(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.