Stretching My Skin Until It Rips Whole 1995

“We have come to expect emotionally gripping performances from Arce. She is one of the rare and gifted artists in LA who understands the erotics of rhetoric…and who is able to draw us into her psychic vortex with her ironic shrugs, her giggles, her charged rage.” -- Artweek 

A dual citizen of Costa Rica and the US, Elia Arce is a performer, writer, director and filmmaker who explores powerful confluences of psychologies and cultures in her work. In Stretching My Skin, her second performance solo, she took us on a roller coaster ride with the women (and men) who had been influential in defining the “woman” concept in her life. In the piece, belief systems clash where emotional journeys and values become merely circumstantial and identity can no longer be based on a singular reality. 

Arce discussed her work with the audience after each performance. During her residency in Boston, she conducted workshops at shelters for battered women.

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Produced and presented by The Arts Company as part of the (mal)Adjustment series. 

Arce dedicated the Boston performances to Hazel Mae and Benjamin Berg. 

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