Riversa
Video documentation of Puerto Rican experimental dance performance 'Riversa, ' choreographed by Viveca Vázquea, 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. 'Riversa' intends to delineate Viveca Vázquez' own style, and to show her origins in exploring the absurdity of the movements and proposing dance as a way of thinking. On stage, the individual body and the collective body are in dialogue and conflict at the same time, as their movements oscillate between flow and struggling, sound and silence, immobility and movement. The questions proposed are: what is a body? How to make the body 'fit' into pre-notions of shape, movement, and even 'choreography'? In exploring these questions Viveca Vázquez has developed what she calls 'Choreography of the Error' -- based on quotidian movements and diverse bodies, Vázquez challenges the audience's expectations of what should be performed on stage. At the same time, she problematizes what is conceived as a 'Puerto Rican body': is this pure physicality or it is a political construction? Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics