About this series of virutal events
The Clemente Soto Velez Cultural & Educational Center in partnership with #PRSyllabus and the Center for the Humanities at The Graduate Center, CUNY present:
Sancocho LIVE: Catastrophe, Resistance, & Joy:
A Virtual Stew of “Non-Essential” Thinkers and Makers / Un guiso virtual de pensadores y hacedores “no-esenciales”
The series began by asking the question: How can we understand COVID-19 within a longer narrative arc of disaster, austerity and compounding crisis? To address this accumulation of catastrophes that have plagued Puerto Ricans, and draw connections between the current pandemic and our pre-existing conditions and struggles, Yarimar Bonilla premiered the video Aftershocks of Disaster, directed by Juan Carlos Dávila, which is an accompanying piece to the anthology edited with Marisol Lebrón and published by Haymarket Books.
After the documentary screening, journalist Alana Cassanova-Burgess moderated a Q&A with the producers and some of the interviewees. This group included professor and coeditor Marisol Lebrón, activist and psychoanalyst Patricia Noboa, artist Sofía Gallisá Muriente and journalist and writer Benjamín Torres Gotay.
This first sancocho concluded with a set by DJ Cano Cangrejo from Agitarte.
This three-part virtual event will bring together scholars, writers, artists, and activists to think about how “non-essential” communities, workers, and institutions are responding to the intersecting catastrophes of the present.
Events are anchored around a series of questions, among them: How can we understand the COVID-19 pandemic within a longer narrative arc of disaster, austerity, and compounding crisis? For whom is the pandemic a transformative rupture, and for whom it is yet another episode in a larger story of precarity and disposability? What is the role of cultural organizing in the process of collective recovery? What role do cultural workers play in revaluing the work and worlds of those deemed either non-essential or expendable?
Drawing inspiration from Pedro Pietri’s concept of the “aesthetic sancocho” each event will consist of short video presentations, followed by a moderated dialogue (open to Q&A) with Puerto Rican cultural workers in the island and the diaspora. We will end with a virtual jangueo where DJ's set the mood and participants can continue building together.
** Events will be fully bilingial with English & Spanish interpretation by Babilla Collective **
SCHEDULE:
Thursday, June 11th, 7:00 to 9:00 PM (EDT):
The Pandemic as Aftershock/ La Pandemia como réplica
How can we understand COVID-19 within a longer narrative arc of disaster, austerity, and compounding crisis?/¿Cómo entendemos el COVID-19 dentro de una narrativa más grande de desastres, austeridad, y crisis acumulativa?
- Premiere video Aftershocks of Disaster: Puerto Rico Before & After the Storm, directed by Juan Carlos Dávila
- Q&A moderated by Alana Cassanova-Burgess (WNYC) with director and film participants: Yarimar Bonilla, Benjamín Torres Gotay, Sofía Gallisá Muriente, Patricia Noboa, and Erika P. Rodríguez
- Jangueo virtual con DJ Cano Cangrejo (Agitarte)
Thursday, June 18th, 7:00 to 9:00 PM (EDT): In Defense of the “Non-essentials” / En Defensa de lo “no-esencial”
How do periods of crisis lead to revaluations of cultural work and new definitions of the essential?/¿Cómo en periodos de crisis se revaloriza el trabajo cultural y se redefine lo esencial? /
- Video Presentations: Melissa Calderón, Teresa Hernández, Edwin Torres.
- Q&A mdoerated by Sofía Gallisá Muriente, with Marianne Ramírez Aponte (MAC), Carla Torres (El Hangar) y Monxo López (MCNY)
- Jangueo virtual / Dj session with Buscabulla
Thursday, June 25th 7:00 to 9:00 PM (EDT):
Essential Infrastructure/ Infraestructura esencial
How have cultural workers responded to the fundamental needs of their communities in the face of state abandonment?/ ¿De qué forma han respondido los trabajadores culturales las necesidades fundamentales de sus comunidades en respuesta al abandono estatal?
- Video Presentations: Beta-Local, Laboratorio Itinerante de Investigación Teatral, La Conde,
- Intervención Poetica: Urayoan Noel
- Dialogue moderated by Libertad Guerra and Ed Morales with JustXChanges, La Goyco, Espicy Nipples
- Jangueo Virtual con Macha Colón
This event series is co-sponsored by The Clemente Soto Velez Cultural & Educational Center in partnership with #PRSyllabus and the Center for the Humanities at The Graduate Center, CUNY as part of the The Puerto Rico Syllabus project from the Seminar on Public Engagement and Collaborative Research.
