Doble Quincañera Performance

On a frigid February night in 2012, one hundred revelers danced, ate, drank and partied in archetypal style at Havana Social club in Williamsburg Brooklyn NYC, as artist Coralina Rodriguez Meyer's performance culminated in a Doble Quinceañera gender reveal party. Emerging in a used white wedding dress, replete with sparkles, taffeta and the trimmings of virginal iconography; the head shaved artist asked audience members to "Come Out" on her wailing wall dress by "tagging the most offensive slur you've been called". Participants proceeded to defame the artist's body with black permanent marker on white dress, in a call and response style purge of middle school graffiti slurs. Coralina Rodriguez Meyer "came out" to her friends and family of damas and chambelanes on her epic 30th birthday party by marrying herself.

This 1m30s excerpt of the performance begins with the artist's fade session where she prepares for the fete on both sides of the barber shop in her Flatbush neighborhood. Buzzcut in between family photos of her struggle to occupy a queer body, the artist emerges as Queer. Holding space for both genders, the artist asserts "Queer is a spectrum of Inquiry: a process of Tinkuy". Shaving the classic 1990s thunderbolt into her head, while curling her waves in 1990s Salt n Pepa style- the artist embodies the spectrum of gender, pop culture and racial blending aesthetics in her biological origin family. Serenading Coralina's performance of citizenship were two hispanic Brooklyn based bands from the artist's past: Dukes of Brooklyn and El Flor de Toloache, an all female Mariachi band. The artist's only remaining grandparent whose Alzheimer's diagnosis doesn't slow her down, responds to the performance by questioning the notion of personhood.

The performance video and "Slur Dress" was exhibited in 2012 at the Bronx Museum Heritage Center in "Correlacion Illusoria" the 3rd annual Latin American Biennial in the Bronx curated by Alexis Mendoza, Luis Stephenberg and Miguel Lescano.