Imperial Silence:

Una Ópera Muerta / A Dead Opera in Four Acts

A Multimedia Xicanx Opera in Four Acts
Created by John Jota Leaños

Imperial Silence: Una Ópera Muerta is a multimedia live-performace opera that explores silence, death, and dissent through the lens of Xicanx culture and Days of the Dead traditions. Director by librettist John Jota Leaños, the opera unfolds in four animated acts that traverse the life cycle—from early childhood to adulthood—each stage reflecting on how empire silences history, dissent, and the dead.

Blending live performance, animation, a mariachi quartet, and folklore dance, the opera interrogates the legacy of U.S. imperialism and settler colonialism. Through bilingual storytelling and genre-blending composition, it challenges dominant narratives and invites audiences into a satirical, reflective, and sometimes unsettling journey into the Mexican-American imaginary.

Short Synopsis
The opera’s four acts explore a spectrum of lived and inherited experiences:

• Act I: Los ABCs ¡Qué Vivan los Muertos!
  An ABCs ballad from the dead, this animated primer on war and empire is delivered by mariachi calacas who guide us through a retelling of American history letter by letter. Screened at Sundance Film Festival and numerous international venues.

• Act II: Deadtime Stories with Mariachi Goose and Friends
  Familiar nursery rhymes are reimagined in Muertolandia, where Jack & Jill, Rapunzel, and Big Bad Wolf take on new lives and old truths. With original songs by Los Cuatro Vientos and original score by Cristobal Martinez.

• Act III: ¡Radio Muerto!
  Set in a ’68 Chevy Impala en route to Mictlán (the Aztec underworld), this animated road trip explores mortality through radio fragments, music, and memory.

• Act IV: DNN: Dead News Network
  A surreal, satirical newscast from the dead delivering breaking updates on the War on Errorism, the Million Muerto March, and the Herst Heist, exposing the mechanisms of media spin and historical erasure.

Conceptual Framework
The term Imperial Silence draws upon and reconfigures the American cultural ritual of the 'moment of silence'—a public performance ostensibly meant to honor the dead, yet one that is often entangled with nationalist sentiment and war-driven politics. Rather than opening space for critical reflection, such rituals can function to obscure state violence, silence dissent, and suppress collective reckoning with the true costs of empire. Rather than fostering collective reckoning, these rituals of sanctioned quietude frequently suppress dissent and foreclose honest engagement with the consequences of U.S. imperialism. In this light, silence becomes not simply a gesture of mourning, but a mechanism of erasure—a way of disavowing responsibility while appearing solemn. Drawing from direct experience producing critical art in the post-9/11 era, Leaños uses animation and Xicanx opera to amplify what is unspeakable or suppressed in dominant narratives. The work asks: What is the sound of imperial silence? What role can radical art play in unsettling it? And how might Xicanx cultural memory provide alternative ways of mourning, remembering, and resisting?

Within the lineage of experimental Chicanx opera—including Asco, the Royal Chicano Air Force, and Guillermo Gómez-Peña—Imperial Silence shifts the colonial genre of opera into a decolonial form: a hybrid, multimedia Xicanx opera grounded in critical reflection, humor, and cultural survivance.

Artists and Collaborators

Imperial Silence: Una Ópera Muerta is the result of years of creative collaboration across disciplines. The original opera and animation score was composed by Cristóbal Martínez, with original songs written and performed by Los Cuatro Vientos—Juan Aguilar, J.Javier Enriquez, David Gill, and Ernie Ferra. The libretto was written by John Jota Leaños and Sean Levon Nash, with choreography by Joel Valentín-Martinez and Vanessa Sanchez.

Animation was created by a multi-artist team including Crystal González, Ivan Wachter, Tony Coleman, Luz Cabrales, Andrea Vargas, Sean Levon Nash, Julian Sestanovich, Kenyata Diabase, Scott Ewert, and John Jota Leaños. Costume design was developed by John Jota Leaños and Norberto Martínez, and lighting and stage technical direction by José María Francos and Daniel Gutiérrez.

The opera has been performed by an intergenerational ensemble of artists including dancers Jesus Jacoh Cortes, Vanessa Sanchez, Melissa Alejandra Aguirre, Mayra Enríquez-Arias and Norberto Martínez. These artists, many of whom contributed to the creation of the work, have embodied its hybrid spirit across stages and screens, bringing this Xicanx dead opera to life through music, movement, and visual storytelling.

Touring History

Imperial Silence: Una Ópera Muerta toured nationally and internationally between 2009 and 2017 as a new media opera integrating projected animation, a mariachi quartet, and folklórico dance. The work was presented at a wide range of venues, from major museums and theaters to community-based cultural centers.

Select performances include:

• Teatro Maria Matos, Capital da Cultura Ibero-Americana, Lisbon, Portugal (2017)
• Brava Theater, San Francisco (2017)
• Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2012)
• Folsom Theater, Folsom, CA (2012)
• Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Los Angeles (2010)
• UC Riverside, University Theater (2010)
• UC Santa Cruz (2010)
• El Museo del Barrio, El Teatro, New York City (2010)
• MACLA, San Jose (2010)
• World Theater, Monterey, CA (2009)
• Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, San Francisco (2009)