when someone first told me, for example, about a 1992 piece by performance artist nao bustamente called indig/urrito, in which bustamante invites white men from the audience to join her on stage, get down on their knees in penance for 500 years of white-male oppression of indigenous peoples, and take an absolving bite of the burrito she is wielding as a strap-on, i think i spouted off some lazy dismissal of the venture, citing a disinterest in collective guilt, identity politics, audience humiliation, and dominatrix chic.
after watching a fifteen-minute performance of the piece (filmed at theater artaud in san francisco, and available for viewing on the artist's web site), i realized i couldn't have been more wrong. largely due to bustamante's quick-witted humor and benevolently sarcastic persona, the piece transforms political cliche into absurdist theater, opening up space for comedy, unpredictability, titillation, and an unlikely camaraderie. the indict made by the piece, if there is any, is multivalent: bustamante begins by poking fun at a (nameless) arts organization that has offered to fund artists of color whose work "addresses the past 500 years of oppression of indigenous peoples," and introduces this piece as her response. she then invites "any white man who would like to take the burden of the past 500 years of guilt" to report to the stage. after no one ascends, she moves on to invite "anyone with any inner white men," then "anyone who is hungry," then "anyone who knows a white man who is hungry," and so on. the concept of collective guilt - along with that of unswerving identity - receives all the complication it deserves, swiftly and hilariously.
eventually a hodgepodge of white men amble up to the stage and get down on their knees behind her, and bustamante revels in their pitifulness. (about one particularly scrawny, bald, and hunch-shouldered volunteer, she coos, "aw, i think he's going to take it for a lot of people, don't you?") at the same time, she lauds them as heroes and martyrs, as those willing to bear the guilt and shame that the more cowardly white men out there are unwilling to face. the unpredictability of the performance arrives when she asks each man to state his name into a microphone (fixed at knee height), and make a statement before taking an absolving bite of her burrito.
as everyone from ono to abramovic to lynn breedlove (lead singer of the queercore band tribe 8, who often invited male audience members to come onstage and suck her dick) knows, even men who have volunteered to take part in such ventures can behave volatilely. the feeling of suddenly being in the spotlight with a woman indisputably running the show is, for many, an intolerable reversal (albeit one that many men have a taste for, behind closed doors). for this reason, part of the deep pleasure of indig/urrito lies in watching bustamante's commanding grace, power, and wit as she banters with each man's self-introduction and apologia, as well as with the occasionally over-theatrical fellating of her burrito by the hammier of them. there's also plenty of edgy flirtation: after a handsome "justin" says, "i'm male, i'm white, and i'm sorry," with more coquettishness than penitence, bustamante responds, "i'm not sorry, justin, i'm not sorry at all," and rolls her eyes in ecstasy at his bite. as the bald gentleman - who introduces himself as "allan" - takes his bite, bustamante squeals, "he's so pitiful!" and holds his head against her rocking pelvis. by the time the last biter, a slim, short-haired figure in a suit, announces into the mic, "i'm a girl, i'm hispanic, and i'm prepared," and attempts to unroll a condom against the mess hanging from bustamante's harness, all facile premises have disintegrated (as has the burrito).
before the biting of indig/urrito begins, bustamante asks the members of the audience to yell a congratulatory "amen" at the moment that each man's teeth enter her burrito, and to think, at that moment, of any white man they know who needs absolving, so that "we can all just move on." the audience at theater artaud responds to this call with a loud cheer. obviously, bustamante and her audience know that "moving on" from 500 years of exploitation and racism isn't that easy. but neither her call nor the audience's spontaneous response comes off as a total joke. indig/urrito provides fifteen minutes of what a different kind of "moving on" might feel like - one not based in denial, abdication, derision, or preemptive dismissal, but in discomfiting role reversals, fraught but consensual confrontations, humor that rides the edge of contempt and anger without collapsing into their force, and a dedication to seeing what happens next, to seeing how individual humans might comport themselves in a politically and sexually charged situation they have been invited to address rather than repress. "anyone who is offended by this," bustamante warns before the ritual begins, "i really encourage you to leave your body."
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