OPEN AiR | Valentina Baché: RANCHO: El porvenir

A performance by 2026 AiR Valentina Baché where memory, violence, and transformation collide. From childhood memories of a dog blinded by bloodlust and a family up in arms to protect their livestock emerges a lesson on a specific type of violence. Here, the border between self-defense and vengeance is unrecognizable; by witnessing, you are charged with the guilt of inaction. By intervening, you become what you swore to stop. Murderers and martyrs, all of us. In this live performance by 2026 AiR Valentina Baché, time is warped into surreal and sacrificial truths. Enter this gaping beastly mouth, this void where hunger and nostalgia changes you. Witness a world where memory, violence, and transformation collide, and where the line between observer and participant disappears. Featuring Demetris Charalambous, Sarahisoke, Cristina Moya-Palacios. Sound engineering by Shamar Watt. Sculpture and artistic advisor: Marcela Torres. Dramaturgy aid by Demetris Charalambous. ABOUT THE ARTIST Valentina Baché was born into a cacophony of color and macaws, in the isolation of the Caribbean jungle in Playa del Carmen, México. They learned the language of movement before they learned to speak, taught by sea, dogs, and blood. At fifteen, they skipped high school to attend Bard College at Simon’s Rock, later transferring to Hunter College, where they graduated in 2020. Since then, they have done everything in their power to love and share their art. In a lifelong battle against the imperialist soul, Valentina has found that love is the reason and that greed must be expelled from within each day. Through a spiritual devotion to dance as prayer, they explore the magic of nature and reveal the surreal ways in which we all contribute to cycles of harm. From this devotion, they have birthed a new technique, practice, and way of resisting. They spin because the divine is always spiraling, and they bark because the dog is a mirror reflecting our own malleability.They believe it is in the suppression of rage that energy becomes dangerous instead of transformative. Valentina is a multidisciplinary artist, a performer, textile artist, sculptor, and designer of beauty, violence, and truth, all at once.