November 25, 2012
from “Wupatki: Houses of the Enemies” (c) Quintan Ana Wikswo
WUPATKI began as the day to day soul wrenching experience that was my life working at safe houses for sex trafficked and battered women on Indian Nations in Mexico/Arizona. And then those days wandered their untoward ways into a poem, and then a series of poems, and then hundreds of 120mm photographs, and an essay, then eventually a suite of 35mm films, and a libretto, and a magazine spread in High Desert Journal (check it out here), and eventually, now, an immensely fulfilling collaboration with composer Pamela Madsen.
But it’s also a place, Wupatki, at the Navajo Nation…it’s black ash and lava fields and ancient stone towers commanding over time from the Grandmothers volcanic field of Arizona…the site of an ancient vulvic temple and astronomical observatory – both dedicated to the eviscerating spider goddess Kokyanwuhti.
On December 1st, my love letter to WUPATKI will premiere in performance by Pamela Madsen at the University of Colorado, with Ensemble Peak FreQuency and the VAPA Chamber Ensemble. WUPATKI consists of my 13 minute 35 and 120mm original film, text projections from my poem sequence, Madsen’s live and electronic music and instrumentation, and the Ensembles’ voices performing my libretto… stay tuned for performance images and clips!
The man walked by and wanted to buy us.
He used his language, where cadaver rhymes with woman. We replied to him in our language, where battle rhymes with birth – the kind that snaps bone.
Bird bones in the silt, half buried, and an open beak.
Between your legs are feathers, wings and claws. Your egg lies in shards at my feet. Only half-emerged, we are already consumed by ants. We are new and hungry and half-tangled in mucus and each moment we do not fly, we die.
from WUPATKI
by Quintan Ana Wikswo
Saturday, December 1
7:30pm
Centennial Hall
University of Colorado
Colorado Springs, Colorado
USA
With Ensemble Peak FreQuency and the VAPA Chamber Ensemble.
Wupatki: Houses of the Enemies. (c) Quintan Ana Wikswo