From “Corrido de Tillman,” remembering the life and tragic death of former NFL player and Army Ranger, Pat Tillman.
John Jota Leaños, director and librettist of Imperial Silence: Una Opera Muerta, showing at Brava Theater on Friday, November 3, is an award-winning Xicano-mestzo new media artist who uses animation, documentary and performance to focus on the convergence of memory, social space and decolonization, disrupting the status quo in both art and society. Leaños' multimedia artworks embody a vision of activism that is provocative and confrontational, and fresh in its approach to socially conscious art.
Leaños became the center of national controversy in October 2004 when he created a poster (featured at the right) questioning the heroicization of football player Pat Tillman’s death in military service in Afghanistan. Leaños' Imperial Silence, which takes place in four parts each representing a phase of the life cycle, remembers the life and tragic death of the former NFL player turned Army Ranger, in the act entitled “El Corrido de Pat Tillman." The photo at top is a still from this act
Brava presents Imperial Silence: Una Opera Muerta on Friday, November 3. For more information and to purchases tickets, click here.
