Celebrate the start of spring with a spell-binding performance of original student choreography from senior Ximena De La Parra-Tostado.
Conciencia Awaken: Creating One’s Querencia
“Living in a state of psychic unrest, in a Borderland, is what makes poets write and artists create.” – Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza
Gloria Anzaldúa, one of the first major thinkers in the realm of Chicana studies, put into words what I have struggled with since a young age. Many of us first-generation youth are all too familiar with the accusations that we are “too American” for our home culture, but “too foreign” for U.S. society. Though not said out loud, it is clear that we are expected to pick a side. Suffice to say, feeling lost in your identity makes it hard to find your place in the world. Anzaldúa, however, challenges us to move beyond this dualistic thinking. She argues that adhering to the social order that organizes us in hierarchies of commerce and power wounds us individually and collectively (541). And while confronting the borderlands may be daunting, it is crucial for us to go through and accept the wounds. Anzaldúa frames this as a non-linear, iterative process known as the 7 stages of conocimiento. Involving a conscious deconstruction/ reconstruction of the self, others, and the social world, the stages expand our ways of knowing. By undergoing this reflection, this learning of new and unlearning of old, we find the resources to heal ourselves, our relationships with others, and the world.
It is these stages of conocimiento that have inspired the work you are about to see today. I do not claim this to be an exact representation of the stages, nor do I present this as the sole solution to fixing everything in our lives. I am merely sharing my own reflections. My goal is to create art that causes us to think and engage in dialogue with one another. This project comes from a place of passion and respect for humanity and the earth, and I hope you enjoy it.
CONTENT WARNING: Please be advised that this work deals with themes of mental health, loss, grief, trauma, and depression.