Marisol de la Cadena: tusuy‑taki‑kuyta tirakunawan /  dance‑song with earth‑beings

Marisol de la Cadena with Michelle Banks, Negar Kamali, M.R. Firmino-Castillo, and Eloy Neira de la Cadena (co-curator). In collaboration with the Dept. of Music and “From Earthbeings To The Anthropo-Not-Seen: Towards a Politics of Relation” coordinated by María del Rosario Acosta López (Hispanic Studies).

In Quechua, rimanukay refers to a reciprocal dialogic exchange. Interested in the pluriversal possibilities of the dialogical, this interdisciplinary rimanukay with Marisol de la Cadena centers epistemologies of movement and sound to explore how de la Cadena’s political ontology–especially her articulations of “earth-beings” and the "anthropo-not-seen"–can challenge entrenched colonial paradigms in the fields of dance, music, and performance. We ask: How do sound and movement interact to create “ontological openings,” or reveal the “not only” (as de la Cadena puts it) that disrupts categories of (human)being? At the same time, we wonder what roles dance, music, and performance might have in accessing multiple worlds while undoing disciplinary regimes of knowing. Can the “performative” be a space for the uncategorizable and untranslatable?

Participants:

Marisol de la Cadena, born in Peru, trained as an anthropologist in Peru, England, France and USA. She is a professor in the Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Anthropology departments at UC Davis. She locates her work at the crossroads between STS and what exceeds science. Interested in “ethnographic concepts,” her most recent book is Earth Beings: Ecologies of Practice Across Andean Worlds (Duke University Press, 2015) for which she co-labored with Mariano and Nazario Turpo, Andean runakuna from Cuzco. With Mario Blaser she edited A World of Many Worlds (Duke University Press, 2018) with contributions to “Indigenous Cosmopolitics: Dialogues towards the reconstitution of worlds” a Sawyer Seminar held at UC Davis (2012-2013). Currently she works on what she calls “labscaped cows, cow-formed landscapes” in Colombia. 

Michelle Banks: I am a cultural worker and transdisciplinary scholar. Born and raised in Washington, DC, I have been sojourning in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala, since 2002. I hold an MA in Cultural Sustainability and a PhD in Sustainability Education, but my work as an artist is the foundation of my identity. In 1985, I co-founded the LatiNegro Theatre Collective, an ensemble of young Black and Brown artists that performed for and created art with marginalized youth. Although the Collective disbanded in 1995, my worldview continues to be informed by that experience. I believe that art is important labor and, like our bodies, our creativity must be fed.  

Negar Kamali is a multidisciplinary artist and choreographer whose work investigates the relationship between space, movement, and cultural memory. Trained in architecture, she applies spatial analysis to choreographic practice, examining how built environments shape bodily knowledge and social relations. Since 2011, she has taught Persianate and Iranian dance as well as contemporary dance, and her extensive travels across Iran have profoundly shaped her creative practice. Her choreography draws on the country’s diverse geography and rich literary heritage. Currently pursuing an MFA in Experimental Choreography at the University of California, Riverside, Negar’s research asks: What do we carry when we move? Her methodology employs objects as live collaborators and draws on the Persian concept of Shuridegi, a passionate transformation born from deep longing. Her work engages sensation as knowledge and acknowledges temporality’s imprint on movement, demonstrating how relocation across geographies shapes embodied understanding, and how movement itself becomes a living archive.

Eloy Antonio Neira de la Cadena is a musician and ethnomusicologist born in Peru. In 2024 he was appointed Curatorial Assistant of Dance and Music for the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. As a musician, he has performed across North, Central, and South America, including Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, the United States, Mexico, and Canada. He is a PhD candidate in Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Riverside. As a scholar, one of his main aesthetic-political concerns is cultural and racial diversity in “postcolonial” societies such as Peru. He examines how aesthetic practices build intercultural bridges among diverse peoples and can help address social issues such as inequality and racism. In 2023, he received the Mantle Hood Award for an article on the song “Yanaruna,” composed by his godfather, Miguel Ballumbrosio Guadalupe. Eloy has been a member of the Atajo de Negritos of Amador Ballumbrosio for 28 years.

María Regina Firmino-Castillo is a scholar and artist whose work examines the transcorporeal body as a site of ontological production, destruction, and transformation, especially in the contexts of ongoing coloniality. Trained in cultural anthropology and transdisciplinary studies, she brings an anti-paradigmatic lens to performance and embodied practice. Firmino-Castillo’s scholarly work exists in synergy with her artistic practice. Her recent publications include "Through the Obsidian Mirror: Onto-Corporeal Experimentations at Twilight ," a contribution to Decoloniality in the Break of Global Blackness, and "Tracing the Ouroboros’ Tail: Paradoxical Politics against Necropolitical Binaries in Lukas Avendaño and Muxx Project’s Theory and Practice." Firmino-Castillo is a faculty member in the Department of Dance at the University of California-Riverside.

“tusuy‑taki‑kuyta tirakunawan  / ‘dance‑song with earth‑beings:’ Rimanukay with Marisol de la Cadena” was co-curated by Eloy Neira de la Cadena (Department of Music) and María Regina Firmino-Castillo (Department of Dance), and in collaboration with the Department of Music and the “From Earthbeings to the Anthropo-Not-Seen: Towards a Politics of Relation” conference coordinated by María del Rosario Acosta López (Professor, Department of Hispanic Studies).

Part of “Transversal Re/Configurations: Flesh, Bodies, and Matter in Motion”

Current Topics in Dance Research Colloquium Series: January 08 - March 12, 2026

– María Regina Firmino-Castillo, Curator & Coordinator 

Transversal Re/Configurations: Flesh, Bodies, and Matter in Motion was made possible through generous sponsorships from the California Center for Native Nations; the Rupert Costo Endowment in American Indian Affairs, University of California, Riverside; the CHASS Dean's Office and the Center for Ideas and Society; and the Departments of Music, Ethnic Studies, Gender & Sexuality Studies, and Media & Cultural Studies.

Many thanks to: taisha paggett (Department of Dance, Chairperson), Anthea Kraut (Department of Dance, Vice-Chair), Courtney Brubaker (Events Specialist), and Pete Pace (Technical Director) for their generous support of the Colloquium, and to Jonathan Ritter (Department of Music, Chairperson) and María del Rosario Acosta López (Professor, Hispanic Studies Department) for their vision and collaboration.

For Accessibility and Accommodations, contact mariafc@ucr.edu 

Photo Credits: Negar Kamali, “Where Does Distance Begin: On the Map or in the Skin?” by Slade Segerson, 2025.

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