Nock-Ma: El Shame-Man Meets el Mexican't y la Hija Apócrifa de Frida Cola y Freddy Kruger in Brazil (2005)

Nock-ma is a largely improvised three-hour collaboration between Guillermo Gómez-Peña (Mexican/Chicano), James Luna (Native American -- Luiseno), and Violeta Luna (Mexican). This multimedia performance/installation was conceived as a "sampling of apocalyptic post-colonial nightmares for an imaginary photo shoot": on its two main stages, Violeta Luna and James Luna perform warped versions of various "fetishized identities" such as Frida Kahlo and a Native American shaman. Meanwhile, Peruvian artist Amapola Prada, donning an indigenous feather crown, lies naked on a dentist's chair as the audience intervenes on her body with text and objects. Gómez-Peña circulates around the space, serving as an instigator of audience participation in what he calls a "performatic karaoke." As the performance progresses, audience members draw on their own political/aesthetic sensibilities to create images on stage. These evoke a wide range of issues, such as the Vatican sex scandal, homophobia, alcoholism in Indian communities, homelessness and the Iraq war, among many others. This performance was presented at the Francisco Nunes theater in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, as a part of the 5th Encuentro of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, titled Performing 'Heritage': Contemporary Indigenous and Community-Based Practices.