Soriah: Portland Performance Profile

"I strive for a state of being where I relinquish all forms of guilt, ego, and hesitation." So states Enrique Ugalde, who performs under the name Soriah and draws from a wide array of musical, ritual, and performative traditions. In his work, one can see and hear Tuvan throat singing, Butoh, classical Indian raga, magickal transformations, Judeo-Christian lamentations, and an occasional burred wail that might be descended from Diamanda Galás. The effect is mesmerizing and mind-altering, as the audience teeters on the brink of raw emotional catharsis.

 

Recently signed to Beta-Lactam Ring Records, Ugalde will celebrate the release of the Soriah album "Chao Organica in A minor" at The Old Church in Portland on February 2nd. The 2 Gyrlz co-presentation also features Blixa Bargeld (Einsturzende Neubauten, Bad Seeds) and The Living Jarboe (ex-Swans).

 

This article is the first in a series of Portland performance profiles to be published on 2GQ.org. In each profile, basic information about the performer is followed by several questions about performing, defining performance, and other issues. Having collaborated with Enrique for years, I was more than happy to interview him for 2GQ. --Tiffany Lee Brown

Your name: SORIAH

Brief list of venues/performances:

- Buried in the earth on the east slope of Mt. Shasta, CA @ The Autonomous Mutant Festival 2004

- High in the branches of an old Oak tree, Santa Cruz, CA 2000

- Sunrise on a tugboat sailing around the San Francisco Bay 2001

- Lollapalooza 2003

- The Old Church, Portland, OR 2003 & 2004

- Underground in Portland Oregon's infamous Shanghai Tunnels 2005 -

- The Cow Palace @ the San Francisco Exotic Erotic Ball 2002   

Educational and professional background:
Several years of Western and Indian Classical voice
[Ugalde also studied throat singing with Tuvan masters]

Your URL: www.soriah.net

Recent and upcoming performances/appearances/projects:

- How to Destroy the Universe Festival http://mobilization.com/destroy.html
- The Crucible's Fire Arts Festival, Oakland, CA http://www.thecrucible.org/calendar/faf_05.html
- Burning Man Festival, Black Rock City, NY http://www.burningman.com/

Describe 1-3 of your previous performances in as few words as possible.

- The Autonomous Mutant Festival 2004: Thanatos Rising. Buried in the ground of a makeshift cemetery on the Eastern slope of Mt. Shasta while a burlesque performance ensued. For the finale, I rose from the dirt vocalizing and embodying Death reincarnate. I sang a cappella until all of the candles were extinguished on the tombstones.

- Lollapalooza 2003: Chrysalis Transformational Initiation. Cocooned in white canvas rope from head to toe, and only a strong wind to accompany me, I throat sand and chanted surreal, slowly freeing myself from the cocoon at Butoh speed.

- Shanghai tunnels: Voices of the Lost. In the infamously haunted Shanghai Tunnels where many unlucky wanderers of the 19th century streets of Portland, Oregon were kidnapped and sold into slavery. I vocalized and embodied the spirits and emotions of those who's lives were forever changed in the very spot we were occupying.

How did you become interested in performance?
Too young to remember. Maybe, when I was very young. At family gatherings all of the kids would sing songs and develop plays out of movies we'd seen like Clash of the Titans and Flash Gordon.

What do you consider your first performance piece?
Well, as far as Soriah goes, It would definitely be at the XAOTIXA convention in May 2000. It was an international gathering of Chaos mages, musicians, and "other" artists. I was under the influence of a large dose of 5MeO DMT -- so much so that they had to duct tape the microphone to my hand. I basically turned myself completely inside out and revealed my pure essence, not only to the audience, but to myself.

People use a lot of different words to label their performance--performance art, live art, conceptual performance, ritual performance, etc. Which words do you prefer to describe your work?
I've been flirting lately with the term "happenings", but that's just me. I don't like to hinder someone else's perception or definition of what they have come to identify their experience of a Soriah event was with temporary, fashionable terms, but again, that's only me. What I do becomes everybody's perfectly unique experience. My work is a celebration of that eternal diversity. I try to initiate internal dialogues of the audience (including myself) in how they contrast and react to surreal stimuli. Then, have them anchor themselves in the performance as a point of reference to a very possible reality, a new color in the spectrum. I am working for the self-realization of myself and everyone I come into contact with.

What does performance do for you, as an artist and as an audience member, that other art forms can't accomplish?
I think that all art forms can accomplish the same end of self-actualization, I just happen to use my voice more effectively than other mediums of creativity.

Each performance has its own life. Looking back at your history of performances, what is the driving force, the ultimate motivation, behind your work overall? Are there consistent or recurring themes, motifs, subject matter, concepts, or media?
Chaos, not in the disorder sense, but the natural cosmic urge to create a more fantastical and magical reality for myself and those who create their realities to find themselves in this shared space. There are definitely recurring elements that reveal themselves when planning and executing a Soriah performance: duality and the transcendence of duality, death, the transformation and rebirth, fear and ecstasy, extra-dimensionality, etc.

Some observers accuse performance art of being entirely self-indulgent and unfashionably '70s/'80s. How would you defend your work--or performance in general--against these kinds of assaults?
I don't feel the need to defend my perception to anyone and I don't speak for other artists. That noted, I do what I do because it exhilarates my being. I often create these "happenings" without an audience in front of me. I strive for a state of being where I relinquish all forms of guilt, ego, and hesitation. Most people are terrified of the idea of living in one's purely natural instinct. It accesses the great fear of responsibility for their own existence. It's easy to see why many would consider this type of behavior self-indulgent and even more transparent why they would try to label their experience as temporal. I guess I would reply to them "There IS no time".

Photos (top to bottom): first page -- performing at Burning Man; second page -- with P.A.N. Butoh at the Enteractive Language Festival's "Language of the East," 2005; Soriah portrait; leaving the pipe organ to sing downstage, at The Old Church; performing a blood ritual on the author at The Medicine Hat (video still courtesy Marshall Serna); preparing for a Soriah show at Gallery 500 (photo by Steve Fritz); leading a ritual during the Portland protests against George W. Bush's second inauguration.