Las Negras Theater Collective
‘A contemporary voice in the here and now’ 

By David Whitman

There is a section of the Amazon where the black waters of the Rio Negro and the paler, sandy-colored Rio Solimões converge and then flow together for many miles before mixing.

It is a strange and beautiful occurrence of nature attributed to differences in the speed, temperature and water density of the two convergent rivers. The undulating patterns where the rivers come together are said to have inspired the mosaic walkways of Manaus and Rio de Janeiro: waves of alternating dark and light stones.

I came upon a mighty metaphorical river that reminded me of those two Amazonian rivers a decade ago in Miami. It also flowed from Brazil, though it had other sources, too, in Cuba and the Pacific Northwest in the form of three remarkable performance artists of different colors and cultures who had converged in South Florida: Giovanni Luquini, Jennylin Duany and Elizabeth Doud.

Independently and in different ways, the three artists are undeniably powerful -- on stage, back stage, off stage. They are commanding as both solo and ensemble performers, writers and choreographers. As a team (Akropolis, and later Giovanni Luquini Performance Troupe), they’ve created and performed “renegade dance theater” with an impressive line-up of international dancers, actors, composers, musicians, film makers, set and lighting designers, and a phenomenal Argentinean costume designer named Estela Vrankovich.

I saw the début in 1998, in South Beach, of their first collaborative dance-theater work, Wrong Clue. I still remember it clearly; it was unlike anything else that was being offered at the time in Miami. Inspired, I volunteered to work with them as a documentary photographer, and soon I counted Gio, Elizabeth and Jennylin among my closest friends.

Their work radiates athleticism, grace, theatrical magic, and intelligent humor splashed with more serious social commentary. It challenges, taunts, flirts, provokes, propels, disturbs, dazzles. Of the hundreds of cultural events I’ve attended in South Florida, images from their rehearsals, workshops and performances are among the most vivid and enduring of all.

Elizabeth Doud is a self-described “poet, performer, graphics junkie and optimistic absurdist who is influenced by contemporary movement forms and pop art, as well as the art and culture of flamenco and capoeira.” Recently she recounted for me how her artistic partnership with Duany and Luquini came to be. “I think I can safely say that in the world of the performing arts, one starves unless one has a community of people to work with because you cannot train or really produce anything without accomplices. Maybe that’s a group, a company, a collective, a class, whatever, but there really is no theater unless there is a company of sorts because it is by its very nature a collective endeavor, and one that requires the talents of many hands and minds.

“I had the very good fortune of marrying a choreographer [Giovanni Luquini] and crossing paths with an actress [Jennylin Duany], both of whom were as hungry to create work as I was, and neither of whom was happy with what they felt was available to them as a ‘work group.’

“We began to produce together in 1997 and a year later made a full-length work of dance theater called Wrong Clue. That project marked the beginning of a long collaborative relationship of production and performance that lasted until 2006.

“We decided then, for personal and professional reasons, to split up our efforts and pursue projects on our own. I started working on my Frida Jones. At the same time, Giovanni created Idalina and Jennylin Cabaret Unkempt; both of which I participated in.”

These days it is nearly impossible to find the three of them together in the same place. Giovanni is immersed in projects in his native Brazil while Jennylin and Elizabeth, based in Miami, work together as Las Negras Theater Collective and are touring extensively.

Cabaret Unkempt is a multimedia theater production of Las Negras commissioned by Diverse Works and the Carnival (now Arsht) Center for the Performing Arts. It was part of the 651 Arts Salon Series in Brooklyn in April 2006, had a creative residency at Diverse Works in Houston in October 2006, and premiered in Miami in December 2006. During the past year, Cabaret Unkempt has toured in Latin America and the U.S. It is being presented next month by the Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana (MACLA) in San Jose, California, on October 10 and 11, 2008.

David Perez is MACLA’s coordinator of literary and performance art programs. He says that “Cabaret Unkempt represents the kind of innovation that art needs in order to survive. Their aesthetic makes use of traditional forms but does not mimic them. It turns them inside out and, to the extent that we have come to normalize and self-identify with those traditions, it turns us inside out along with them.

“Cabaret Unkempt broadens the scope of what is typically seen as Latino,” says Perez. “One might look at them and see them as ‘black and white,’ but then they open their mouths and you hear Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese. One looks at them and might see ‘too heavy and too thin’ but they use their bodies with an authority that challenges the shame associated with conventional notions of beauty -- this sense that we have to apologize for not looking how we should. Their appearance creates expectations that contradict their performance. This forces us to realize that we have conditioned responses coloring how we see the world. I hope that their work will give us some insight into how to change this in ourselves and our world.”

At the premiere of Cabaret Unkempt in Miami two years ago, during an unforgettable scene where Duany takes us outside the bodies that can weigh us down, there were tears in the audience. Backstage that evening after the performance, I was hoping that Cabaret Unkempt would travel far beyond Miami, and that it would propel Duany and Doud onto the national stage.

I asked David Perez why he thought that Cabaret Unkempt would be relevant to his city of nearly 1 million at the south shore of the San Francisco Bay. “San Jose is about 30% Latino,” he points out, “yet the Latino art that’s readily available doesn't reflect this number. And much of the Latino art that’s out there is dedicated to preserving traditional forms rather than escalating beyond established conventions. While I am all for recognizing the origins of Latino art, I am not as concerned with losing touch with the past as I am about ensuring that we have a strong contemporary voice in the here and now.”

“We are committed to pushing this movement forward using cutting edge visual, performance and literary art. While we recognize the role of traditional art forms in our community, MACLA specializes in pursuing the boundaries -- in art that changes as people change and that challenges conventional notions of community, society and what it means to be Latino. The only way that art can interpret and transform society is for it to abandon itself to constant change. This spirit of evolution drives everything we do.”

According to Perez, “Jennylin Duany and Elizabeth Doud are the artists the world needs. They are irreverent yet polite. They are unrecognizable yet strangely familiar. You can talk to them all day and they’ll focus all their attention on you. Yet if you ask them, they'll share anything with you. Despite being very down to earth there is this quality about them, in their words and, more deeply, in their voices that at every moment they casually expect the utterly impossible to occur. I can’t easily describe how watching their show makes me feel. It makes me believe in telepathy and voodoo.”

For more information on Cabaret Unkempt and the Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana, visit www.jennylinduany.com and www.maclaarte.org

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