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Artist Yanira Castro Headshot photographed by Simon Courchel

Yanira Castro

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Yanira Castro's work is rooted in communal construction as a rehearsal for radical democracy. She is an interdisciplinary artist born in Puerto Rico, living in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn), and working at the intersection of performance, installation, communal practices and interactive technology. She forms iterative, multimodal projects that center land, citizenship and governance in works activated and performed by the public. Directing a team of collaborators under the name, a canary torsi, she investigates performance as a practice of collective embodiment, grounding Puerto Rican experience as group experience, engaging audiences in acts of resistance and cooperation.

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Castro’s work has been presented nationally at The Chocolate Factory Theater (Queens, NY), New York Live Arts, Museum Contemporary Art Chicago, Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (Troy, NY), Portland Institute of Contemporary Art (Portland, OR), The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, ODC Theater (San Francisco, CA), The Invisible Dog Art Center (Brooklyn, NY), and the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston. Her work has recently been supported by Creative Capital, The MAP Fund, The Alpert Award, and by NYSCA/NYFA Interdisciplinary and Choreography Fellowships. She has recently been a Fellow and Artist-in-Residence at Maggie Allesee National Center for Choreography, MacDowell, Yaddo, LMCC and Marble House Project. Castro is the recipient of two New York Dance & Performance (aka Bessie) Awards for Outstanding Production.

Featured Artwork

Yellow paper-mâché masks hung up on a wall surrounded by 9 bright lights.
Yanira Castro. I Came Here to Weep: Weep Score, 2023. 32 papier-mâché masks, programmable LED sign, fluorescents, 3 beanbag chairs, 1 sound score, variable dimensions. Photo documentation by Maria Baranova.
This photo is documentation of audiences wearing the weeping masks as part of a public performance of "I came here to weep," July 2023, at the outdoor amphitheater at Abrons Arts Center.
Yanira Castro. I came here to weep, 2023. 32 papier-mâché masks, public performance at Abrons Arts Center (40 min). Photo documentation by Ignacio Leiva.
A crowd gathers around a person wearing a red costume. They all watch from inside an industrial building.
Yanira Castro. Exorcism = Liberation, 2024. Public enactment of audio score in front of one of the project’s vinyl murals on the garage gate of The Chocolate Factory Theater, 12.6' x 11' (QR code on mural, not seen, leads to audio score: 5:40 min). Photo documentation by Maria Baranova.
Public art installation with black words " Exorcism = Liberation" on a red background.
Yanira Castro. Exorcism = Liberation, 2024. Performance at The Chocolate Factory Theater (18 min) part of a public media project. Photo documentation by Maria Baranova.

Resources

"The Latinx Project" Logo

Yanira Castro on Exploring Memories Toward Collective Freedom (2024)

The Latinx Project | Article
All Arts Logo

In Yanira Castro’s ‘Exorcism = Liberation,’ the body is land - By Nicole Loeffler-Gladstone (2024)

All Arts | Article
White logo, word "culturebot" capitalized and in black letter, underneath the words " maximum performance in capitalized red letters.

A review of Yanira Castro’s "STAGE" performance

culturebot | review