PERFORMANCES

"Her work explores the symbolic function of weaving and language, spinning sound and time through the voice into invisible webs. Her intuitive, ritualistic performance, includes song and gesture. It refers to the perpetual motion of doing and undoing, pointing to an open endedness which allows for improvisations and new connections".

Louise Neri

The true performance is that of our species on Earth: the way we cause suffering to others, the way we warm the atmosphere or cause other species to disappear.

I remember the mid sixties in Chile, when nobody used the word "performance", yet, we were already "performing" poetic acts to transform our experience of the world, both in the collective scale of the democratic revolution and in the personal scale.

"Consciousness is the art" I wrote, "the double movement of the weaver, to join and to cut."

Ritual acts connecting us with the future memory of the land.

This page combines unannounced performances in public spaces and performances in institutions, museums and galleries.

See also The Poetics of Performance, a conversation between Rosa Alcalá and Cecilia Vicuña.

Featured Performances

Guante / The Glove (1966)
Tied Face (Life and Death) (1970)
Otoño / Autumn (1971)
Sol y Dar y Dad, Una Palabra Bailada (1980)
Precario / Precarious (1983)
Hilacha (1994)
Allqa (Union of Black & White) (1997)
cloud-net (1998)
Living Quipu (2006)
Quipu Menstrual (2006)
mtChondrial Eve (Mother of Threads) (2008)
Paracas (2008)
Heritage of Tears (A Musical Tribute to Neruda) (2009)
The Shadow of Sorrow (2009)
Disolución (2009)
Kon Kon pi (2011)
Fiber of Prayer / Fiber of Gold (2012)
Cantos del Agua (2015)
Sangre magallánica / Al sur de los ecos (2015)

Guante / The Glove (1966/1994)

Santiago, Chile

During a bus ride I would raise a hand gloved in a glove begloved

The glove is not a glove, but a primordial mythic being.

When a girl is born, her mother puts a spider in her hand, to teach her how to weave.

Tied Face (Life and Death) (1970)

Santiago, Chile

Otoño / Autumn (1971)

Santiago, Chile

Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes

See also The exhibition catalogue from the 2007 documentary reconstruction of the 1971 "Salon de Otoño"

detail from Otoño / Autumn (1971)

Vaso de Leche (1979)

Mixed media, Bogotá, Colombia

detail from Vaso de Leche (1979)

Sol y Dar y Dad, Una Palabra Bailada (1980)

Film still from Palabrarmas, Bogotá, Colombia.

Parti si pasión (1981)

Mixed media, New York City

Amarrando Bogotá (1981)

Mixed media, Bogotá, Colombia

Antivero (1981)

Mixed media, Colchagua, Chile

Precario / Precarious (1983)

Arch Gallery, New York, NY

Book launch for Precario/Precarious, Tanam Press

Hilacha (1994)

New York, NY

Allqa (Union of Black & White) (1997)

Barnard College, New York

Allqa

Weaving soft ladders the degree of emotion are transformed
Weaving contrasts black & white fall in love
Weaving senses, the shatter is reattached and hate becomes love
Weaving contraries is the bridge, the bridge of mist

cloud-net (1998)

New York, NY

film still from cloud-net (1998)

Living Quipu (2006)

New York, NY

Quipu Menstrual, La Moneda (2006)

Palacio de la Moneda, Santiago, Chile

Paracas (2008)

Brooklyn Museum, NY

In this performance the artist projects her film Paracas on her body and textile backgrounds.

Heritage of Tears (A Musical Tribute to Neruda) (2009)

World Financial Center, New York, NY
April 15, 2009

SONGS OF LOVE & DESPAIR:
A MUSICAL TRIBUTE TO PABLO NERUDA

Featuring performances/readings by Clogs, Irene & Vojtech Havel, Colin Stetson, Pedro Soler with Beñat Achiary, Bob Holman, Laurie Anderson & Cecilia Vicuña.

Cecilia Vicuña performed Heritage of Tears as part of a live concert to honor Pablo Neruda held at the World Financial Center in New York City on April 15, 2009. Her poem is based on "The Heights of Machu Picchu" by Neruda.

detail from Heritage of Tears (A Musical Tribute to Neruda) (2009)

Apu Miski Yawar (2009)

World Financial Center, New York, NY

SONGS OF LOVE & DESPAIR:
A MUSICAL TRIBUTE TO PABLO NERUDA

Featuring performances/readings by Clogs, Irene & Vojtech Havel, Colin Stetson, Pedro Soler with Beñat Achiary, Bob Holman, Laurie Anderson & Cecilia Vicuña. In this performance Cecilia Vicuña improvises with Irene & Vojtech Havel.

The Shadow of Sorrow (2009)

World Financial Center, New York
April 15, 2009

SONGS OF LOVE & DESPAIR:
A MUSICAL TRIBUTE TO PABLO NERUDA

Featuring performances/readings by Clogs, Irene & Vojtech Havel, Colin Stetson, Pedro Soler with Beñat Achiary, Bob Holman, Laurie Anderson & Cecilia Vicuña. In this performance Cecilia Vicuña improvises with Irene & Vojtech Havel.

Disolución (2009)

Mixed media.
Con Cón, Chile

Since 1966 the artist returns to Con Cón to create new iterations of her first Precarios works.

Kon Kon pi (2011)

Museo del Barrio, New York, NY

detail from Kon Kon pi (2011)

Fiber of Prayer / Fiber of Gold (2012)

Firstsite, Colchester, Essex, UK

See also Unravelling Threads in the ESCALA Collection

detail from Fiber of Prayer / Fiber of Gold (2012)

Chiloe (2014)

Mixed media, Chiloe, Chile

Cantos del Agua (2015)

Galería Patricia Ready, Santiago, Chile

View the film

El llamado: resistir desde la belleza

El fracaso de Lima* es quizás la ül-tima opor-tunidad del pueblo humano
la ül-tima puerta a la uni dad
de un canto,
un gesto co-lectivo de amor a la tierra.

Ül* es el canto de la tierra
el llamado que canta en nos.

Ser 'humano' es ser de la tierra, ser del humus.

           Lo humano del humanar,
               la humedad de la tierra
               es su humildad.

José Pérez de Arce, escuchando a los sabios indígenas reunidos en Rancagua, Chile, en noviembre de 2014, transcribió las palabras de Karai Miri Poty:

"Los bailes chinos (de Chile) hacen resistencia desde la belleza, desde el arte.
La violencia genera violencia, la belleza genera belleza."

"Eso dijo Karai Miri Poty, de la nación mbyá del Paraguay, respondiendo al baile chino Adoratorio Mercacha, que los saludó cantando. Uno de los conceptos más profundos que he escuchado respecto al futuro." José Pérez de Arce.

*La cumbre del clima en Lima (la 20ª Conferencia de las Partes (COP) de Naciones Unidas sobre Cambio Climático, diciembre de 2014), alcanzó un acuerdo débil, que obliga a los 126 países miembros a presentar compromisos individuales concretos para luchar contra el calentamiento global ante la ONU antes del 1 de octubre del 2015. La mira es la cumbre de Paris, 2015.

El pueblo de la tierra tiene un año para presionar a sus gobiernos a generar planes de acción que eviten la catástrofe. Sólo una movilización ciudadana constante logrará el cambio del clima político necesario para salvar la justicia y la belleza en esta tierra.

* Ül: canto y poesía, mapudungun.
.

Cecilia Vicuña
Enero 2015

Sangre magallánica / Al sur de los ecos (2015)

Punta Arenas, Chile

A performance dedicated to the Guanacos now being pushed to extinction in Magallanes. At the Conflicta 2015.