Bonnie Ilza Cisneros

Bonnie Ilza CisnerosBonnie Ilza CisnerosBonnie Ilza Cisneros

Bonnie Ilza Cisneros

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  • DJ Despeinada
  • Siempre Verde
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radio xicanismo's Raza & Rolas: Pláticas con chingona djs

On February 25, 2021, I had the privilege of being interviewed by Xico González of Radio Xicanismo. He asked me 12 preguntas and I played 12 rolas (13, actually, because a viewer requested Ramón Ayala!) that trace my Tejana DJ origin story. 


I broke up the sets into categories because that's my pleasure:


1. The Gateways / Bridges to Latin (for lack of a better word) Music. 

2. Los Tíos Rowdies

3. Las Tías Divas

4. Lxs Sobrinxs / Next Wave


You can watch the show on Youtube or stream audio only here! 



radio xicanismo x dj despeinada

"Love came here and never left " Valentine's radio show on WFMU.org

Wfmu x DJ despeinada, feb. 2021

My Second Show for Radio Row!

Valentine's Day 2021, 

tenth-leventh month of quarantine. 


Love songs from both sides of the border, divided into four sets:


1. Love Memory

2. Hot Love

3. Loca Love

4. A Valentine to Home


Broadcasting on WFMU.org on Sunday, 2/14/21, at 4 PM CST



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"Love Came Here and Never Left" on WFMU.org

Listen Here!

"MISSING MY MUERTOS" GUEST DJ SPOT ON WFMU

WFMU x DJ Despeinada, Nov. 2020

My First Show for Radio Row!

On Sunday, November 1, 2020, All Saints’ Day and Día de los Muertos Eve, I presented a show entitled “Missing my Muertos” on WFMU’s Radio Row. 


El Día de los Muertos has ancient indigenous roots in what is now known as México with rituals and iconography that evolved after the European conquest and subsequent colonialism. More recently, the sacred season has morphed even further due to Coco-fication (thanks, Disney), also known as the pizza effect, in the form of plastic calaveras and Day of the Dead-themed paraphernalia sold at dollar stores and high-end boutiques alike. 


But the bottom line remains the same: this is the season when the dead come home. 


The show features music I gathered from my own private playlist of grieving and healing. I am building a bicultural/bilingual ofrenda, an offering of songs, which represents my own personal muertitos whose absence still kill me, and whose yearly visitations are cause for pause and celebration. 


Oh, how I miss my rancho schoolteacher great-grandma, and my favorite tío, the fisherman, and my loco father who died alone in his easy chair, and my secret hero lover man, and my puro Mexicano grandpa who wept at Hank Williams’ songs, and my bad abuela who showed me where to look among the garbage and the flowers, and my sad clown tío who only recently joined this army of angels. 


Distance keeps me from visiting cemeteries and cleaning graves, and some of my muertos aren’t buried anywhere anyway, so that part of the tradition dies with me. 


In San Antonio, the wind starts to shift around mid-October, and I feel this glittery feeling as I prepare to build a home altar that is a centerpiece of memory. The idea is to tempt the spirits, or at least remind them, of their former earthly delights. 


Photos, artifacts, favorite foods and libations to jog their senses, candles and cempasúchil (marigolds) to help them navigate the fog, water to parch the dusty thirst, and music, always music.  


Ofrendas and altars are a way of sending signals through the wispy veil, but I like the idea that “Missing My Muertos” will be transmitted over radio and Internet waves. And then archived! 


The songs themselves will flow out and mirror the now debunked, but still relevant, Kübler-Ross Five Stages of Grief, and I find it achingly appropriate that I use my airtime to acknowledge the dead and dedicate songs to them during the 2020 pandemic. 


Who didn’t feel denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and (finally, maybe) acceptance over the past months in quarantine? 


In my research I found that there is a proposed sixth stage: meaning. 

Maybe I want my show to mean something in the face of all this loss.

Mainstream and subculture, American and Latinx, dead and living, women and men, we all lose what we love most, and that includes this earthly existence. The encroaching appropriation of a Mexican holiday with indigenous roots is only tapping into a universal, though long buried, part of life on earth. 


As Nick Cave and friends insist: death is not the end.  

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Recording "Missing My Muertos" from my casita. 

"missing my muertos" on wfmu.org

Listen Here!

TEJANAS BEHIND THE TURNTABLES: SPINNING CULTURAL CONTEXT & CURATING SELECTIONS

Presentation @ Northwest Vista College 10/15/20

Natasha Hernandez (Dj HEAVYFLOW) and I discussed through  Zoom our processes of curating musical selections within the politics of identity, consciousness, and location.  We  presented, answered Q&A, and shared playlists for students to continue engagement beyond the presentation.

Link to Video Coming Soon!

A bit of press:

'Sunday is for oldies' (and Saturdays too)

Thanks to Josh Feola for including me in this first bit of local press I've received in almost ten years DJ-ing. 

Read Here!

Bubble Fest at Home: DJ Despeinada / august 14, 2020

At a time in early quarantine when I thought my DJ life was obsolete, Ruby City and Spare Parts  asked me to film my DJ set since we could not hold the community event in real life. 

 

My husband served as first time cinematographer. 


I selected songs for families at home to feel hopeful and calm during quarantine. Bubbly. Light. Iridescent. 


For me, this mise en scéne and  soundtrack will always evoke emotions of early pandemic: the sunflowers, the kids' bubble machine, our chickens. 


Home.  

Songs in the key of SWU: Interview with Diana Lopez

August 7, 2020


I was hired by Diana Lopez to curate a medicinal mix of music for the community of Southwest Workers Union.


Musicians of color from all eras and representing multiple genres are centered in the six hour mix, and I wove in audio clips of voices of activists such as Angela Davis, James Baldwin, and Cherrie Moraga in order to add texture to the mix and remind listeners that we have been here before, and we will get through it again. 


Click the Spotify link here. 


The adventures of DJ Despeinada

Ruby City Grand Opening Weekend // 2019 // foto by Carlos Sanchez De La Garza

DJ MISSION STATEMENT

DJ Despeinada spins vinyl soundscapes of the borderlands. 


In her sets, she centers women/identified artists of color, both in response to DJs who primarily amplify male voices and musicians, but also because it SOUNDS really good, healing, and inspiring to remember and reconnect with all the mothers and sisters and daughters who created beautiful songs throughout eras, cultures, and across genres. 


ALWAYS DIGGING, ALWAYS BOOKING (if not for a global pandemic)

DJ Despeinada is currently accepting commissions for digital DJ sets & curated playlists.

 

Special rates available for non-profit organizations. 

DJ CV

DJ Despeinada has collaborated with countless San Anto organizations and curated sets for many unforgettable private parties. 


Some of her most cherished partnerships (both official and implied) include:


Saluté International Bar (where she honed her DJ identity)

Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center (which helped catapult her career)

Esperanza Peace and Justice Center 

McNay Art Museum

VeryThat

Brickadelic 

San Antonio AIDS Foundation

Martinez Street Women's Center

La Botánica

Ruby City

San Antonio Public Library

Southwest Worker's Union

LezRide SA

Fuerza Unida

Liberty Bar

Southwest School of Art

San Antonio Museum of Art

San Antonio Current

The DoSeum

NALAC

CAM

Witte Museum

Luminaria SA

ArtPace

Centro San Antonio

International Women's Day March SA

SpareParts

CineFestival

Mijente

Trinity University Press






professional, profound, with panache

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