ENRIQUE!

Simply Amazing Performance Artist

Some people if the term “Performance Artist” was brought up, might not have any orientation on the subject. Performance art (ists) has been in humans (species: Homo sapien) populations, according to cultural anthropologists, since earliest humans. It is the use of body movement, limbs, eyes etc. to tell a story, communicate ideas, or deliver a message such as hunting or religious experiences. The use of crude forms of humming, chanting, or stomping would add the beat. Later instruments, especially drums and percussion instruments (music) and singing were added. So Performance art is not new. From a more contemporary view one of the great performance artists of the mid19^thand early 20^thcenturies was Isadora Duncun. Her departure from classic ballet form to performance art/interpretive dance caused a sensation, scandal, and charges of pornography and immorality. In the later 20^thcenturies especially the mid to late 1960’s you have personalities and troops such as Grace Jones, Laurie Anderson and the infamous San Francisco (“Gender fuck”) group The Cockettes, and The Sister’s of Divine Indulgence. All brought a special way in which they delivered their art in the context of a performance.

Enrique carries on these and other performance art traditions. His integration of song, dance, and venues of magic create beautiful, haunting and at times deeply disturbing scenes of human struggle and pain. It all works, it all makes sense. Enrique’s sense of the dramatic soars above us all in a hail of Fairy glitter and colors, light and shadow. He is someone to watch he has just begun. I hope you enjoy his work as much as we do at Downtown LA Life Magazine.

Enrique Jesus Hernandez is a LBGT, Latinx, performance rock artist and domestic abuse activist. (HUNGER CITY], his latest EP and music videos, is him as a child witnessing his mother being physically and emotionally abused. At live shows, Hernandez uses movement as well as symbolic set design, costumes, and lights to express his personal journey as a survivor. At one point, police siren lights and intense dialogue play while Hernandez has the audience hold up a bed sheet as his protective shield. Intertwining himself in another sheet, he writhes and contorts in pain as the audience helplessly realizes the sheet they’re holding around him is now a wall preventing their aid. Inside his corset, a heart starts to glow and beams of light fill the room promising escape. Each part of his performance is intricately designed to lead up to a hopeful, resilient end and the final repeated words, “his fists and money won’t hold us down.”

Born in Spanish Harlem and now residing in Silverlake, California, Hernandez enjoys performing at LGBT, activist, “safe-space” and art spaces such as non-profit Art Share L.A., LGBT bars The LASH and Akbar, and experimental art space supported by The Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts, Human Resources.