Talentooooo Urbanoooo

On Sunday, my students from Jovenes de Buena Voluntad presented the show we've been working on for the past two months! JBV is a community-based organization run almost entirely by young people in Ventanilla, with help from one adult leader and a few volunteers from the area and abroad. The idea of the organization is that volunteers can suggest workshops, and the participants give feedback and then decide whether they want to participate. The young people also plan events and organize volunteer opportunities for themselves. It's a great model of grassroots organizing that emphasizes the importance of working in solidarity, and I've really loved working with them.

So: we staged TALENTO URBANO, a variety show that included improvisation, salsa, an original skit, juggling, and an awesome dance-off between break dancers and zanqueros (stilt walkers). The whole thing came together somewhat miraculously, considering that most of the actors missed our dress rehearsal (así es) and that we started about an hour late (par for the course). (A side note: a huge part of my learning curve has been relaxing my ideas of what it means to start "on time.") Nonetheless, the show was great-- the audience was really into it, and we had a full house by mid-show (people trickled in when they heard the music); the performers were energetic and funny and exciting to watch; and this was one of the first public events for JBV's new group in Villa los Reyes, so we got to share some of the work with the students' families and to spread the word about Jovenes de Buena Voluntad. On top of that, it was a lot fun, which was really the whole point in the first place.

Anyway, here are some pictures. Bravo to all of the performers!

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El domingo, ¡mis estudiantes de Jóvenes de Buena Voluntad realizaron el espectáculo en que hemos trabajando por dos meses! JBV es una organización de la comunidad que está guiado casi totalmente por jóvenes en Ventanilla, con el apoyo del un líder adulto y varios voluntarios locales y extranjeros. La idea de la organización es que los voluntarios sugieren talleres, y los participantes dan consejos y, de allí, deciden si quieren participar. Los jóvenes también planean eventos y organizan oportunidades para ellos mismos. Es un buen modelo de organizando de base que enfatiza lo importancia de trabajar en solidaridad, y me encantó la experiencia de trabajar con ellos.

Entonces: realizamos TALENTO URBANO, un espectáculo que incluyó improvisación, salsa, una escena original, malabares, y una competencia de baile entre bailadores de break y zanqueros. Todo se arregló por milagros, creo, considerando que la mayoría de los actores les faltó nuestro último ensayo (así es) y que empezamos más o menos una hora tarde (normal). (Una nota: un gran parte de mi aprendizaje ha sido un relajamiento de mis ideas de que significa “empezar a tiempo.”) A pesar de todo, el espectáculo fue bacán: los espectadores se lo gustó, y el espacio estaba llena después de un tiempo (la gente entró poco a poco que escuchó la música); los actores fueron energéticos y graciosos, y fue emocionante a mirarlos; y eso fue uno de los primeros eventos públicos del nuevo grupo de JBV en Villa los Reyes, y entonces pudimos compartir el trabajo con las familias de los estudiantes y también pasar la voz sobre Jóvenes de Buena Voluntad. Al fin, fue muy divertido, lo que fue la meta al comienzo.

Aquí va algunas fotos. ¡Bravo a todos los actores!

Franco, Ali, y GianMarco

Ficha por Vanessa/Flyer, by Vanessa

Competencia entre los Zanqueros y Baildores del Break

Dance-Off between Stilt-Walkers and Break Dancers

Ray

Experta con 4 cabezas: Leti, Vanessa, Michel, Geysi

Four-headed Expert

Señor de los Milagros

Hello my loved ones and fans.

I know you've been pining away for months, checking my blog daily, desperately hoping for another post.

I apologize. It's been a busy two months. I've been teaching workshops, rehearsing with students for this week's Festival of Sexual and Reproductive Rights (or "SexFest," as my friend Dalia called it), working on a performance project with two friends. Perhaps I will write more about these things later. In the meantime, though, here's a video, made by my roommates for their video blog cuarto de azotea about the Señor de los Milagros procession this past Thursday. Keep your eyes open: I make a brief appearance in the first minute.

Basically, the story is this: a coupla hundred years ago, this Peruvian guy painted an image of a Brown Christ. Then there was an earthquake, and although much of the city was destroyed, the church holding this painting remained intact. People started visiting the image and worshipping in front of it; Spanish Colonial Catholic Church got miffed and sent a couple of Spanish minions to destroy it; the minions claimed that a miracle stopped them from doing so (or maybe they were just refusing to follow orders). The people rejoiced and started parading the image through the streets once a year. Catholic Church was still miffed, but eventually they got over it.

Fast forward to last Thursday. This procession is now one of the biggest in all of Peru. Lots of ladies crying, tons of people-- too many; it felt a little dangerous at one point as thousands of people tried to get as close a possible-- and plenty of anticuchos (cow's heart skewers) to be eaten. Catharsis never tasted so delicious.

Hay que tener fe, fe, fe

Last week Rachel and I made our Peruvian Performance Art debut at elgalpon.espacio's Cuestion de Fe (Question of Faith), part of UCSUR's International Theatre Festival. We created a piece that examined creeds/recitations of faith. I used the image of a shadow to represent the act of prayer-- a practice both internal and projected outside of oneself-- and did a movement piece while I recited the Nicene Creed, which is a statement of the central beliefs of the Catholic Church. Rachel sang the Sh'ma, a prayer in Hebrew ("Hear, Israel, the Lord is our God..."). And then we performed "Gotta Have Faith," by George Michael, which is an extremely moving document. (The idea was to finish with a recognizably American style of performance-- MTV-cum-musical theatre-- and also to not take ourselves too seriously.) Also, Rachel was dressed in a priest's costume that I rented from a lovely lady in Magdalena del Mar.

All things considered, the piece went well. I, at least, learned some things through the performance of it. However, I'm pretty sure our audience had no idea what we were getting at. It turns out that something of George Michael's genius is lost in translation.

Nonetheless, I got some positive feedback from my friends, which was enough for me. Next up: my friend Koki wants me to portray Marge Simpson as Ms. New York. More on that later.

Love to everyone! And CONGRATULATIONS to my sister, who has finished her thesis! She spent an entire year playing fetch with human beings. No, she spent a year pushing old ladies down staircases. No, she spent a year learning how to read palms. Okay, fine, it had something to do with proprioception. You can ask her about it.

Happy Birthday, Erin and Dad!

In honor of Erin's birthday on Monday, I asked my roommates to teach me how to sing "Happy Birthday" like a true limeño. This is the result. Please note that I couldn't join in the singing because I was laughing too hard (you can hear Rachel giggling, too. She was filming the whole thing), and that no one knew how to pronounce Erin's name. Irish names are confusing here. I've taken to introducing myself as "May-gon. Como 'Mega.' Sí, porque soy una chica muy alta. May-gon...sí, como Megan Fox. Exactamente. Mucho gusto."



Left to right: Diana, Erik, Megan, Rosa, y Juanmanuel. They are so great.

Happy birthday, E! Happy birthday, Dad!

Three Quick Updates

1. Cuy is juicy. It does not, for the record, taste like chicken. More like duck, I think. However, there is not much meat to be had, and the presentation is fairly appetite-killing. Google image "cuy" if you're curious, or just imagine a creature disarmingly reminiscent of a rat lying dead on a plate, crisped eyes and claws still intact. (If that last sentence grossed you out, please don't run a google search. Just take my word for it: Cuy is much tastier than it looks.)

2. I'm taking a workshop with Yuyachkani this week. It has been really great and is deserving of several posts. That will come. I will only mention that yesterday I saw a traditional Peruvian Resurrection dance that featured a mostly-naked Jesus playing the spoons (well, a similiar instrument, to be fair) and wearing a single rainbow-print glove. Who knew that Peru was so queer friendly?

3. It looks like Maleto is going to stay with us indefinitely.

More soon!

The only thing missing from my life...

... is iced coffee.

Is it possible that I'm just looking in the wrong places? Is this related to a national aversion to iced beverages? (Most people here go for water, juice, and soda at room temperature. Rachel tells me that I need to stop being such an imperialist and adapt my drinking habits, but I really love me my cold beverages.) I must remind myself that British people don't really go for iced coffee either, and I survived just fine in London.

Now at the two week mark, I'm starting to get my life in order. I'm doing a workshop with Yuyachkani next week, and my Spanish class started last week. It's through the Language Institute at the Catholic University, where Rachel is studying, and right now I'm taking a class on Peruvian culture. Since it's only four weeks long, it's basically Peruvian culture for dummies, but it's a lot of fun. And my class is pretty diverse-- we're from Bulgaria, Brazil, China, Germany, and the US, which is great, because we can't cheat and speak to each other in our first languages. Another great thing is that we are going to learn how to make cebiche (raw seafood marinated in lime juice). Om nom nom. My mother will be surprised to hear how much I like cebiche-- I shunned fish for years, which was a stupid thing for a Seattle kid to do, but what's done is done-- but seriously, folks. The cebiche here is unbelievable.

Life in Pueblo Libre is lovely. Rachel and I have moved off of the roof and into our new room, which is blue and orange and bright. I really love my roommates here-- they're all artists of various kinds and are a lot of fun. They run a space called elgalpon.espacio where they mount and host all sorts of performance and installations and classes. Good stuff. This week I've been taking a course on Performance in Latin America, taught by Augusto Del Valle, a philosopher and art critic. Some of it goes over my head-- my Spanish is getting better every day, but I wish I could understand everything now-- but the course is interesting, and it's good to study performance from a Latin American perspective. In the US (with SITI and with other friends), I had been discussing the postmodern performance that stemmed from the work done by Judson Dance Theater in the 60's. It's good to learn about flash points outside of my North American framework-- the Biennials in Cuba in the late 80's and 90's, the show in Medellin in 1981. Del Valle has also talked a little bit about how the specific political contexts affected performance in each country (i.e. how did performance in Argentina under the military dictatorship differ from performance in Peru?), but either he didn't choose to discuss these ideas in depth, or I missed something major. Anyway, I'll learn more, I promise, and then I will try to organize my thoughts to say something other than, "Wow; performance is interesting." But that will be a job for another day.

Oh, you want to see another picture of Maletó, do you?






I thought so.