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 Cuernavaca, Mexico 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.
Selected performance résumé
2008 Ciudad Juárez Autonomous University, Cd. Juárez, Mexico
2008 National Hispanic Cultural Center, Albuquerque, USA
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
Adam Cooper-Terán
Adam Cooper-Terán is an award-winning, independent media artist from Tucson, Arizona. Known for his video installation-spectacles with Flam Chen Pyrotechnic Theater, Adam's work has reached audiences internationally, from the French Embassy of Mexico City, to the Diana Krall Plaza in Nanaimo, BC. His methods are primarily based on sampling the Internet using various patterns similar to DJing, cooking, or Lego-building. His interests range in scope, inspiring a repertoire that cannot be classified, only experienced. Current projects are generally focused on media de-construction, mostly in opposition to the War on Terrorism, Information, and the War in Iraq.
Logan Phillips
Logan Timothy Phillips is a bilingual writer, poet and performer originally from the Arizona-Mexico borderlands, born in Tombstone in 1983. He is a veteran of the American poetry slam movement, having ranked nationally in competitions and toured throughout his native Southwest and beyond—to cities including Paris, New York City, and Penzance, England. He holds a degree in Spanglish from Northern Arizona University and has taught Latin American literature and translation at Universidad Internacional in Cuernavaca, Mexico, where he has lived since 2006. In 2007 he helped start the first two regular poetry slams in Mexico, as co-host and organizer. He has been called “the young voice of the Southwest,” by fellow poets and “the coolest” by eight-year-old Mexicans in his English class.
Moisés Regla
Moisés Regla Demaree is a new-media artist from Cuernavaca, Mexico. His work ranges from video art, installation, to live performance, mixing multiple disciplines such as theater, dance, and poetry. He has studied visual arts at La Escuela Nacional de Artes Plásticas in Mexico City and multimedia at the Autonomous University of Morelos. His work has been shown in countries including Canada, Chile, and Colombia, in warehouses, underground mezcalerias, and in museums such as the Reina Sofía in Madrid and the Exteresa Arte Actual in Mexico City. In addition, he frequently performs as a VJ at music festivals and works on post-production for short films.
