Verbobala is live video and verbs. Verbobala is bilingual, born of two countries in conflict. Verbobala is high caliber poetry, reinvented according to the setting. Verbobala is cut-up image and sound, recorded from daily life and played at high volume. Verbobala is modular, merging elements of a ritual, party, and installation in one. Verbobala is performance art that causes a scene.
Verbobala Spoken Video is a bi-national video performance group based in Mexico City and Tucson, Arizona. Of diverse ethnic backgrounds, the members include video artist Moisés Regla, a Mexican of French and Spanish decent, acclaimed media designer, Adam Cooper-Terán, a Chicano of Russian and Yaqui decent, and Border poet Logan Phillips, an American of Irish and Slavic decent. This diversity is also reflected in their artistic backgrounds, as each comes to the project with experience in distinct areas including slam poetry, underground hip-hop, new media, experimental linguistics, electro-acoustic music, contemporary ritual and video installation.
Verbobala creates bilingual site-specific performance art that challenges the traditional concept of artistic genres. Like international borders, the separation between artistic forms and languages has become increasingly amorphous and irrelevant. Their pieces play with the limits between cinema and literature, performance and installation, orchestration and improvisation, English and Spanish, audience and artist.
Verbobala Projects
Verbobala has created a wide variety of performance pieces, installations, workshops and more. A complete listing of projects is here.
Core group members
Verbobala collaborators
- Ariana Perez [san jose ca // fotografia]
- Richard Minardi [vancouver // electracoustic audio]
- Jacob Safari [los angeles // sound ]
- Juan Pablo Acero [méxico df // sound]
- Sambátuque [flagstaff az // ritmo]
Selected previous performances
- 2009, 2008 National Hispanic Cultural Center, Albuquerque, USA
- 2009 La Peña Cultural Center, Berkeley, CA, USA
- 2009 University of California, Santa Cruz, USA
- 2008 Ciudad Juárez Autonomous University, Cd. Juárez, Mexico
- 2008 College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational, Albuquerque, USA
- 2008 Headliner, 26th Annual Tucson Poetry Festival, Arizona, USA
- 2008 Bowery Poetry Club, New York City, USA
- 2008 Oregon State University, Corvallis, Oregon, USA
- 2007-08 Poesía.en.Voz.Alta Festival, UNAM, Mexico City
- 2007 TipofyourTongue Festival, Penzance, England
- 2007 Host / featured performer, National Poetry Slam, Mexico City
- 2007 Polytechnic University of Morelos, Jiutepec, Mexico
- 2007 Tula-Tepeji Technological University, Tula, Mexico
- 2007 CuernaSlam Poetry Slam, Cuernavaca, Mexico
