They Sing, They Dance, They Fight

The installation They Sing, They Dance, They Fight, includes several videos built upon the idea of the aesthetics of empowerment. Beauty is a weapon for change. This empowerment aims to present different constructs of the feminine and of womanhood alternative to the patriarchal traditional feminine constructs. Here women are physically strong, they can fight and they can hurt if necessary. They learn how to fight and to protect themselves. This is a trans-feminist video installation.

The first video installation presents girls and women identified people of different ages (cisgender and transgender) that train to fight. It also presents a woman Scissors dancer playing her scissors and executing a few of her training exercises. In Peru, the traditional scissors dance was taught to boys only. But Betty: the woman scissors dancer in the video taught herself defying the tradition in her home town. Later on, when the shaman master saw what she had attained, then he made an exception and allowed Betty to train. After that other girls were allowed to train, changing the tradition. The scissors dance is a magic religious dance practiced since pre-Hispanic times.

Within the first video in the installation the parts in which the women are executing the fighting techniques are cut out, leaving only the moments previous to the most violent part and previous to the technique itself. In this way, the work discriminates men within the audience, in case there was a potential unknown aggressor.
This first video, when exhibited: has been accompanied by self-defense workshops for women identified persons.
The second video in the installation presents women identified persons (cis-gender and transgender) practicing the fighting techniques within their homes.

Digital animations cover the identities of the persons that participate in the trainings representing the aggressors. Thus, we only see the women training to fight. This part of the video installation was made during the first wave of the Covid 19 pandemic in Lima, Peru. Thus, the video recording was directed by zoom, and the actresses recorded themselves with their phones. Later I edited and animated the videos.

The third video in the installation is a musical in which we see cys and trans mermaids of different generations and a Palla Corongo singing a revolutionary song. The Palla Corongo is the identity of one of the participants as an Inca princess in her real life. The lyric in the song is made by mixing paragraphs from dozens of famous revolutionary songs from three different centuries. I changed the pronouns within the lyrics turning them into non-binary and female pronouns. Changing the meaning of the lyrics calling for an inclusive, and just society where LGTBQIA people are celebrated. The backgrounds in this third video are made of digital landscapes, Andean landscapes, as well as the pride parade that I recorded in Lima, Peru.
The video installation ends with the image of an animated Palla Corongo’s crown on the 3 screens. The music in the background is also made of dozens of songs creating a club atmosphere. The three- channel video installation includes a strobing light that creates a club atmosphere inviting people to dance.

They sing, They dance, They fight

Es una video instalación multicanal compuesta por un trío de películas musicales, cada una de las cuales está constituida por numerosos videoclips- presentada en un entorno que, con luces de neón y música, recrea el ambiente festivo de un club.

En un contexto mundial en el que las mujeres son asesinadas, They Sing,They Dance,They Fight, presenta lo que Tejada-Herrera ha llamado “la estética de las políticas del empoderamiento”. Así, la artista utiliza la belleza, el glamour y el absurdo como herramientas para generar narrativas que redefinen las nociones de fuerza física y social femenina, ofreciendo alternativas a los roles asignados a las mujeres en el marco de una sociedad capitalista patriarcal.

El primer vídeo de la serie alterna escenas en las que una mujer “danzante de tijeras” -danza tradicional peruana normalmente reservada a los hombres- demuestra sus habilidades, con imágenes de un grupo de mujeres y niñas entrenando para luchar.

En el segundo video, mujeres cis y trans memorizaron las técnicas de autodefensa y se documentaron practicando desde sus espacios privados durante la crisis sanitaria mundial del coronavirus.

En un tercer video sirenas trans y cis de distintas edades, asi como una Palla Corongo (princesa Inca representada en las fiestas populares de la región Andina) cantan una canción realizada por la artista mezclando oraciones de canciones icónicas, representativas de distintos movimientos sociales, de diversos géneros musicales. La artista cambió los pronombres de las letras de masculino a femenino y a no binario.

They sing, They dance, They fight presenta a diferentes grupos de mujeres cis y trans que, interpretan construcciones alternativas de la feminidad. En lo que es una celebración de mujeres de edades diversas y de la disidencia sexual, de la sororidad, del amor y la fuerza.