Skip to Content

“Landlines: A Public Performance” Ana-Maurine Lara

AnaPhoto

Saturday, August 22nd at 10:00am

Sunday, August 23rd at 10:00am

Join Ana-Maurine Lara, winner of the Oregon Arts Commission Joan Shipley Award, as she performs Landlines: a public performance exploring the ideas of home and homeland in Eugene. The Sephardic Jewish notion of kasa (home) inspires TWO public processions that reflect on what home means for multiple communities-Black, Native, Asian American, Jewish, Latino-that constitute Eugene.

LANDLINES 1:

Saturday, August 22nd, 2015

10:00am from Skinner Butte

7.5 mile tour

Ana-Maurine will conduct a solo performance walk of 7.5 miles, walking in a loop through Skinner Butte, Whiteaker, North Eugene, and Alton Baker Park. As part of this solo performance walk, Ana-Maurine will erect temporary “historical markers,” using stones, poetry and ritualized performance that draw from Jewish poetic and cultural forms. These “historical markers” will reference the histories of Native, African American, Jewish, Chinese and Latino communities in Eugene.

LANDLINES 2:

Sunday, August 23rd, 2015

10:00am from WOW Hall to the Park Blocks

You are invited to join the landlines public procession through downtown Eugene. We will meet at the parking lot on West 8th Ave & Charnelton (site of Eugene’s first synagogue) to process in a spiral to Park Blocks. The Klezmonauts will play live music for the procession. Please bring an object that symbolizes home for you. Together we will celebrate the multi-ethnic and interfaith communities that have shaped Eugene’s Jewish communities in our city.

For more information:

Ana-Maurine Lara (Artist): zorashorse@gmail.com

Alai Reyes-Santos: alai@uoregon.edu

Artist Bio: Ana-Maurine Lara is a national award-winning fiction author and Cave Canem poet. She was awarded the PEN/Northwest, the Barbara Deming Award and the National Latino/Chicano Literary Contest Third Prize. Her novel, Erzulie’s Skirt was a Lambda Literary Finalist. In addition, she has participated in prestigious writing residencies, studying with world-renowned poets and fiction writers. She draws from her experiences as a Dominican-American writer of Native, African, and Jewish ancestry to produce literary works and performances that blur the boundaries of artistic genres and cultural traditions.

Ana-Maurine has published extensively in a variety of genres. Her novels include Erzulie’s Skirt (RedBone Press 2006), When the Sun Once Again Sang to the People (KRK Ediciones, 2011), Watermarks and Tree Rings (Tanama Press, 2011) and her short fiction has appeared in Sable LitMag, Callaloo and other literary journals. Her multi-genre piece Cantos will be released on September 18th at Cave Canem’s headquarters in New York City.

Ana-Maurine’s essays are widely anthologized and she has published articles in peer reviewed journals, including Phoebe Journal of Arts and Culture and GLQ. She is a graduate of Harvard (BA 1997) and Yale (PhD 2014). She joins the faculty of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Oregon this academic year.

 landlines invitations blog