stefa marin alarcon’s
Born With An Extra Rib: The Film
In Residence at Queenslab: May 17–23, 2021
Film Premiere: March 2022 (details to be announced)
look!
how my braid
carries a thousand colors
of the land
beneath my skin
look!
how my gaze
carries a thousand reasons
why i can not be faithful
to this country
to a person
who promised us what?
“the garden of eden”
remember what abuela said:
don't believe everything they tell you...
Born With An Extra Rib: The Film is a transdisciplinary opera featuring multimedia artist and composer stefa marin alarcon. Descended from the Emberá-Chamí people, stefa is a Colombian-American musician, born and raised in Queens, New York. Emerging from the questions behind their upcoming record Born With An Extra Rib, this experimental operatic film creates a structure for stefa to reclaim and return to their body. They will use video collage, live music, and ritual performance to ask their most pressing, embodied questions. Through the production, stefa invites the cast, creative team, and audience to engage in an emergent process of collective liberation.
Through live performance, STEFA* continues to explore their relationships to Mother/Earth as a queer trans being. In living, fighting, and surviving the fascist, yt-cis-heteropatriarchical neo-colonial powers, STEFA* reveals the beauty and contradictions that emerge in the face of destruction and pain. With lush harmonics, spiraling loops, ancient ululations, somatic jazz, and rage-pop, they channel their ancestors and guides in their complex compositions towards revolution.
Organized by Kathy Cho and Lumi Tan.
Cast
STEFA* (vocals), GypjaQ Kai (vocals), Starr Busby (vocals), Miles Francis (percussion), Nicolas Jozwiak (bass), José Benjamin Escobar (keys, percussion)
Production Team
stefa marin alarcon | Creator / Composer / Co-Director / Co-Creative Producer
LILLETH | Co-Director / Choreographer / Co-Creative Producer
Nova Scott James + Flor Tejada | Filmmakers
Kelley Shih | Lighting Designer, Projection Coordinator
Lily Wen | Sound Engineer
Joseph Charles Viola | Stylist
Images: 1) stefa marin alarcon, photo by Lissyelle Laricchia. Courtesy of the artist. 2) Photo and design by Faith Brown. Courtesy of the artist.
stefa marin alarcon: Born With An Extra Rib: The Film is made possible with endowment support from Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust; annual grants from The Amphion Foundation, Inc., The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Howard Gilman Foundation, The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, and Joseph and Joan Cullman Foundation for the Arts; and in part by public funds from New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
Season programming is also made possible with support from The Kitchen’s Board of Directors and The Kitchen Leadership Fund. To learn more about the Leadership Fund, click here.