Queridos,

Muchas Gracias to all of you who have been following and supporting my work as a dance artist and community builder.  As you know, I am also a single mother and carry my work differently because of this central on-going act of navigation as a mama.  This sacred work of bringing up another human being in this world is both terrifying and totally fun!(sound familiar? there is the essence of piñata again).  Some of you may have seen my solo “half moon” at my benefit showing last year… Here it is again in writing.  For all the “babies of the family”, to mothers who are sharing custody and to mixed-heritage personas, ~Feliz Día de La Madre~

Half Moon

By Liz Duran Boubion

In the beginning, I am a beet red baby born in an October heat wave in the L.A. basin.

Candy melts inside a piñata moon hanging in the back yard

4 sweaty brothers with grass-stained knees line up with a baseball ball bat

Papa pulls the rope

Mom sleeps in the shade

I am suspended in the air by 2 older sisters fighting over who will hold the baby

Their hands begin to slip as they pull

(Dale dale dale)

I am slipping

(No pierdas el tino)

She is sleeping

(Porque si lo pierdes)

They are fighting

(pierdes el camino)

who will catch me?

Pulling skin off the bone

They have more color,

more language,

and they are hungry.

The piñata moon breaks

And I fall….

…

On the ground with no skin,

I become lighter

breaking up into small pieces of

pink, yellow, green

Salt water taffy- wrapped in wax paper…

enough to go around for everyone

I am generosity.

…

Present Time…

Yo soy una media luna,

pero soy una mujer entera!

Is being a whole woman enough?

I am only fractions of all the other things

Half Mexican,

half Canadian,

half a mother,

wait…hold the phone- I am a whole mother, but only 50% of the time. Though my body birthed this boy on a full moon in 2001, he only gets a few pieces of what I could be giving him. 2 sets of hands pulling from either end…I’m so, so sorry…

Thinking

How can a mother be half?

How can the moon be half?

The moon is always whole.

You just can’t always see her.

…

Wholeness speaks:

Its not true that no one caught me.

The earth took me for her own.

There is a reason for gravity…

Tiny, sticky, hands gather me up

one piece at a time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please join me with Emmeline Gonzalez-Beban and Ria Das Gupta for another (different and new) Piñata deconstruction at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts on May 16, 2015 for Illusion Show! This interactive event is curated by Adrian Arias and is AMAZING! Audience wears black and the performers all wear white. The gallery is blanketed with white paper everywhere to create upon from 5pm-11pm.  Piñata Dance Collective is on at 8:45pm and dancing with colored tissue paper…The beginning utterances of a piece I am working on for ¡FLACC! 2015. in September and for Mbongui Square in November and for Piñata En L’air when I get the funding to make it a full-length production.

96 artists are participating in ILLUSION SHOW! May 16, 5 hours of ART, starting at 5:11pm @ Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, 2868 Mission Street, San Francisco. Missionculturalcenter.org.  Wear Black!

Piñata Dance Collective is grateful to our individual donors, the Zellerbach Family Foundation, Shawl Anderson Dance Center, ABD Productions, Monkey Yoga Shala, and MCCLA.

CLASSES: Please come to my last modern classes at Shawl Anderson until the fall.  Due to the kids program this summer, my class will be put on hold starting June 15.

Ah-Lan Dance Academy- Come see our presentation on June 7th at Albany High School! My modern dance kids are fantastic! I’m also teaching Family Yoga, Pre-Ballet and Ballet at the Oakland YMCA. Contact me for more info.

MEXICO- I’m going back to Guadalajara!  Stay tuned on FB as I share my journey teaching in MX again this summer!  Hosted by Victor Infante and Marlet Martinez, I will be offering classes and workshops June 15-July 6.

SAVE THE DATE! Tickets available on MCCLA website soon! WATCH FLACC VIDEO!:-)