SEARCH
Bonnie Ilza Cisneros is a fourth-generation educator in a line of Tejana schoolteachers. She taught middle school English in San Antonio Independent School District for five years and received on-the-job-training in arts and culture programming con mucho corazón at San Anto Cultural Arts as the El Placazo Barrio Newspaper coordinator. She wrote a creative nonfiction thesis at Texas State University MFA program, was altered forever at Macondo Writers Workshop in 2016, and was awarded the first artist grant she ever submitted from NALAC in 2018. Her poems and essays appear in El Retorno, Chicana/Latina Studies, River Teeth, El Placazo, Porter House Review, Infrarrealista Review, La Voz de Esperanza, Buckman Journal, and Contemporary Creative Nonfiction. Moonlighting as DJ Despeinada, she has been spinning all-vinyl soundscapes of the borderlands for over a decade. Throughout the pandemic, she has led workshops and published zines at San Antonio Public and Chicago Public libraries, presented lectures for community colleges and universities online, recorded radio shows for WFMU and Marfa Public Radio, and curated a vast variety of cultural experiences within her community as part of a creative mutual aid ecosystem of local artists who cross pollinate their talents, resources, and energies for collective healing. Her most recent endeavor, Bisnieta Press, is place to preserve and present South Texas stories, folklore, and culture. With funds from a 2022 City of San Antonio In ... view more »
Resume (PDF)
MORE ABOUT THIS ARTIST
Artist Style: Literary: Documentary, Editor, History, Non-Fiction, Poetry; Teaching Artist/Instructor: Group Instruction, Guest Speaker, Instruction for Adults, Instruction for Children, Instruction for Seniors, Multi-Day Artist Residency, Performer for Schools/Classrooms, Workshop Presenter
Artist Medium: Audio/Sound; Computer
Artist Statement of Work
Tell us about your work (style, approach, philosophy, subject and/or theme):
I am an archivist of stories, an altar-ist of memories, a writer, educator, curator, DJ, thrift stylist, and folklorist of the South Texas borderlands who basks in the blurred cultura, language, and history of my homeland. I weave nonfiction essays out of ancestral memory, oral history/interviews, formal research, poesia, dreams, myths, and Anzaldúan theory in a style that reflects my ingrained rasquachismo. I compose Mexican-American Studies curriculum as a means of engaging and empowering the barrio youth of the borderlands. My vinyl DJ sets, radio shows, zines, cultural events, and style choices are offerings within an altar of sound, aesthetics, and knowledge. The pandemic shifted my vision, and I will forever strive to collaborate, commission, and create consciously with my community, con mucho corazón. I am one amongst many San Antonians, past and present, who strive to protect and preserve culture with art, education, and community connections.
Culturally Specific Art Category
Select Culturally Specific Art Category:: Hispanic or Latino/a/x
VIDEOS
-
At a time when I thought my DJ life was obsolete, Ruby City and SpareParts adapted their annual Bubble Fest as an online event. Two summers in a row, they commissioned me to record a backyard DJ set for the festival, and I was so relieved to be working again. I chose songs that would be conducive for families at home to feel hopeful and calm during quarantine. The mise en scéne will always evoke emotions of early pandemic for me: the sunflowers, the kids\' bubble machine, our chickens. Home. Video production by Santiago Lopez IV @godiviewproductions
Contact information
AUDIO
-
On Sunday, November 1, 2020, All Saints’ Day and Día de los Muertos Eve, DJ Despeinada, a Chicana spiritual activist from the borderlands of South Texas, broadcast a show entitled “Missing my Muertos” on WFMU’s Radio Row. El Día de los Muertos has ancient indigenous roots in what is now known as México with rituals and iconography that evolved after the European conquest and subsequent colonialism. More recently, the sacred season has morphed even further due to Coco-fication (thanks, Disney), also known as the pizza effect, in the form of plastic calaveras and Day of the Dead-themed paraphernalia sold at dollar stores and high-end boutiques alike. But the bottom line remains the same: this is the season when the dead come home. The show will feature music I gathered from my own private playlist of grieving and healing. As Nick Cave and friends insist: death is not the end.
-
On Valentine’s Sunday 2021, DJ Despeinada will pour her heart out for y’all with a selection of love songs from both sides of the border. She’ll weave in intriguing research, share juicy chisme, and perchance recite a love poem or two. Get ready for love!
-
On July 13, 2022, DJ Despeinada was a guest DJ on Marfa Public Radio\'s Mi Tesoro Hour, a music show featuring host Tear Drop\'s beloved record collection every Wednesday night 9pm CST. Despeinada curated an puro-Tejanx show, commissioned exquisite postcard art by Daryan Arcos, and hosted a listening party, Tejana Summer Jam, at Centro San Antonio\'s La Zona Cultural. Audio production by Jeremy McCord-Longoria at Hot Box Studio in Dale, Texas
https://www.mixcloud.com/MarfaPublicRadio/mi-tesoro-hour-w-dj-despeinada-7132022/
-
DJ Despeinada on WFMU Radio Row, July 25, 2021. \"Take a Trip, but Come Home Soon.\"