Plagio
Video documentation of Puerto Rican experimental dance performance 'Plagio, ' choreographed by Viveca Vázquez, who is a choreographer, dancer, and a professor of humanities and contemporary dance for actors at the University of Puerto Rico. She presented her first work with Pisotón, the first experimental dance group of Puerto Rico and, shortly after, Taller de Otra Cosa, of which she became the first director. Through the company she presented her choreographic work and produced events such as 'Rompeforma' a key festival in the development of the experimental dance and performance scene in Puerto Rico, which was co-produced with Puerto Rican choreographer based in the U.S. Merian Soto. Since 1984 she has produced and performed experimental dance works in the United States, Mexico, Venezuela and Argentina, among a great number of other places. As a teacher she has developed a pedagogical model based on body conscience and improvisation. Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics
'Plagio' was performed in the Estudios Generales Letras building, at the University of Puerto Rico. While taking over the space with bodies, sound, voices, and movement, Vázquez performed a double gesture, bringing a canonic text to the dance, and bringing it in dance to non-conventional spaces. The reverberation of voices and movement resembles the idea of plagiarism ('plagio'), which in this case is understood as a re-enactment and re-creation of the classics. This video documentary is described as a 'Piece of dance-theater inspired in Augustine of Hippo.' The implications of bringing Saint Augustine to the University of Puerto Rico engage this performance with contemporary concerns, related to the discussion on colonialism and post-colonialism. Also, including new codes and forms of expression such as rap music stages the dialogue and counterpoint between our times and the classic texts. This video as a 'documentary by Miguel Villafañe, 'plagiarism' of a performance by Viveca Vázquez, in turn a 'plagiarism' of Saint Augustine of Hippo's life and works.' With this playful idea, this performance and its video documentary offer a rich line of discussion about re-creations: if this documentary is a 'plagiarism' of a 'plagiarism' of a 'plagiarism, ' perhaps its presence in the Hemispheric Institute Digital Video Library could be considered another 'plagiarism' in the series of re-enactments that are at the basis of our cultural constructions. Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics