Asunción: A Workshop

Asunción is a highly stylized, decadent, surrealist and tragic telenovela that dispels cis and heteronormative love and marriage archetypes. With a live soundtrack fusing Mariachi, punk, classical music, and electro, Asunción celebrates the liberating power of ascendant relationships. This workshop performance was part of the development process for Los Angeles-based Latinx musician San Cha’s, Asunción: A Tele-Operetta, to be premiered by Long Beach Opera in July 2024.

Collaborators

Co-created by McCall Cadenas and San Cha
Composed by San Cha
Libretto by McCall Cadenas 

Director: McCall Cadenas
Set and Lighting Design: Francois P Couture

Photos by Chris Armenta

About San Cha

San Cha (She/Her) is a singer-songwriter, based in Los Angeles, increasingly known for her visceral and explosive live performances. Her name, derived from the Spanish word sancha, which translates to ‘mistress’, is a mischievous reference to the title of ‘San’, given to male saints in the Catholic tradition. Fans of cumbia and punk, bolero and electro, flock to see San Cha’s emotional renditions of traditional Mexican rancheras and original songs that queer conventions of identity, power and love. Her striking stage presence is accompanied by the one-of-a-kind garments that adorn her, aesthetic reflections of the years spent performing in drag and club scenes in the Bay. Her latest album, La Luz De La Esperanza, is written in the form of a surrealist telenovela, which Pitchfork described as ‘modernized ranchera with a rock edge and goth sensibility’. Effortlessly mixing Spanish and English, La Luz De La Esperanza calls for a bold confrontation of tradition while respectfully honoring it.