvisational directions, humorously, on how to participate in a piñata breaking. Then I invite audience members one by one to hit a piñata that I have hidden away from the gaze of judgment. While a one person hits the piñata, I sing “Dale, Dale, Dale” on the main stage in between ad-libbing about my mother’s assimilation to US customs and how I learned this traditional Mexican song on the internet and not from Mexican relatives. I also diss Justin Bieber’s cover of a Spanish song, and say other semi-political funny things in defense of preserving Mexican identity. When the piñata broke, I picked it up and poured out the candy for the whole audience. There was nothing but joy, and laughter. The audience picked up the candy and engaged in lots of conversation about the Mexican piñata breaking, in particular the song “Dale, Dale, Dale” and how it is often omitted from their personal experience.