The 8M and The Performance
EXALTATION OR DENIGRATION OF THE FEMININE?
by Javier Orrego C.
Writer
D ancing is one of humanity's oldest forms of expression. It is not unreasonable to trace the origin of dance to the moment in which primitive man began to use the body to express his connection with the transcendent dimension of existence. The transmission of a particular mood or even a message through gestures, gestures and intentional movements is something that the so-called "performance art" borrows from dance. But this form of expression, which came into vogue in the 1960s and 1970s, obeys very different premises, spuriously claiming for itself the title of "art" by combining elements of genuine artistic disciplines, as well as of dance and music, such as singing, theater and plastic arts. From its origin, which is strictly political, performance sought to break with the structures of art itself, opening a space for dissolution
of social, moral and religious norms. Among the foundational precepts of this art politicization strategy is the intention to annul the state of contemplation, which predisposes the viewer to establish a connection with the transcendent. According to the neo-Marxist vision that inspired the birth of postmodernism, what is important is not the work itself, but the "artistic action" itself, an event that they understand to be as ephemeral as life itself, in which performers and spectators alike participate (although we must Of course, the audience is generally not allowed to dissent from the speech being delivered.) The destruction of the true function of art, that is, predisposing the human being through beauty to link with the transcendent, presupposes the destruction of the artistic space, which implies the replacement of the space in which contemplation should take place —which it should be comfortable, safe, open to experience—, because of the daily space —physical and psychological— in which the life of the mass man develops with all its problems, insecurity, deficiencies, tension, etc.
Those who practice this kind of interventions conceive of performance as an "art" of a rebellious nature that seeks to transgress and pervert the ethical and aesthetic canons of Western civilization. For them, the body, as a signifier of the subject, is nothing more than an element of political and social protest. For this reason, it is common for certain sectors identified with the progressive agenda to use this resource to convey their militant point of view.
This is what happens, for example, on March 8 of each year with the celebration of International Women's Day, an occasion in which the streets of the main cities of the West are packed with women who seek to draw attention to their demands. In recent years, the growing radicalization of the discourse of some groups has turned these demonstrations into a festival of emotional overflow with great potential for violence. In this context, performance activities have been gaining more and more prominence. A paradigmatic example of this trend is the intervention “A rapist in your path”, by the Chilean collective Las Tesis, which in November 2019 achieved a high impact worldwide. Of course, this kind of achievement is not limited only to March 8, appearing every time these groups take to the streets to demonstrate.
Among the characteristic elements of this type of discourse are the relentless fight against "patriarchy" and the defense of the presumed "right" of women to abortion, all based on a deep contempt for traditional femininity and motherhood, a state that radical feminists conceive of it as an instrument of domination by patriarchal society. The struggle of these groups also embraces all kinds of anti-religious expressions, including physical attacks on churches, desecration of sacred images, staging of satanic rites, etc.
This puts many performers at the other extreme of the natural drive of early human communities to establish a link with the supernatural world. Because we must not forget that, by dancing, man sought for the first time to communicate with the divine. In contrast, nowadays it seems that some feminist groups are using their bodies as instruments to communicate with other types of realities, exploiting ad nauseam the grotesque and the lurid, taking pleasure in smearing their bodies in paint, blood and excrement if necessary on their faces. invocations, which are sometimes accompanied by intemperate screams, guttural sounds and insults, promoting, among other things, the war against the “macho” and the slaughter of innocents, opening a dangerous door towards a deleterious, dark element, some would say demonic. In some way they have naturalized the cult of ugliness, the repulsive, the macabre.
In a nutshell, if in ancient times man danced around the fire seeking to connect with the essence of light, today many among feminist groups —and also LGBT, it must be said— take pleasure in using the body as a conductive channel for connect with your baser emotions by opening the back door to the darker aspects of human nature. We are referring to a Satanist drift that, alarmingly, seems to go beyond being a simple disruptive fashion adopted by some groups of misfits with the sole purpose of scandalizing those who they consider to represent the ruling class.
At the end of 2020, the Chilean priest Luis Escobar, an exorcist expert, denounced the presence of a kind of "satanic catechesis" in the riots that culminated in the destruction of two heritage churches in the center of Santiago in the course of the demonstrations for the first anniversary of the beginning of the revolutionary process on October 18. We are referring to the attacks on the Parroquia de la Asunción and the San Francisco de Borja Church, the institutional temple of Carabineros de Chile, which the public was able to see live and direct thanks to television dispatches. Father Escobar says that on the occasion it was possible to distinguish enough "satanic signs" to confirm the existence of a Satanist identity link in the individuals who perpetrated these attacks.
Scobar:
"Because of the background provided by the history of the cult of Satan in Chile, the evidence of recent events and the knowledge that I share with my exorcist brothers, in the aforementioned attacks on churches in Chile on October 18, 2020, there was a ritual satanic Liturgy in honor of Satan that began with dances representing the hubbub of the demons, culminating with the desecration of the temples and the images of the Blessed Virgin Mary. [1] "
Satanism or not, the truth is that the groups that carry out this type of act constantly resort to the twisted to mark their territory, exploiting, in fact, the morbidity of the public. Somehow, his thing is blasphemy, vandalism, iconoclastic delirium, senseless irreverence, rebellion against nature itself and the compulsive rejection of reason, order, peace, tolerance.
[one] Exorcist Luis Escobar denounces "satanic ritual" in the context of the attacks on churches in Chile. Portaluz, October 23, 2020. See online: https://portaluz.org/accion-del-mal/3968/exorcista-luis-escobar-denuncia-ritual-satanico-contexto-los.html
