America is a nation divided in many regards, one splintered along lines of identity and circumstance. There is, of course, a long history of internal conflict in the United States, but the 21st century seems marked by intensified hostilities, resistance, violence, and threats of more to come.
One element of our national turmoil is the fight over racial equity in this country, the fulcrum of which has been the issues of police brutality and violence against black and Latino people in this country. There have been protests and countless debates but, as a nation, we still seem deadlocked over fundamental questions of how to treat the most vulnerable among us. It’s a worthy debate, but not one in which Shaun Leonardo is interested. Instead, he’s working to keep people safe.
For over a year, Leonardo has been leading public-participatory performances that take the form of self-defense workshops. In the past, the multidisciplinary artist had conducted performances that required him to get physical—he’d trained and performed as a wrestler, boxer, bull fighter, mixed martial artist—but his most recent work taps into the current zeitgeist. Last year, after national headlines had been filled with the names of black people killed at the hands of police, Leonardo decided to put on I Can’t Breathe, a performance and self-defense workshop in honor of Eric Garner and other killed by cops that teaches participants actual defense moves and techniques to outmaneuver attacks, including the choke hold that ended Garner’s life.
