Azúcar Rabiosa (Rabid Sugar)

2018

Collective performance in public space. Salsa song expressing a collective feeling regarding femicides and transfemicides in Mexico, dedicated to the General Attorney´s Office (Procuraduría General de Justicia - PGJ).

Turning our rage into steps of resilience with the song Azúcar Rabiosa.

CONCEPT

The performance Azúcar Rabiosa (2018) incorporates women´s testimonies into a Salsa song exposing the Justice System´s inaction regarding femicides and transfemicides in Mexico.

Artivist CERRUCHA opened a hotline for the general public to call and leave anonymous messages expressing their thoughts on the General Attorney Offices´(in)actions regarding femicides and transfemicides in Mexico. These messages were recorded and incorporated into a salsa song titled Azúcar Rabiosa (Rabid Sugar). Creating a rhythm that becomes cathartic while embodying our rage, sadness, and our demands for security and our right to a life without violence.

On November 14th, 2018, Azúcar Rabiosa was performed in front of the Procuraduría General de Justicia- PGJ (General Attorney Office) in Mexico City. CERRUCHA summoned a group of participants to express their outrage through dance as a part of the project +State of Emergency.

Music: Ricardo González / Son del Rincón      Editor: Josué Vergara

FREE DOWNLOAD: https://soundcloud.com/cerrucha/azucar-rabiosa

Azúcar Rabiosa was born as part of the project +State of Emergency: Pain and resilience in Mexico City which took place in public space in four points within the city from Nov. 10th-14th, 2019. Curated by Lorena Wolffer (Mexico) in collaboration with María Laura Rosa (Argentina) and Jennifer Tyburczy (USA) for the National Center for the Arts in Mexico (CAN) and the Center for Digital Culture (CCD), +State of Emergency exposed the violence that cis and trans women have to endure in Mexico City and the rest of the country.

Link to +State of Emergency:  https://estadoemergencia-mx.blogspot.com/

LYRICS - Translation

AZÚCAR RABIOSA (Rabid Sugar)

How does it feel to be useless?

What happens when you cannot trust those in charge of enforcing justice? What happens when for half of a country´s population coming back home becomes a strike of luck? We want answers, NOW!   

It´s not OK that every time I leave home I feel unsafe, that every time I leave home I think of the last person who saw me, so in case I go missing people know what I was wearing. It´s not OK that I worry about my friends, my mom, my family, other women. No, it´s not OK that you leave home not knowing if you´re coming back. No, it´s not OK that I can only feel safe, in a city that´s supposed to be mine as well, only because I know how to defend myself. It´s not OK that I´m heartbroken every day because women are assassinated, as if they are nothing.

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CHORUS 

In Mexico there are 9 femicides a day because you allow it to happen! FUCKING INCOMPETENT ASSHOLES!  

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Femicides enrage me, they make me feel scared of the world I live in. Knowing that in Mexico there are 7 (statistics from 2017) assassins, 7 femicides on the loose on the streets daily, makes me live in permanent insecurity and distrust. We don´t forgive nor forget. WE WANT US ALIVE!

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CHORUS

DO YOUR FUKCING JOB, INCOMPETENT ASSHOLES! STOP BEING ACCOMPLICES OF FEMICIDES AND RAPISTS!

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As a woman I feel vulnerable. I feel impotence in face of so much violence against our gender, and at the same time I feel outraged in face of the indifference from those who are supposed to protect us. That´s what we pay them for, it´s not a gift from the authorities, it´s what the authorities are for. To give society safety and certainty that they will combat crime to protect us. And what have they done? Minimize complaints of women at risk, not pay attention to the gender alerts. How many women have been killed after being denied help and protection? How many women have disappeared and the authorities don´t even look for them? And if they find them it´s because they appear dead, mutilated, in pieces, thrown in a ditch as if they were trash.

¡Of course I´m affected by femicides and transfemicides, not only as a woman, but as a human being! They are hate crimes, [perpetrated only] because we were born, or chose, to be women. Impunity allows criminals to keep killing. In the end, the police doesn´t stop them, they don´t even look for them. When the police fails in their obligations, it becomes an accomplice.

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CORO

ACOMPLICES!!!

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We want for missing and murdered women´s cases to be investigated, we want that the intelligence work needed to find missing women alive, gets done. We want to find out who is behind the murder of women and give them the punishment they deserve.

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CHORUS

IN RESISTANCE!

We are alive, we are alive, we are alive.

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I want to live in peace, I want to live happy, I want to live.

​

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CHORUS

ALIVE WE ARE, AND ALIVE WE STAY!

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Femicide is a crime that hurts because in most cases it´s left unpunished. The authorities in charge of the investigations don´t do their job. Not only impunity hurts, but also the fact that in many occasions the victim is accused of being provocative by her way of dressing or her profession, etc. ENOUGH, we want justice!

We are fed up with you not doing your job, we are fed up of living in fear of walking at night, we´re fed up that aggressors and femicides are not punished. ENOUGH!

Stop lying, bring out all your archives, we want justice, stop lying. No more transfemicides, not one more. We are alive!

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CHORUS 

In Mexico there are 9 femicides a day because you allow it to happen! FUCKING INCOMPETENT ASSHOLES! ACOMPLICES!!!  

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Oh my daughters, oh my sisters, oh this rotten laws that don´t do anything to help us, to find them, to save them. Oh my sisters PGJ find them, find us, do something or destroy yourself, destroy your-self, go, go. Unwanted PGJ, I´m fed up of singing poetic verses to you. Unwanted PGJ go fuck yourself in time, fuck yourself in time, because I´m fed up…with you.

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CHORUS

AND IT´S GOING TO FALL [PATRIARCHY]…BECAUSE WE´RE BRINGING IT DOWN!

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Femicides and transfemicides are part of a hate epidemic against difference.

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CHORUS

UNITED!

FIGHTING!

HAPPY!

LOVING!

DREAMING!

TOGETHER!

IN RESISTANCE!

ALIVE!

ALIVE WE ARE, AND ALIVE WE STAY!

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I´m fed up, I´m scared all the time, I don´t want to keep on living like this. Why do I have to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner thinking that so many women have been killed in the country where I was born, where I want to live, where I want to keep on living? I´m fed up of thinking that in any moment my life is going to be torn away only because I was born with a woman´s body. I´m fed up, desperate, sad, mad, I hate al men who attack women. I´m fed up of thinking that the authorities cannot do anything, that they can´t stop these murderers. I´m fed up of thinking that they don’t take anything seriously. I´m fed up of thinking that we´re worthless, that we´re second class citizens. I want to live in peace, I want a happy Mexico.

It´s outrageous that these things keep on happening as if they were accidents or the victim´s fault. We need sensibility, it needs to be understood that bodies matter, that the bodies of citizens matter.

Stop encouraging criminals, stop violence against women, enough promises from a government that only promises.   

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CHORUS

I´M FED UP OF LIVING IN DEFENSE MODE!

DO YOUR FUCKING JOB, FUCKING INCOMPETENT ASSHOLES!

WHERE DID YOU LEAVE YOUR HUMANITY?!

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I want to go out, I don´t want to walk in fear that someone´s going to pull me from behind.

I´m really affected by this; that in this country I might appear on the news, or my family, or my nieces, or some woman I know. It hurts me so much to see how my Mexico has normalized violence against women. Being unable to be myself, and living in fear affects me very much and fills me with rage.

I am a woman and I have lived all my life in a country where gender equality doesn´t exist. Us women have had to deal with violence, discrimination and constant abuse every day. It´s outrageous that the authorities don´t take action, that they don´t resolve the problem, because it´s a core issue. Us women who defend women´s rights know there is a long way ahead of us until the day we can live in equality and justice.

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CHORUS

We are alive, we are alive, we are alive.

We are alive, we are alive, we are alive.

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I feel the violence, I feel that I can be killed for the simple fact of being a woman. And all this starts with the most subtle forms of machismo. This cannot keep on happening, it´s outrageous. I don´t like feeling that I can be assassinated, me or any woman, this should not be happening, it´s not fair, it´s outrageous, it´s frustrating. It´s very violent that the State is not doing enough to stop this unequal situation.

Because we are free women, we demand the State to fulfill their obligations and follow the law and restore our right to live without fear.

And if you´re not going to take care of me… DO NOT TOUCH ME!

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CHORUS

WE ARE ALIVE, AND ALIVE WE STAY!

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