Santiago-Orlando: Performance of Queer Vulnerability and Futurity in the Work of (Me llamo) Sebastián

• Christina Baker ^[1]
  1. [1] Temple University

     Temple University

     City of Philadelphia, Estados Unidos

     
• Localización: Chasqui: revista de literatura latinoamericana, ISSN 0145-8973, Vol. 49, Nº. 1, 2020, págs. 202-221
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • From commemorative photo series to theatre collections to special journal editions devoted to Pulse victims, what happened in Orlando prompted a coalition of queerness across lines of diversity that grappled with questions of how to survive.2 Echoing the above-mentioned efforts, the song, "Hijos del peligro," by Sebastián Sotomayor, better known as (Me llamo) Sebastián, demonstrates the connectedness between musical production and social events.3 In this particular example, the song's lyrics and performative interpretations highlight how experiences of violence towards queer bodies become refracted through creative expression. First released as a pop single with danceable beat and accompanying music video in 2016, the song was re-released in 2017 as a bare-bones acoustic track that opens a deeply emotive full-length album.4 Across the different audio versions and video, the lyrics transmit a powerful message about what it feels like to constantly be targeted and live in fear, further enhanced by the distinct approaches to vocal performance, musical accompaniment, and visual stimuli. What follows is an exploration of how the artist transmits queer vulnerability and futurity structured in two parts: the first focuses on the singer's voice as a performative gesture; the second studies audio-visual qualities of the music video in relation to re-creating Orlando. Cheng has openly published op-ed's about ethnomusicology's silence on the topic of gender and queer studies and has co-edited with Gregory Bartz the anthology, Queering the Field: Sounding out Ethnomusicology, which will certainly have an important impact on the discipline.5 Similarly, Hutchinson's most recent monograph, Tigers of a Different Stripe, explores Dominican music through the lens of performance studies and gender studies, something she notes as often overlooked or omitted in the field.6 Remembering "Hijos del peligro" was written about queer loss and precarious futures, I situate my reading of the song at the intersections of ethnomusicology, with a focus on Latin/x American creation and queer studies.