{"id":1605352,"date":"2025-12-12T10:33:23","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T15:33:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/observer.com\/?p=1605352&#038;preview=true&#038;preview_id=1605352"},"modified":"2025-12-12T10:33:23","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T15:33:23","slug":"elia-arce-no-time-to-mourn-an-excerpt-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/observer.com\/2025\/12\/elia-arce-no-time-to-mourn-an-excerpt-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Elia Arce&#8217;s &#8216;No Time to Mourn (An Excerpt)&#8217; Is a Monument to Grief"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<figure id=\"attachment_1605429\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1605429\" style=\"width: 970px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1605429 size-full-width\" src=\"https:\/\/observer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/12\/IMG_5690-e1765489716843.jpg?quality=80&amp;w=970\" alt=\"A figure shrouded in blue holds a body-shaped bundle against a black background. They are framed at a distance. Red carnations with green stems trail from the feet of the figure to the foreground of the picture before blurring out of focus.\" width=\"970\" height=\"970\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1605429\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">In <em>No Time to Mourn (An Excerpt)<\/em>, the audience is invited to set intentions into red carnations that are later placed at the feet of a figure in blue. <span class=\"media-credit\">Photo by Janette Duran. Courtesy of the artist and REDCAT.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n<p>For nearly 40 years, Elia Arce has practiced and performed from the borderline. Arce\u2019s work toes the line between theatre and dance, prose and poetry, ritual and circumstance, nature and consequence. In dissolving these boundaries, Arce courts liminality, sometimes in pursuit of enlightenment, but oftentimes in direct opposition to a singular narrative. Her practice, at its core, is one of emotional atomization; a foray into the sort of radical empathy that transcends the mind and is thus transferred to the body. Arce has been the \u201ccrying Buddha\u201d in <i>A Dust of Gold<\/i>, inviting the audience to whisper their sorrows to her, one by one, and in exchange, she \u201creleased\u201d them, sobbing profusely into a wicker basket. She has been papered to the wall of DiverseWorks gallery for <i>The Long Count II<\/i>, emerging slowly from her canvassed chrysalis over the course of four hours. She has been <i>First Woman on the Moon<\/i>, exhibiting the broad and varied experience of being \u201cothered.\u201d In one act, she played with a babydoll before dressing it in red and locking it in a cage; in another, she carefully molded a baby out of clay before dropping it unceremoniously. Arce is keen on creating \u201cliving monuments,\u201d works that are sculptural in their presence, yet ephemeral in their lifespan. In <i>No Time to Mourn (An Excerpt)<\/i>, the same principles apply, but extend beyond Arce\u2019s vision of the \u201cliving monument\u201d and culminate instead in a lifelong effigy.<\/p>\r\n<p>The first flicker of <i>No Time to Mourn (An Excerpt)<\/i> arrived in Houston\u2014a scene of which Arce has been a fixture for the past thirty years\u2014as an altar dedicated to the Palestinians killed in Israel\u2019s war on Hamas in the wake of the October 7 attacks. Arce invited Palestinian families living in the city to read the names and ages of loved ones lost to the sanguinary conflict and to lay flowers in their memory. Drawing from funerary traditions in Costa Rica, where an altar made for one individual often evolves into a site of remembrance for the entire community, Arce sought to foster a space of collective grieving.<\/p>\r\n<figure id=\"attachment_1605454\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1605454\" style=\"width: 970px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazyload wp-image-1605454 size-full-width\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" data-src=\"https:\/\/observer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/12\/IMG_5604-e1765489687827.jpg?quality=80&amp;w=970\" alt=\"A barefoot woman in a yellow tunic dress sits on her knees before the end of massive train of blue cloth. The cloth is worn by a figure who sits several meters away from her in the background. The woman in yellow bends over the blue cloth as though folding it.\" width=\"970\" height=\"647\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazyload wp-image-1605454 size-full-width\" src=\"https:\/\/observer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/12\/IMG_5604-e1765489687827.jpg?quality=80&amp;w=970\" alt=\"A barefoot woman in a yellow tunic dress sits on her knees before the end of massive train of blue cloth. The cloth is worn by a figure who sits several meters away from her in the background. The woman in yellow bends over the blue cloth as though folding it.\" width=\"970\" height=\"647\" \/><\/noscript><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1605454\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The performer folded the cloth with maternal tenderness, sometimes pausing to plant a kiss on the bundle&#8217;s head. <span class=\"media-credit\">Photo by Janette Duran. Courtesy of the artist and REDCAT.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n<p>\u201cIn Houston, the artistic community came to support these families, and we were all there to support them,\u201d Arce told Observer when asked about the initial framework of the piece. \u201cWe created a safe space \u2026 where we could mourn together. Instead of an individual grief, it became a community healing.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<p>When <i>No Time to Mourn (An Excerpt)<\/i> arrived as a performance at Los Angeles\u2019 REDCAT contemporary arts center on October 30, 2025; it had already been staged in Houston and New York City. In each city, the performance was slightly different\u2014tailored to suit a particular venue, audience, mood\u2014but the core elements were unaltered. A figure shrouded in blue sits still and statuesque at the utmost corner of the stage. A train from their shroud runs the length of the stage, and a woman toils at its end, turning it over, folding it this way and that, creating a bundle of cloth. She repeats the process so many times that the bundle, once the size of a watermelon, swells to the size of a body. As the woman on stage completes her solemn task and presents the bundle to the figure, arms emerge from the shroud to cradle it. In <i>No Time to Mourn (An Excerpt)<\/i>, Arce is not the protagonist but a narrator, a functional Greek chorus, winnowing across the performance with laments and lullabies.<\/p>\r\n<p>Before the woman rolls up the shroud, Arce delivers the first stanzas of her Spanish poem \u201cgrietas y fisuras,\u201d (\u201ccracks and fissures\u201d) in a sonorous voice. The first couplet reads, \u201cThe child finally wakes up \/ in his father\u2019s arms.\u201d In tandem with the folding ritual, the haunting preface reveals that the boy, who spends the duration of his life as a funeral shroud, is \u201cfinally\u201d with his father. Once the bundle has been made and the living Piet\u00e0 has been realized and carnations have been placed, Arce returns to the stage to offer the final refrain: \u201cCracks make way for cracks \/ Cracks fade with the light that makes them obsolete \/ This is how cracks ensure that in the end, only light remains.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<figure id=\"attachment_1605458\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1605458\" style=\"width: 970px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazyload wp-image-1605458 size-full-width\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" data-src=\"https:\/\/observer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/12\/IMG_5707-e1765489661909.jpg?quality=80&amp;w=970\" alt=\"A bespectacled, barefoot woman with her hair half-up, half-down, wearing a black velour top and black pants gesticulates behind a music stand. She stands against a black background and is illuminated by a circle of light. \" width=\"970\" height=\"970\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazyload wp-image-1605458 size-full-width\" src=\"https:\/\/observer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/12\/IMG_5707-e1765489661909.jpg?quality=80&amp;w=970\" alt=\"A bespectacled, barefoot woman with her hair half-up, half-down, wearing a black velour top and black pants gesticulates behind a music stand. She stands against a black background and is illuminated by a circle of light. \" width=\"970\" height=\"970\" \/><\/noscript><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1605458\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Elia Arce read dirges and elegies throughout the performance. <span class=\"media-credit\">Photo by Janette Duran. Courtesy of the artist and REDCAT.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n<p>In the conversation organized by the Getty Research Institute\u2019s Latin American and Latinx Art Initiative and curated by researcher Jasmine Maga\u00f1a, Arce described the imagery out of Gaza she drew from: mass graves of bodies wrapped in blue tarps outside Al-Shifa hospital and mourning mothers holding their children\u2019s limp bodies. Seeing such images, Arce felt frustrated and helpless. <i>No Time to Mourn (An Excerpt)<\/i> was created as a negotiation, to massage helplessness into catharsis. To make a monument out of bereavement.<\/p>\r\n<p>Monuments ostensibly evoke a collective memory, an identity that is both collaborative and inheritable. Every New Yorker who sees the Statue of Liberty and thinks, &#8220;I am a New Yorker.&#8221; Every Roman who sees the Colosseum and thinks, &#8220;I am a Roman.&#8221; Arce\u2019s living monuments reject such logic. They correspond to their own culture, they reaffirm their own narrative, they adhere to their own constitution of humanity, incapable of being altered or othered. The enculturation of <i>No Time to Mourn (An Excerpt)<\/i> rests on a certainty in its own semiotics, a stalwart belief that no matter the audience, grief should be collective, not singular.<\/p>\r\n<figure id=\"attachment_1605421\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1605421\" style=\"width: 970px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazyload wp-image-1605421 size-full-width\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" data-src=\"https:\/\/observer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/12\/IMG_5645-e1765489426513.jpg?quality=80&amp;w=970\" alt=\"A figure cloaked in a blue shroud grasps a body-shaped bundle in its lap. A woman stands to the right of the figure, she wears a yellow tunic dress and her hair is braided in two long braids. The woman rests her hand at the head of the bundle. They stand against a black background.\" width=\"970\" height=\"647\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"lazyload wp-image-1605421 size-full-width\" src=\"https:\/\/observer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/12\/IMG_5645-e1765489426513.jpg?quality=80&amp;w=970\" alt=\"A figure cloaked in a blue shroud grasps a body-shaped bundle in its lap. A woman stands to the right of the figure, she wears a yellow tunic dress and her hair is braided in two long braids. The woman rests her hand at the head of the bundle. They stand against a black background.\" width=\"970\" height=\"647\" \/><\/noscript><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-1605421\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">At the end of the performance, hands emerge from the shroud to hold the bundle, and the woman in yellow offers condolences. <span class=\"media-credit\">Photo by Janette Duran. Courtesy of the artist and REDCAT.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n<h3>More in performing arts<\/h3>\r\n<ul>\r\n<li>\r\n<h5><a href=\"https:\/\/observer.com\/2025\/12\/review-met-opera-revival-andrea-chenier-daniele-rustioni\/\" data-lasso-id=\"2880380\">The Met\u2019s Crowd-Pleasing \u2018Andrea Ch\u00e9nier\u2019 Is Marred By Miscast Doomed Lovers<\/a><\/h5>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<li>\r\n<h5><a href=\"https:\/\/observer.com\/2025\/12\/review-marjorie-prime-hayes-theater-june-squibb\/\" data-lasso-id=\"2880381\">\u2018Marjorie Prime\u2019 Tracks the Ghost in the Machine of Artificial Intelligence<\/a><\/h5>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<li>\r\n<h5><a href=\"https:\/\/observer.com\/2025\/12\/theater-dance-interview-isaac-mizrahi-peter-the-wolf-guggenheim\/\" data-lasso-id=\"2880382\">Isaac Mizrahi On the Enduring Charm of \u2018Peter &amp; the Wolf\u2019<\/a><\/h5>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<li>\r\n<h5><a href=\"https:\/\/observer.com\/2025\/12\/amid-governmental-interference-opera-at-the-kennedy-center-is-flourishing-for-the-moment\/\" data-lasso-id=\"2880383\">Amid Governmental Interference, Opera at the Kennedy Center is Flourishing\u2014for the Moment<\/a><\/h5>\r\n<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The piece\u2019s enculturation rests on a certainty in its own semiotics\u2014a stalwart belief that no matter the audience, grieving should be collective, not singular.<\/p>\n <a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/observer.com\/2025\/12\/elia-arce-no-time-to-mourn-an-excerpt-review\/\">Read More<\/a>","protected":false},"author":177935410,"featured_media":1605454,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"post_tag":[1193385,423807148,423986540],"company":[],"channel":[177,14694,71859,423867292,423868969],"location":[],"nyo_column":[],"person":[424005832,424005833],"nyo_post_hidden":[],"coauthor":[424002236],"class_list":{"0":"post-1605352","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"tag-latin-american-art","8":"tag-performance-art","9":"tag-redcat","10":"channel-arts","11":"channel-theater","12":"channel-art-reviews","13":"channel-dance","14":"channel-culture","15":"nyo_person-elia-arce","16":"nyo_person-jasmine-magna"},"acf":{"homepage_position":"","homepage_title":"","homepage_excerpt":"","alternative_og_image":"","headline":{"seo_headline":""},"subheadline":{"optimized_seo_description":"","optimized_social_excerpt":""}},"apple_news_notices":[],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/observer.com\/2025\/12\/elia-arce-no-time-to-mourn-an-excerpt-review\/","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":[],"rendered":"","tracker_url":"https:\/\/cdn.parsely.com\/keys\/observer.com\/p.js"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/observer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/12\/IMG_5604-e1765489687827.jpg?quality=80","coauthors_byline":"By Mya Ward","display_channel":"","thumbnail":"<img width=\"300\" height=\"225\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" data-src=\"https:\/\/observer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/12\/IMG_5604-e1765489687827.jpg?quality=80&amp;w=300&amp;h=225&amp;crop=1\" class=\"lazyload attachment-grid-thumbnail size-grid-thumbnail\" alt=\"A barefoot woman in a yellow tunic dress sits on her knees before the end of massive train of blue cloth. The cloth is worn by a figure who sits several meters away from her in the background. The woman in yellow bends over the blue cloth as though folding it.\" decoding=\"async\" \/><noscript><img width=\"300\" height=\"225\" src=\"https:\/\/observer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/12\/IMG_5604-e1765489687827.jpg?quality=80&amp;w=300&amp;h=225&amp;crop=1\" class=\"lazyload attachment-grid-thumbnail size-grid-thumbnail\" alt=\"A barefoot woman in a yellow tunic dress sits on her knees before the end of massive train of blue cloth. The cloth is worn by a figure who sits several meters away from her in the background. The woman in yellow bends over the blue cloth as though folding it.\" decoding=\"async\" \/><\/noscript>","classes":["post-1605352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","tag-latin-american-art","tag-performance-art","tag-redcat","channel-arts","channel-theater","channel-art-reviews","channel-dance","channel-culture","nyo_person-elia-arce","nyo_person-jasmine-magna","entry-grid"],"parent_channels":"Arts, Culture","thumbnail_url":"https:\/\/observer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/12\/IMG_5604-e1765489687827.jpg?quality=80&#038;w=300&#038;h=225&#038;crop=1","thumbnail_url_2x":"https:\/\/observer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2025\/12\/IMG_5604-e1765489687827.jpg?quality=80&#038;w=600&#038;h=450","excerpt_bare":"The piece\u2019s enculturation rests on a certainty in its own semiotics\u2014a stalwart belief that no matter the audience, grieving should be collective, not singular.","is_sponsored":false,"formatted_date":"5 days ago","read_time":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/observer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1605352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/observer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/observer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/observer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/177935410"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/observer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1605352"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/observer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1605352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1605553,"href":"https:\/\/observer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1605352\/revisions\/1605553"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/observer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1605454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/observer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1605352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/observer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_tag?post=1605352"},{"taxonomy":"observer_company","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/observer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/company?post=1605352"},{"taxonomy":"channel","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/observer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/channel?post=1605352"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/observer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=1605352"},{"taxonomy":"nyo_column","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/observer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/nyo_column?post=1605352"},{"taxonomy":"nyo_person","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/observer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/person?post=1605352"},{"taxonomy":"nyo_post_hidden","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/observer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/nyo_post_hidden?post=1605352"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/observer.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthor?post=1605352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}