Jose Torres Tama

The Chain Gang Project
Jackson Square, New Orleans
May 14

$CASINO AMERICA$
Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans
May 16

The poor are fair game in the rigged contest of life, the corporate croupiers collecting more than proffering. But we, the people, keep on rolling the dice, expecting the jackpot of chance to spill in our direction. After all, with money will come power and the good life. At least, corralled society substantiates that to be penniless is to be powerless and therefore speechless. But where is the voice for the masses who through circumstantial ignorance are mute? Enter the modern day oracle, the 20th century public defender. Enter one Jose Torres Tama, a diminutive fellow from Ecuador educated in America's feral heartland of New York City and New Jersey.

Since 1984, Torres Tama's persuasive body language and bilinguality have served him well as a street performer in the New Orleans French Quarter, where he has captivated his multicultural audience with the juggling of fire, knives, and pointed words. However, his Catholic indoctrination has beckoned him to help heal a wounded world. He must not only entertain but enlighten, with fire as both his foe and his ally, as he tells his audience that he is a "man of fire."

Torres Tama refers to his style of performance art as "performance terrorism," a media-infused fire and brimstone pontification. He is for sure a one-man spectacle, able to assume a cross-cultural range of roles, both humorous and menacing. Torres Tama debuted "The Chain Gang Project" prior to reviving his "$CASINO AMERICA$." Both were part of New Orleans' EC(h)O Arts Festival, a 10-day series of staged events intended to promote "environmental justice" and "social change."

"The Chain Gang Project" reflects Torres Tama's Art in the Public Domain principle, wherein a free-roaming, impromptu audience becomes engaged in a very public art event. It also declares his impassioned refusal to silently acquiesce to covert injustice. Here, the impetus is the reinstatement of chain gangs in the south and their insidious, racial repercussions.

Positioned opposite the Presbytere and at the helm of a triangular chain gang completed by two African-American males offset by two Latino drummers, Torres Tama chants "I'm on My Way..." as the group proceeds to an awaiting altar set against the Square's park. Facing St. Louis Cathedral and dressed in his customary black attire, Torres Tama, still chained and very vulnerable, addresses the motley crowd on issues at hand. His words are simultaneously serious and mocking: beside a Special K breakfast he places the KKK, and such a combination does not suite everyone's taste. Then he informs his congregation of the atrocities beyond the South, of an African-American youth being shot dead by a white policeman for possession of a lethal candy bar, and of a similar incident involving a Hispanic youth. While singing "Dixie," the artist reminds us of the 97 Black churches that have been burned since 1995, and continues to implore us to confront rampant racism. Finally, in a very charged move, Torres Tama ignites a tiny cruciform he's been holding throughout made of matches and a confederate flag card. Placing the burning symbol of hate and ignorance into a chalice, the kneeling artist beseeches the crowd to unchain the threesome. A brave group of latent hippies accomplish the deed, perhaps feeling they have nothing to lose.

The message is not so different in the Contemporary Arts Center performance. Again we see an altar with suspended mandala, a simple arrangement of candles, photographs,and draped cloths in the manner of flamenco props befitting a wayfarer. "$CASINOAMERICA$ graphically explores, through blatantly suggestive body language - the prolonged clutching of crotch, for example - the exploitation of the underpaid and underclassed who think they've got a chance in one of the many casinos defacing our country. Dressed in black but wearing a red cape as he dons the role of El Mephisto Modern, Torres Tama takes the audience on a ride through human weakness. It is often times funny, and sadly true. "I'd like a casino between my genitals...between my ass...between my mouth." It may seem a crude approach to cultured, 20th century America,but Torres Tama shows us that when we play at someone else's game, we only play the fool.

-Marian McClellan, New Orleans