Mexico City hip-hop legend Bocafloja will perform spoken word poetry at a showing of his documentary Nana Dijo: Irresolute Radiography of Black Consciousness at 7 p.m. Wednesday, September 20, at the Normal Theater.
The event is free, open to the public, and co-sponsored by Illinois State University, MECCPAC–A Dean of Students Diversity Initiative, Latinx/Latin American Studies, and the Department of Sociology & Anthropology.
Bocafloja is a multi-disciplinary artist, working in film, music, poetry, and theater. Performing throughout the globe, his work has been featured on such media as the BBC, NPR, AFROPUNK, Remezcla, MTV Iggy, NACLA, and Culturestrike. Lyrically Bocafloja critically addresses topics such as institutionalized racism, social and political oppression, mental slavery, colonialism, and other human conditions. Bocafloja released an album in 2012 called Patologías del Invisible Incómodo, which is a concept album that narrates the experience of the body of the oppressed as a vehicle of transgression to hegemonic structures.
Nana Dijo is an exploration of Afro-latinidad throughout the Americas and of the Black experience through a collection of narratives in first person. The film is an urgent historical registry filmed in Mexico, Honduras, Uruguay, Argentina, and the United States, which opens a crucial platform of discussion about race politics.
For additional information on the performance and documentary showing, contact Liv Stone at (309) 438-5850.
