“ … Your Ancestors Come”: Tracing an Abundant Present in Adelina Anthony's La Hocicona Series

Abstract

This essay examines the queer Xicana performer Adelina Anthony's triptych performance, La Hocicona Series, to trace the theoretically capacious convergences among queer time, indigenous spirituality, and performance. Anthony's characters move with an affective and spiritual force that brings audiences into fleeting contact with ancestors and goddesses, as sacred ceremony interanimates political critique, queer desire, abject subjects, and indigenous visioning. Her performances generate what I call an abundant present that binds disparate temporal registers: a pre-Conquest past, when ancestors lived and Mexica spirituality was prevalent, interanimates contemporary queer Xicana life to generate present moments in which prior rhythms and life forms come to life. Orgasmic pleasure ruptures the time-space of the theater, bringing the past to life in the present and tracing the promise of queer multiracial futures.