Nao Bustamante : Sans gravity.

Summary: Video documentation of Nao Bustamante's solo performance 'Sans Gravity', presented as a part of the 4th Encuentro of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, celebrated in July of 2003 in New York City, United States under the title 'Spectacles of Religiosities'. Water can symbolize many things, but often it is associated with knowledge and emotion; both of which are difficult to define in logical terms. In the installation/performance space of 'Sans Gravity', Bustamante explores the metaphors associated with water in the physical realm by burdening her body. The weight and the movement of the water develop into extensions of the gesture and another layer of the distorted self. The audience becomes a mechanism of relief. Nao Bustamante is an internationally known performance art pioneer originating from the San Joaquin Valley of California. Her work encompasses performance art, installation, video, pop music and experimental rips in time. Using the body as a source of image, narrative and emotion, her performances communicate on the level of subconscious language taking the spectator on a bizarre journey, with haunting images, cracking stereotypes by embodying them. Bustamante's work has been presented, among other sites at, the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Arts, and the Kiasma Museum of Helsinki. She has performed in Galleries, Museums, Universities and underground sites throughout Asia, Africa, Europe, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Mexico and the United States. Her collaborations include working with such luminaries as 'Coco Fusco' and 'Osseus Labrint'. In 2001 she received the prestigious Anonymous Was a Woman fellowship. Currently she is living in Troy, New York and an assistant professor of New Media and Live Art at Rensselaer

Summary: Polytechnic Institute.

Credits: Nao Bustamante, creator, director ; Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, producer, commissioner ; NYU TV and Media, videographer.

Credits: Nao Bustamante, performer; Roberto Sifuentes, assistant.