Xipe/Skin

This epidermal allegory examines the shadow world between physical reality and imagination.

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In keeping with the Caribbean-American immigrant stereotype of excessive and nomadic work ethics, Pat Payne is a multi-media installation/performance artist, poet, visual artist, reluctant shaman, and self-avowed troublemaker transplanted from Brooklyn to Los Angeles.

Payne has performed throughout the US, Mexico and even Beijing, China, during the 4th NGO Conference on Women (1995). She has worked with the Taco Shop Poets (SD), Los Delicados (SF), the Rachel Rosenthal Performance Company (LA), and David Rousseve's Reality Company in "Love Songs." She earned her MFA degree from UCSD in 1999.

Her straight-ahead approach to spoken word (and life) has earned her the nickname, "The Velvet Hammer."As with every performance, she dedicates her work to all Sister/Warriors with big mouths and no shame.

Xipe/Skin Performance Description (120 words or less):
In 1998, an involuntary out-of-body experience provided the framework for Xipe/Skin, a provocative solo performance that challenges the definition of physical intimacy. Based on the rituals of Xipe Totec (Zhee-Pay Toe-Tek) the Aztec God of Spring, and Payne's own examination of her bout with skin
disease, this epidermal allegory leads the viewer into the shadow world between reality and imagination.

Xipe/Skin silently evolves through emotional seasons and physical rebirths, taking human, plant, animal and otherwordly forms in order to heal her wounded body and spirit. As she literally climbs into and out of her skin, the juxtaposition of movement, sound, sculpture, projected images and text provides a kinetic backdrop for this partially scripted, partially
improvised work.

Xipe/Skin Performance Description (30 words): Based on rituals of Xipe Totec (Zhee-Pay Toe-Tek) Aztec God of Spring, and narrative reflections on skin disease, this epidermal allegory examines the shadow world between physical reality and imagination.

Program Notes:
Xipe/Skin Written & directed by: Pat Payne
Produced by: Maria Dybbro
Pigskin Costume designed & constructed by: Pat Payne & Maria Dybbro
Special thanks to: The Dream Team 2000 (Bird, Logan Fox, Thomas Allen Harris, Carol Hobson, Adele Horne, Mary Ann Reyes, David Thomson, Ben Tu, Vasa)

Director's Notes (Artist's Statement):
I began this journey as a means to integrate my multiple selves into a hybrid creature, a being capable of communicating ideas in several media simultaneously. What has emerged from these explorations is more hydra than hybrid; I have evolved into a multi-faceted artist whose creative personalities, and their respective mediums, manifest according to the dictates (and resources) of the moment.

Although trained as a visual artist, during the past few months I have studied vocal and performance techniques, focusing on paring down extraneous language, creating improvised interactive environments, and rediscovering the ritual/healing energy inherent in movement. Now, I find myself coming back full circle to/from my point of poetic origins; now I define my work as kinetic poetry.

I am primarily interested in Caribbean women of the African Diaspora. I explore Afro-Caribbean and indigenous paradigms, the aesthetics of the body and hierarchies of authority through poetry and mixed media assemblages of images, scavenged objects, sounds and personas. With these elements I construct talismans against repression, shame and silence.

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