PAY IT FORWARD ARTIST: DOCTORA XINGONA DIANA ALVAREZ
May 2022
An expansive multimedia artist and educator, Doctora Xingona created Quiero Volver: A Xingonx Ritual Opera for QTBIPOC artists to convene and manifest futures. Artists were invited to cultivate creativity, community, healing, and documentation of their lives and art.
"In this gathering ritual, a performance space is transformed into a living altar in the Xicana feminist tradition that underscores the politics of attention. Who we listen to, and where we draw our attention, is a political act. A theater, garden, gallery, community space, or other public venue is transformed into a sacred space to honor the lives and bodies of QTBIPOC artists. The space is constructed with multiple stations meant to nourish our bodies and coalitional healing.”
— Doctora Xingona
Doctora Xingona Diana Alvarez in conversation with Holyoke Media.
ABOUT
Doctora Xingona‘s ancestors bloom in her/their voice. Their songs roar an otherworldly fire against oppression, exalt queer love and liberation, and create a gripping atmosphere for healing. An expansive multimedia artist and educator, Doctora Xingona’s music, poetry, performances, films, and gatherings center transcendence, kinship, and the co-liberation and nourishment of queer and trans artists of color. Doctora Xingona is the creator/composer behind Quiero Volver: A Xicanx Ritual Opera, a multimedia living performance altar for queer and trans artists of color to convene and manifest futures. Quiero Volver was awarded the Public Art for Spatial Justice Award from the New England Foundation for the Arts in 2020 and is supported by Massachusetts Local Cultural Council Grants in 2022. Funds raised by Quiero Volver performances support the BridgeSong Fund, an emergency relief program for women, nonbinary, and trans musicians of color founded by Doctora Xingona in collaboration with the Institute for the Musical Arts (Goshen, MA). Doctora Xingona is an invited performer, guest lecturer, workshop facilitator, and keynote speaker at venues and schools across the US and worldwide, including Festival Internaciónal Cervantino, MX, Philadelphia Folk Festival, PA, Banff Centre for the Arts, Folk Alliance International, and many more. Doctora Xingona released their debut album, Ser Artista, produced by Grammy-nominated multi-instrumentalist Seth Glier, in December 2021.
RESPONSE AND DOCUMENTATION OF Quiero Volver BY PAY IT FORWARD ARTIST EBBIE RUSSELL
Quiero volver a ti
Mi gente
Mi amor
Mi sueño
Quiero volver a un tiempo que aun no existe
Un tiempo más allá de la pandemia
Quiero Volver a xingonx ritual opera orchestrated by Diana Alvarez is an act of reclamation.
There is a love story behind every queer relationship be it platonic, romantic, or beyond
category.
She opened the door with careless abandon and before my brain had a chance to think, the
caged heart outside my heart yelled enthusiastically, “Are you Julissa?”
Every artist needs a muse and queer artists of color need each other. We meet at the altar of
the mundane where there is infinite beauty in how we care for one another and how we
celebrate living, grief, and joy. We reclaim old town halls steeped in white supremacist history
and present. We do not die. Every generation, we are rebirthed by the next wave of the black
abolitionist future.
They do not bury us
We are seeds
We sustain each other
We are the ones we’ve been waiting for
QTBIPOC* artists witnessing each other, honoring our ancestors, and healing our wounds.
Quiero Volver a ritual xingonx opera by Doctora Xingona is public art that needs a dedicated
space over time. These are experiences we need to remember and revisit again and again.
Quiero Volver is public art is community seeking is communal care.
Quiero Volver is nourishment. What nourishes you? To what do you wish to return?
Quiero Volver is not an act of nostalgia. It is a possible future. It is a possible present. It is a way
of reclaiming what has happened to us in the past.
Quiero Volver is an opportunity for
community to say, I love you. I want to create with you. Let’s heal together. Let’s keep doing this
again and again. Let us make this our ritual.
CitySpace's Pay It Forward pilot is made possible with the generous support by
