Nicolás & Collaborations

Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo

Sitting and Moving with what Arises, 2020

A specific everyday object, a chair, is used as both platform and tool for the experience, which consists of simple breathing exercises, movement, writing and recollection. We sit to pause, to sense our bodies, to regain strength, to garner clarity, and to look forward.

Support for this video from Artist Relief

Growing a Green Heart / An experience conceived by Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles / Facilitated with Priscilla Marrero, John Butler, and Caroline Davis on a cool and sunny Sunday on May 1, 2022, Van Cortlandt Park, Bronx, NY

Presented and supported by CALL/City as Living Laboratory, Van Cortlandt Park Alliance, The Interdependence Project (IDP), and by grants administered by the Bronx Council on the Arts (BCA)

Movement: Priscilla Marrero / Science and Ecology: John Butler / Soundscape: Caroline Davis

Paints for watercolors: Center for Art Education and Sustainability (CAES) / Photography for this event: Argenis Apolinario / Video filming and E editing: Geoffrey Jones

Special thanks to:

Our Ancestors and Elders who guide, create, and dance with us in every gathering

The Munsee Lenape and Wappinger peoples for caring for centuries for this unceded land

Tibbetts Brook, Van Cortlandt Park and all of its beings and creatures

City as Living Laboratory / Bronx Council on the Arts / Van Cortlandt Park Alliance / The Interdependence Project (IDP) / The 8th Art Prospect International Public Art Festival and CEC ArtsLink / FIELDTRIP and Chef JJ Johnson (for the wonderful vegan meal) / Center for Art Education and Sustainability (CAES) / Liza Cucco / Olivia Georgia / Estella Dieci / Lucas Garrett / Beth Gebresilasie / Bryan E. Glover / Christina Taylor / Nandini Naik / Rosario Raful / Margarita Raful / Laia Solé /David Wayne Hinkle

Anna Halprin, Beth Stephens, Annie Sprinkle, Luke Dixon, and Linda Mary Montano for their teachings

To each and every single participant in this experience. Thank you for your love for the Earth.

Growing a Green Heart © 2019 Nicolás Dumit Estévez

Full Moon Exhumed Zoom: Billy X Curmano – 40th Anniversary of Performance for the Dead / Presented with Franklin Furnace’s Loft

September 29, 2023, 5-6 pm ET: The Full Moon Exhumed Zoom celebrated the 40th anniversary of Billy X Curmano’s 3-day burial and exhumation Performance for the Dead. It featured a pallbearer, mourner and gravedigger from the original, an appearance by the exhumed corpse and a studio, gravesite and Leaning Grotto of Witoka visitation. In Sympathy performances by the critically acclaimed artists Beth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle, Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles Morel, LuLu LoLo, Ed Woodham and Bellavia mirrored the In Sympathy international postal exhibition that complemented the live burial.

After an Italian Wake, traditional New Orleans style Jazz Funeral and 4-day fast, the soloist was buried (with adequate life support systems) to perform activities beyond the realm of any live audience. His fast continued in absolute darkness as he attempted to lift the veil, perform and commune with the other side. The isolated meditation was carried out in the context of a larger public work. Much as a funeral is meant to comfort survivors, the wake, jazz funeral and postal art were all meant for the live audience. Artists from around the world responded via post and package to the performance, end of life issues and death.

The Performance for the Dead drew the community together as participants and collaborators. They filled the void when traditional funding sources were scared off. Winona Monument Company donated the granite tombstone. The coffin and burial vault were constructed by volunteers. Catherine Mora Cleary brought her whole family for grave digging. Kevin Pomeroy served as a pallbearer. Catherine Schuler Vargas joined the mourners. The three will offer first hand reflections from 40-years past.

“Climate… War…slow down. Maybe we’re better off underground” Billy X Curmano

Querides Desposeídes! Compartimos un fragmento de la que fue nuestra sesión 2 UNA MEDITACIÓN RARE con @interiorbeautysalon. Las personas suscritas a la newsletter han recibido el video completo y materiales de referencia. En esta segunda sesión titulada: Una Meditación Rare enmarcamos esta y otras sesiones de la Academia en una tradición subterránea de corrientes espirituales que han sido objeto de borrado y persecución en tanto que planteaban ontologías disidentes de las religiones monoteístas oficiales, pero también disidentes de los sistemas políticos y económicos que construyen la lógica capitalista de explotación de lo existente. Estas religiones monoteístas han vertebrado el pensamiento y la forma de entender lo espiritual y religioso en Europa y fueron impuestas a golpe de hierro y crucifijo en las sucesivas oleadas colonizadoras exteriores en África, América, Asia y Oceanía con el genocidio físico y cultural de las Naciones Originarias, pero también de las espiritualidades europeas no cristianas consideradas paganas o adoradoras del mal. Nicolás nos llevó de la mano en estado de trance por el Bronx, las espiritualidades afrocaribeñas, la contaminación del río, Linda Mary Montano, Washington Heights, el Caribe, la República Dominicana, España, les amigues que se fueron, El Bronx destruido, El Bronx reconstruido, el Bronx gentrificado, el Museo del Barrio, las pellizas, les artistas que han pasado por Interior Beauty Salon, de ser maricón y salir a bailar por las calles, de la violencia cisheteropatriarcal, del Niño de Praga, del bautismo de Nicolás como ciudadano del Bronx, de quién decide que eres americano, de espíritus disidentes, del mundo ecoqueer de Beth Stephens y Annie Sprinkle, de la cruz impuesta y luego arrebatada y de Interior Beauty Salon: ese espacio gestionado por Nicolás que es un gran catalizador y facilitador de energías y artistas que están construyendo otro mundo más allá de este y en este por medio del arte. Pero no os decimos más, para eso está esta joya de documento que aquí os compartimos.

Dejaos llevar por esta meditación-rare-performance-en-trance con Nicolás. Para suscribirte a la newsletter aquí

Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles’s research on the Virgin of Altagracia’s iconography, the spiritual protector of many in the Dominican Republic, as well as Haiti and the diaspora.

Through Visioning the Brown Mother, an experiential excavation of HSM&L’s collection of images of the Mother exported/imposed to the so-called new world, Visioning the Brown Mother seeks to decolonize this iconography in varied geo-political perspectives through one-on-one dialogues/reflections, and through spontaneous in-person exchanges in the streets of the City. Nicolás’s one-person pilgrimage from his home in the South Bronx to Washington Heights (also home to the Hispanic Society), two enclaves of Dominican presence in New York City, takes into consideration a back and forth between these two loci informing one another culturally.

Nicolás was born in the Dominican Republic. He threads an elusive path that manifests itself performatively or through experiences where the quotidian and art overlap. Many of his work is ephemeral as it is the experience of engaging with it. Nicolás’s creative praxis often includes community involvement and/or religious/spiritual questioning.

The artists’ new works and presentations are supported in part by, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State. The Research Artist Fellowship Program is supported, in part, by the Vilcek Foundation.

Host, Gary Axelbank is joined by Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles & Nao Bustamante to discuss Bronx River Art Center’s upcoming exhibit, ROCKING THE MARKET

Free to Love, Free to Grieve: Impermanence and the Gift of Life, with the Healing Circles Team

Special EKR video screening & Closing panel discussion, with presenters from the series

A Performance Trinity: Nao Bustamante, Marga Gomez and Carmelita Tropicana / Hosted by Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles

Video documentation of the Franklin Furnace LOFT event A Performance Trinity: Nao Bustamante, Marga Gomez and Carmelita Tropicana presented on October 21, 2022 at 6:30PM – 8:00PM ET on Zoom. Hosted by Nicolás Dumit Estévez, and presented in partnership with the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art.

Find out What happened when three Queer Latina/x performance art luminaries gather for an evening of laughter, conversation and reflections? Considering humor as a strategy for survival in navigating race, gender, immigration through the generations and today, what does it mean to be Latina/x right now? What does it mean to embrace and reject labels? The guests for this unconventional program have used cabaret, stand-up comedy, video, live TV, writing and film to voice some of the pressing issues of the times: from colonization to political embargoes to exile. They have also relied on humor to deliver messages that are not always easy to convey, and have gone so far as to fight for the plight against the U.S. appropriation of the Cuban Mojito, pose as a “real” exhibitionist at the late Joan Rivers’ talk show, and claim a toilet plunger as an objet d’art.

Those in attendance got to be blessed by the presence of these three cult figures and, of course, to ask them questions.

Cracked Eggs is the pilot collaboration between interdisciplinary artist, Linda Sibio, and San Bernardino County’s Department of Behavioral Health (SBC-DBH.)

Linda’s lived experience with schizophrenia has led her to develop creative exercises that channel mental differences into creative expression. She first designed the Cracked Eggs as an arts workshop series in 2002. Currently, she is partnering with SBC-DBH to provide virtual workshops to public health clients living in San Bernardino County. Participants are active members of community clubhouses which provide an array of support for individuals living with severe mental illnesses. Linda’s goals for the workshop include decreased stigmatization of mental differences by engaging public audiences and greater connections between the mind and body. She describes her artistic practices in the following:

“My design techniques have developed from research into the perceptions of the insane, taking ‘symptoms’ of insanity and transposing them into techniques for making experimental art. These methods include fragmentation, interrupters, non-linear time sequencing, multiple layers of images and stories, dismemberment, psychological torture, broadcasting, delusions, and hallucinations. I have written a book detailing exercises that use hieroglyphs, graphs, schizophrenic thinking, and structured chaos to enhance the creative process. I call my philosophy ‘The Insanity Principle.’

Social justice issues such as economic disparity, the mentally disabled and their place in society, and the plight of the homeless are common themes throughout my work. My vision includes the modern-day ostracizing of the insane from a productive society. As we dispose of human beings, so then we go toward a disposable culture. We are living in a deconstructed world and need to fragment to become whole again.”

Directed by Linda Sibio / Played by Erica Mosco / Followed by Linda Sibio’s solo performance, Wall Street Guillotine

Workshop Assistance by Isolde Kille / Videography by Dominic Paul Miller / Animations by Blake Brousseau / Costumes by Danielle Kinoshita

21 (3X7=21) HOURS OF LINDA MARY MONTANO’S 80TH BIRTHDAYARAMA

Video documentation of the January 18-19th birthday celebration of Lindy Mary Montano presented by E.A.R.T.H. Lab SF, Franklin Furnace Archive, Grace Exhibition Space, The Interior Beauty Salon, Streamside 7, Three Phase Center, and Unison Arts.

Shared Dialogue Shared Space 2022 (4/25, 4/30, 5/14)

Elemental Awareness / Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo and Priscilla Marrero

A Movement Improvisation / Performed on Saturday, October 23, 2021 in Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx

Presented with the 8th Art Prospect International Public Art Festival from CEC ArtsLink, City as Living Laboratory (CALL), Van Cortlandt Park Alliance, and supported by grants administered by the Bronx Council on the Arts

The 8th Art Prospect International Public Art Festival transforms familiar urban landscapes filling streets, courtyards, parks, and other public spaces with works of contemporary art

Special thanks to: our Ancestors and Elders who guide, create, and dance with us in every gathering/the Munsee Lenape and Wappinger peoples for blessing this land, air, and water/ Tibbetts Brook, Van Cortlandt Park and all of its beings and creatures/ City as Living Laboratory/Bronx Council on the Arts/Van Cortlandt Park Alliance/The 8th Art Prospect International Public Art Festival and CEC ArtsLink/Liza Cucco/Olivia Georgia/Liza Matveeva/Bryan E. Glover/John Butler/Estella Dieci/Ferran Martín/David Wayne Hinkle

Elemental Awareness is a warm up for Growing a Green Heart. Growing a Green Heart and all of its components were conceived by Nicolás Dumit Estévez, combining ecology, choreography, pedagogy, and performance art, and resulting in a multidisciplinary engagement to culminate in 2022.

This project is supported by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the Bronx Council on the Arts. This project is also made possible with funds from the Decentralization Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of the office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and administered by the Bronx Council on the Arts.

Elemental Awareness © 2021 Nicolás Dumit Estévez and Priscilla Marrero/ Growing a Green Heart © 2019 Nicolás Dumit Estévez

May Tibbetts Brook flow and dance again above ground…freely

Arantxa Araujo and Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles

Ofrenda

A ritual of giving / An incarnate study on the law of giving and receiving as a constant flow and exchange of universal energy

Enacted on Friday, September 17, 6 PM

Kelly Street Garden/ 924 Kelly Street, Bronx, NY, 10459

Ofrenda is part of Ven-ve, presented with funds as part of a regrant program awarded Kelly Street Garden by Kalliopeia Foundation, as an important part of making Kelly Street Garden a spiritual hub and cultural treasure within the Longwood/South Bronx community.

Video Copyright: 2021 Arantxa Araujo and Nicolás Dumit Estévez

Nicolás Dumit Estévez hosted in the Bronx and Joan Bernà in Vallcarca

Way Out #5 / Presented with Agència de Turisme Popular and Kelly Street Garden

Walk and shared conversation via Zoom between community gardens in the Bronx, NY, and Vallcarca, Barcelona.

Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo with The Interior Beauty Salon. And with the amazing presence of: Maggie Ens, Luke Dixon, Lisette Morel, Anna Costa e Silva, Quintín Rivera Toro, LuLu LoLo, Elia Alba, Jennifer Zackin and Adolfo Ibanez Ayerve, Linda Sibio, Jean Marie Casbarian, Ikpemesi Ogundare, Ed Woodham, Frances Valesco, Linda Mary Montano, Luis Lara Malvacías, Melanie DewBerry, Erika deVries, Limber Vilorio, Charo Oquet, Ana Paula Cordeiro, Billy X. Curmano, Anna Recasens, Jean-Ulrick Désert, Dulcina Abreu, Rhina Valentin, and Francheska Alcántara

On February 26,2021, Nicolás with The Interior Beauty Salon held space online at Franklin Furnace’s Loft for a group of creatives around the Earth to enact a series of vegan rituals. These micro-actions, carried on from homes from Rio de Janeiro to The Bronx and Puerto Rico, were intended to invoke healing —personal and collective—, serve as catalyst for inner and outer balance, and induce co-regulation as the night blossomed. The evening developed as a succession of gestures, some homeopathic while others more cathartic, that were given birth one after the other. Noche Ritual contemplated the possibility to perform art as refuge at a time of planetary sorrow and several concomitant pandemics brought forth by Covid-19: systemic racism, sexism, ageism, and the urgent ecological plight that we face as a species, among others. This event coincided with Nicolás’s 54th birthday. It also sent him off into the delicious unknown in the months and year(s) to come. Participants were asked to bring a blanket, a fruit and a knife to peel it. Blessings.

Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo from The Bronx, and Sitezise (Elvira Pujol and Joan Vila Puig) from Barcelona.

What is a street? A world subject to linearity, be this orderly or chaotic, it includes and hides many folds, partially disclosed remnants, significant presences and absences that one must decipher. The streets speak an urban tongue that makes them translatable and viable to all in any place, yet only under the invocation of the sight that knows to pause and to allocate time to the expression of details, to the emergence of the imprecise and to the manifestations of memories that speak of other voices. In a simultaneous walk Bronx-Barcelona, we will engage in an exercise involving an open interpretation of Beck Street and Carrer Pere IV to superimpose a dialogue that includes remembrances, collective memories and present happenings as if they were occurring in the same place and on the same street.

NicolásDumit Estévez Raful Espejo with José Drummond and interpreted by Natasha Lee / tête-à-tête, 2021

This art talk is focused on the work of interdisciplinary artist Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo. The artist presented his works directly from his home-studio in The Bronx, New York City, USA.

ZÌZHÌ (自制) is a contemporary art multidisciplinary platform and seedbed for experimentation and research. Operating nomadically and online ZÌZHÌ hosts exhibitions, video screenings, performances, and artist talks. The curatorial vision is informed by the idea of creating transnational and transcultural connections. ZÌZHÌ is a project of BABEL Cultural Organization and means homemade or DIY in Chinese.​

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Rhina Valentin and Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo

OPEN BxRx / Noche Ritual interview / BronxNet TV.

Rhina Valentin & Ana 'Rokafella' García with Nicolás

Created by the Elusive Artist & Cross Pollinator Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful  Espejo
In Partnership with Iconic Bronx Artists Rhina Valentin & Ana 'Rokafella' García. Presented with BronxNet TV.

The most recent chapters of Performing the Bronx are being supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affair and the Bronx Council on the Arts. In the past, Performing the Bronx has received support from Casita Maria’s South Bronx Culture Trail 2020, as well as love, space, and care from Mothers on the Move, The Andrew Freedman Home, and BAAD! Special thanks to BronxNet.