The Eye of the Beholder
Collaboration with Laura Anderson Barbata
Amphibian Stage Productions

Fort Worth, TX
March 23 & 24, 2018

Victorian Mexican Indigenous mezzo soprano Julia Pastrana was billed as “The Ugliest Woman in the World.” A title given to her by her manager-husband Theodore Lent, she was exhibited by him and others in the United States and Europe during her life and after her death for 150 years. Chronicling 10 years of work to have Pastrana’s body repatriated to Mexico for burial, the renowned artist Laura Anderson Barbata conducts audiences through a series of stories, exercises, and thought experiments towards an experience of radical empathy and a re-examination of the value of a human life.

Composed of elements of TED Talk, flash workshop sessions, dance, music, and multimedia, The Eye of the Beholder is a participatory performance mashup asking audiences to close their eyes and see (re-envision) the world from a different place.

Loli took portraits of audience members as they came in for the performance. These portraits were then integrated on a screen within the performance as part of this call to re-envision the world from a different place