VAIVÉN

The Spanish title means “to swing” and alludes to the dynamics of body and soul—to their restlessness and embodied sensuality—like waves and matter that come and go. Mejía Cortés proposes an exercise in imaginative memory: the deconstruction of nostalgia and its transformation into text, movement, and song. In VAIVÉN, he draws on the popular archive of salsa and the associated imagery of Black neighborhoods and their diasporas. In doing so, the work traverses an interwoven ecosystem in which the streets of Cali and the stories of the Colombian Pacific coast intertwine with bodies, sounds, and memories to form a hierarchy-free coexistence.

The driving force behind this is salsa itself: a dance, a musical genre, a way of life, and a culture in which desire and mystery coexist alongside experiences of Blackness, migration, and sexual dissidence.

Mejía Cortés’s site-specific performance, adapted for the Angie Stardust Foyer at the HKW, presents salsa and its sway, its vaivén, as a traditional technology of re-existence. These strategies proposed by the artist stem from the traditions of marronage, a term that originally described liberation from slavery and today denotes the ongoing commitment to anti-racism and anti-colonialism.

• Part of Bwa Kayiman: Crossing the Mangrove.

Present during the performance: Camilo Mejía, his mother Leydi Cortés, his father Jhonny Mejía, his aunt Luz Dary Cortés, his first salsa partner Paola, his salsa friends, Cheo Feliciano, Celia Cruz, La Lupe, the soundtrack of his childhood, Eleggua, Papá Oggún, my godfather Morandy Puig and my godmother Gretel, Siete Rayos, Yemaya, and the Cimarron Dead

• Concept and Direction: Camilo Mejía
• Choreography: Camilo Mejía and José Ramón Hernández
• Text and Dramaturgy: José Ramón Hernández
• Dramaturgical Consultant: Nicole Geertruida
• Lighting Design: Pier Gallen
• Set Design: Špela Tušar
• Costume Design: Patricia Mokosi
• Music and Sound: Clay Chénière
• Production: Anaku
• Co-production: Beursschouwburg, Viernulvier, Kustenwerkplaats, Theater Rotterdam, Festival Dias Da Dança
• With support from: Stuk, Brakke Grond, & The Flemish Community Commission
• Venue: Angie Stardust Foyer
• In English and Spanish