DAVID DE LA CRUZ » about

David de la Cruz is a musician, performing artist, and writer. His work explores the innate, narrative compulsion that manifests when we are confronted with new images and sounds. His interests in social justice issues, language, and the pedagogy of creativity inform his work.

I was born in Fort Bragg, NC. My mother raised me with a rabbit and a dog at the army base while my father was in Vietnam. This might explain my close relationship with animals. It could also explain a few other things but we'll let those be for now.

Photo of my family, as part of postal art, 1993

I remember going to a dress rehersal of 'Annie' when I was a kid. OMG, did I ever want to be Annie after that show. I spent the next year recording myself singing the two or three lines I could remember from the show. I knew I shouldn't have been enamoured with a girl's role, and that singing was somehow not the same as playing soccer in terms of male currency. It took a long time to get back to living in the voice.

When I was thirteen I worked my first real job at a pet store in Rockville, MD for $2.05 an hour. H.S. was the typical schizophrenic experience. I split my time between suburban mischief and eye-opener close calls in downtown DC during the 80s. If it wasn't for the DC hardcore scene (specifically Fugazi) I don't know what I would've done.

I went to Reed College in Portland, OR. I studied acting and sculpture (and other less interesting things). I experimented with substances, relationships, and identities. I left on academic probation and traveled to Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize. I worked as an octopus fisherman, a conch fisherman, and in a hammock factory. I taught myself how to draw with the help of Betty Edwards. I came back to the States a year and a half later and took some more art classes in Portland. I met a derranged hydrangea-hating literary critic with whom I fell in love. I worked as a dishwasher, a waiter, a cook, a landscaper. I did a stint as Artist-in-Residence at Alder House in Portland, teaching art classes to a group of misfits and curating a few shows. My students taught me how to live under a porch and that not everyone can draw realistically. Somehow we got keys to the old City nightclub and put on our own private shows with the costumes in storage.

whew, that's alot of stuff to cram into an about page. i guess the thing i'm most proud of is my willingness to play identity dress-up and put myself in places that bring out the chameleon. this more than anything has fed my imagination and interactive skills. sometimes i feel like 'art' is a word that describes an adaptive behavior more than a particular product.

i'm kinda flagging at this point wondering if i'm really going to recap all the wheres until the present. so briefly: alternate seasons as a raft guide in WV and living in the PRC. then alternate seasons as a sea kayak guide on orcas island and living in thailand. working a year and a half as a bird watcher in thailand. lots of other stuff as well that probably isn't really relevant, except why my credit sucks and why i don't have a paper trail that makes any sense.

i played classical flute for ten years and took it very seriously until adolescence. eventually i took my first formal vocal lesson in part to heal the shame of a high school musical production of pippin, but also to reconnect with music on a deeper level. through a bizarre series of events, i found myself studying khayal (khyal), north indian vocal music. perhaps listening to hariprasad chaurasia when i was fourteen had something to do with it. who knows? i finally got my B.A. at the evergreen state college. if we had degree specializtions it would have been ethnomusicology. fyi: i got my degree at the tender age of 33.

other things: yoga, yoga, yoga. meditation retreats in the u.s. and asia. several life-changing relationships. massage, karaoke, burmese refugees, sex education, and food science. landscaping, gardens, beaches, chatting with urban prophets, singing gospel in places that most people would get killed.

CURRENT PROJECTS:

SPEAKEASYDC.ORG MARCH 11, 2008
Game Over: Stories about death, dying, and the afterlife

Forthcoming short story collection.