Kevin Quiles Bonilla

Presidential Alert (America, Lip-sync for your Life)

In Presidential Alert (America, Lip-Sync for your Life) the artist lip-syncs to America, the iconic song from the musical West Side Story detailing life in America as a Puerto Rican. Unearthing the asymmetrical power relations that plague the island, this 1961 recording is interrupted by voices from past and present: the current president of the United States giving a speech following Hurricane María in Puerto Rico in 2017; Pedro Pietri, a member of the latino youth group Young Lords, reciting his poem Puerto Rican Obituary (1969); and a recording of Hawaiian activist Haunani-Kay Trask speaking about stolen lands from 1990. Informed by the use of lip-syncing in drag to (re)claim space and language, Quiles Bonilla’s work energetically portrays acts of colonization alongside those of resistance and resilience.

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*This performance took place on October 16th 2020