Somatic Sauce presents La Descarga [Digital] was an interactive, dance performance by Juan Urbina and Amelia Uzategui inspired by Salsa dancing as a cathartic, embodied form of resistance. Dancing from a post-migrant perspective, they value their mother culture and call for the visibility of their communities in the historic imposition of borders and controls on brown bodies from the Global South, borders that can be subverted using digital technology. Via a livestream platform from Z – Zentrum für Proben und Forschung in Frankfurt am Main, audiences were invited to both witness as well as participate in their proposal, regardless of their prior Salsa knowledge. Using a caring approach, Juan and Amelia engaged with improvisational, follow-along scores. The live-stream included raw footage filmed at Gallus Theater complimented by spoken poetry. In the face of uncertainty, as Celia Cruz sings, Cuando volverá, tú libertad. When will your freedom return?
General Production Somatic Sauce
Performance, Concept, Video Editor Juan Urbina
Performance, Concept, Video Editor Amelia Uzategui Bonilla
Videography Kaisa Kukkonen
Music Production Javier Ponte Calderón
Set and Technical Crew Gallus Theater
Photography David Poertner
Dramaturgy Diana De Fex
Digital Performance Support Dana Maxim
Communications Ruben Gonzales
Rehearsal Space ID Frankfurt, Z – Zentrum für Proben und Forschung
Live Streaming from Z – Zentrum für Proben und Forschung
Mit Unterstützung des Projektförderung aus Mitteln des Härtefall- und Notfallfonds des Kulturdezernats Frankfurt am Main und des Gallus Corona Kulturfonds
General Production Somatic Sauce
Performance, Concept, Video Editor Juan Urbina
Performance, Concept, Video Editor Amelia Uzategui Bonilla
Videography Kaisa Kukkonen
Music Production Javier Ponte Calderón
Set and Technical Crew Gallus Theater
Photography David Poertner
Dramaturgy Diana De Fex
Digital Performance Support Dana Maxim
Communications Ruben Gonzales
Rehearsal Space ID Frankfurt, Z – Zentrum für Proben und Forschung
Live Streaming from Z – Zentrum für Proben und Forschung
Mit Unterstützung des Projektförderung aus Mitteln des Härtefall- und Notfallfonds des Kulturdezernats Frankfurt am Main und des Gallus Corona Kulturfonds
Previous research and related publication below
Score:
Call upon a memory of yourself, the earliest memory you can think of, when you were dancing or when you saw someone else dance. Describe it to yourself and bring this image forward. What were the textures of the dance, the sounds or smells, the environment.
Call upon a memory of yourself, the earliest memory you can think of, when you were dancing or when you saw someone else dance. Describe it to yourself and bring this image forward. What were the textures of the dance, the sounds or smells, the environment.
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Juan: “Trucupey,” my dad used to call to get my attention. The nickname referred to a Salsa song, Juancito Trucupey. At family gatherings, as I began to walk I also observed how my parents stepped to the Salsa rhythms: sudden, contained, and joyful. When I was 10, I went to Cuba and learned to improvise Salsa movements socially in Old Havana’s Malecón. It was the Cuban Carnival. Celia Cruz was still alive and releasing hits like La Vida es un Carnaval. When I want to express my embodied childhood memories and identity, I return to these moments.
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Amelia: La salsa se bailaba en mi casa desde que tengo edad para contarlo. I learned by following. The dance was already happening, at birthday parties, after baptisms, y en las Quinceñeras. As a young adult, I was introduced to NYC’s Spanish Harlem underground concerts. During the summers, Abuelitos danced on the sidewalk outside El Museo del Barrio. Heading further south and dancing at the weekend descargas in downtown Lima, my Nuyorican and Limeñan influences converged, un poquito de aquí, un poquito desde allá.
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The Salsa Dancing Body
The Salsa dancing body is one with multiple centers, polycentric. These centers can initiate movement patterns that can be practiced in different rhythms and speeds. Body parts that can be centers include: the breastbone, butt, feet, knees, head, hands and heart. Performed together and individually, they expose an expanding range of possibilities for this dance. What are the centers of your body now? What are the centers as you stand up, as you walk? Can you move or sit still with another center? Take a moment to perceive the centers in your body. The center is the part of your body with the most energy at any given moment, the part that leads the other parts into movement it into rest.
Without the option of touch and couple dancing, one is able to study the individual movement of the Salsa dancing body, dancing alone from home, this Salsa dancing body was more free and could actually free itself from any gaze that would determine whether or not this was salsa dancing. Instead this body could choose how to dance and what body parts to move.
During the creation process of this piece we did a writing score to find ways to articulate this phenomena.
Without the option of touch and couple dancing, one is able to study the individual movement of the Salsa dancing body, dancing alone from home, this Salsa dancing body was more free and could actually free itself from any gaze that would determine whether or not this was salsa dancing. Instead this body could choose how to dance and what body parts to move.
During the creation process of this piece we did a writing score to find ways to articulate this phenomena.
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Photo Credit: David Poertner
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Photo from technical rehearsal at studio Z, Frankfurt am Main.
Photo credit: Frédéric De Carlo
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Juan: Though it may seem that this definition can fit to how we refer to a Salsa dancing body, we acknowledge that comparing Salsa to the notion of Romanticism is responding to the dominant influence of academia. Maybe Salsa is not an artistic expression that should be categorised under these terms. The notion of “Art” is also a European construction. It is elitist and I don’t necessarily fit into it. I have to fit myself into it. But what do I lose in the process of this fitting in? For the Global North, dances like Salsa, Cumbia, Gaita, la Chicha, Festejo, Champeta, etc. are not “Art.” Or simply are not movement practices that hold the same recognition as modern, post-modern or contemporary dance. Even though these dances have also been influenced by what they call “social” dances, as if, for example, contact improvisation wasn’t also a social dance.
Amelia: But for us, Art is not separate from life itself. It’s woven into how we engage with each other. And there is no museum for it, no separate space. And perhaps these spaces are at night in the club, the living room, el garage, la calle, o el malecón de la Habana en Carnaval, this is our “museum.” Nuestra cultura viva. It can be called “live art” or it’s just life. So for this next video, it felt important to maintain the mystery, the shadow that this brown body lives in because of the lack of visibility or recognition. We are trying to articulate our practice through our own gaze. We also acknowledge that our gaze is already infiltrated by white-dominant culture due to our academic training in order to be able to work as “dance artists” in Germany. It is only through this training that we can navigate this field. Time and time again we are asked to explain ourselves, We are asked again and again, why?...and why do we even have to explain it? It’s a never-ending topic, so let's see the video dedicated to the Salsa Dancing Body. |
A Salsa Dancing Body from Somatic Sauce on Vimeo.
Juan: So what is a descarga? In our research, we came up with the following definition. Descarga is the section of a salsa song where all the instruments play different rhythms as if they were responding to each other in a kind of argumentative way. It’s a discussion, a catharsis. The dancer allows their body to go into an ecstatic relationship with the music. The music is the dancing partner.
Amelia: Its characteristics are: high energy in the music, consistent grounding of the legs, extra energy to release, and it's also the time to be crazy, slow down and then catch-up with the beat, it’s also known as the Mambo section of a salsa song, with noisy instruments, brass, percussion, an explosion of rhythm and sound.
Amelia: Its characteristics are: high energy in the music, consistent grounding of the legs, extra energy to release, and it's also the time to be crazy, slow down and then catch-up with the beat, it’s also known as the Mambo section of a salsa song, with noisy instruments, brass, percussion, an explosion of rhythm and sound.
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“The stubbornness of the rhythm puts you in a trance mode.” Marcin Tokarczyk |
Our dramaturg, Diana de Fex, comments on the dislocation of Marcin’s Youtube video, where he,, a Polish dancer driving in Krakow, breaks down a salsa song and helps us, Latinxs, understand what is already within ourselves. Dislocation is a familiar feeling for migrants and people living in the diaspora. In this case dislocation has also taught us something about ourselves. He also speaks about the connection between salsa and Greek tragedy: both have choruses in the form of dialogue.hat's another line of research that could also serve to decentralise the Western perspective on Ancient Greece. Linking salsa and tragedy, it reminds her of classic Salsa songs such as “El preso” de Fruko y sus Tesos, ''El Gran Varón” de Willie Colon. These are very narrative and storytelling Salsas. What is it that we are so joyfully grieving through these songs?
Amelia: The polyrhythms of a descarga remind us of a rant. When we let out our feelings, raw and unedited, and go into an emotional release. For this, we created a second writing score where we put our descarga into words. From this, we created this video.
Writing Scores
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maybe Salsa unites us?
