Love Your Body Featuring Florinda Bryant

Chicana Heavyweights & Their Allies, a Panza Pictorial of Panza Positive Women


Florinda Bryant is an interdisciplinary artist, director, and educator, last seen in the Rude Mechanicals' - an Austin-based theater company - performance of Fixing King John. 

She recently performed excerpts of her ritual performance piece "From the porch" at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis as part of their Equilibrium Series co-curated by Bao Phi and The Panza Monologues' own Virginia Grise. Florinda's performance work often engages audiences in explorations around questions of identity, community, and the body. 

Florinda Bryant
Austin, Texas

I am the laugh you were trying to swallow, all big and loud, at the moment you were tryin to be quiet. Yeah that's me.
I come from a long line of praying, shit talkers, divine sinners, survivors.
I believe we are magic, each of us, with the power to change ourselves thus the world.

What do you love most about your body and why?

I love my heart! I haven't always been kind to her, treated her so bad til she was swollen and hard. She still didn't give up on me, still there for me. My ride or die literally. She has had so many reasons to quit and she doesn't, she keeps going, beating and loving. 

One piece of panza positive advice you wish someone would have given you growing up...

When I was younger I wish someone would have talked to me more about the beauty within. How the beauty within can change how you move through the world and THAT is what makes your outside beautiful. Don't just tell me to be confident, explain why.

What Panza Positive advice do you have to share?

Women are like fruit, there are many different kinds. No need to compare yourself to someone else. It's not that you aren't an amazing apple but maybe the woman next to you is an amazing orange. If someone is not appreciating your fruit, let that person go find another fruit to suit their taste. Take care of you and an apple lover will come along. 

What is your favorite quote from The Panza Monologues book?

"...and from that day on, I knew the panza was the most important part of the body, because people lived inside the panza, including me," from "Inside the Panza."

Read more about Florinda Bryant.

Her performance work is published in Experiments in a Jazz Aesthetic.

Buy your copy of The Panza Monologues book.

Florinda Bryant & Virginia Grise

read at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis, MN.

Panza Positive Pictorial: Featuring Vaneza Calderon

Con un mensaje para ti...

Chicana Heavyweights and their Allies, a Panza Pictorial of Panza Positive Women

We have launched many critiques at mainstream media outlets for their lack of Panza Positivity. This month we are celebrating Love your Body Month by asking four women to create their own Panza Positive Pictorial by taking photographs of themselves that embrace their panzas cuz (as we say in Panza Girl Manifesto), you gots to love the panza, you gots to love yourself!

A bad ass guitarron playing mariachi, Vaneza Calderon has some panza positive consejos to share with you!

SUNDAY

Round and snug, so nice to hug! Happinez is: hugging con ganas! Squeeze! Give it your all! Just like life.

MONDAY

Cachetes, not machetes! Be confident of your unique beauty, imperfections and all!

TUESDAY

Community can be vast. Be confident that only YOU shine in your own way! Own it.

WEDNESDAY

Panzitas come in all shapes and sizes. Embrace every single one of them!

THURSDAY

¡Arriba! Up, up! Create your own path of happiness and confidence!

FRIDAY

Create! Do what you want to do,¡Y ya! Don't ever let anyone define beauty for you. YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL!

SATURDAY

Spanish translation of Bob Marley's Three Little Birds.

 

About Neza: These days, Neza can be found collaborating with various mariachis and bands in Los Angeles, Califas. When she is not playing an instrument, she is making their strings at Guadalupe Custom Strings. It is a musician-run business that helps fellow musicians have the best strings possible, located in Boyle Heights. New music and handmade specialty air accessories to come, this spring! To learn more about Vaneza Calderon see her first feature on our BLOG.

Follow her: https://m.facebook.com/neza.cal
BUY your copy of The Panza Monologues book.

Photo credits: A. Grey, G. Morales, G. Tenorio, E. Juarez, P. Mendez
Video credit: G. Morales

Love Your Body: Featuring Neza Calderon

Chicana Heavyweights & Their Allies, a Panza Pictorial of Panza Positive Women

This February we turn our focus to the body - Love Your Body month. We will feature a Panza Pictorial highlighting some women we consider Panza Positive Role Models. This week we turn the spotlight on musician Vaneza Calderon. We chose Neza because there is something pretty bad ass about a Chicana that plays the guitarrón, don't you think?

Neza reading The Panza Monologues, 
Second Edition in Los Angeles

Vaneza Calderón began her musical journey at the age of 11 in her hometown of La Puente, California. Since joining the professional mariachi circuit at the age of 19, Vaneza has played in celebrated venues throughout the United States. She has participated in prestigious theatre performances as well as playing the mariachi bass, the guitarrón, in an eclectic mix of worldly genres. When she is not playing music, she is making strings.  As a team member of Guadalupe Custom Strings, she is one of the only women string makers in the US who produces and plays her own strings.

***


Vaneza Calderon
Los Angeles, CA

I am Vaneza Calderon. One Z, no Ss. A product of Aqua Net, dirt roads and Juan Gabriel records. Put me in a room with everyone, include their mom, and I guarantee we’ll all get along. I believe that life is too short to not see the positive in the darkest of days. I envision a bountiful future for those who believe in goodness. Music is my fuel. Being a folk musician nurtures my soul’s desire to carry the musical roots of my heritage. The simple action of bringing a sweet musical memory into someone’s life is the reason I feel blessed to call myself mariachi. I’m a chick, and I play the guitarrón. Big, loud, bass guitar. The vibrations of each note on my panza make me feel one with the music. I feel my music, literally. 

I come from a long line of women who don’t conform to fit expectations. I’ve had great role models who have taught me that gender plays no role in your destiny. If you want something, work hard and you’ll get it.

I believe that dreams do come true and that love really exists. 

What do you love most about your body and why?

I love the fact that my body does not fit a mold.

What is one piece of Panza Positive advice you wish someone would have given you when you were growing up? 

I wish that someone would have told me that we are not all created physically equal. It's okay to be who you are. People don’t always look like the people in your community. The world is huge. What may be beautiful to one person could be the complete opposite for another. You create your own beauty; don’t let others decide what is beautiful for you. Shine the beauty that feels right from inside. When you do that, you’ll please yourself. Which is the most important thing.

What Panza Positive advice do you have to share? 
Panza Power is special. Don't use it a lo pendejo. 

What is your favorite quote from The Panza Monologues book?

“You see, well ya I guess you see, I am a big woman.  That’s why I spell Panza with a “z” not a “s” cuz it takes up more space.  I’m a big woman goddammit.”

When I read this, my life made sense. My name has been spelled with a single Z since I was born. My sister named me and chose a Z instead so that I’d be different. Different than the Cabbage Patch Kid named Vanessa. A big woman, goddammit, indeed, that is what I am. It is me, this is me. Take it or leave it!

POWER TO THE PANZA!
BUY your copy of The Panza Monologues book.