PMAPS: "¡Fenomenal! Rompeforma 1989-1996" Film Screening

Join the Department of Performing and Media Arts for PMAPS: "¡Fenomenal! Rompeforma 1989-1996" Film Screening on Thursday, April 10, at 5:00 p.m. in the Film Forum, Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts. The screening will be following by a Q&A with Merián Soto and Viveca Vázquez. The event is free and open to the public.

¡Fenomenal! Rompeforma 1989–1996 is a documentary about Rompeforma: Maratón de Baile, Performance & Visuales, an experimental dance and performance festival that took place in Puerto Rico from 1989 to 1996. Co-directed and produced by Merián Soto and Viveca Vázquez, edited by Laura Sofía Pérez, and with an original score by Eduardo Alegría, Fenomenal offers a deep dive into the artistic and creative contributions of Caribbean and Latinx artists to the American avant-garde. The documentary showcases the works of a generation of Caribbean and Latinx experimental dancers, performers, and curators whose influence has often been overlooked or forgotten by historians and scholars in the field.

Fenomenal features dozens of performances and interviews with many prominent leaders in the field, including those who have sadly passed. Among the notable figures featured in the documentary are Awilda Sterling Duprey and Coco Fusco (both highlighted in the 2022 Whitney Biennial), Antonio Martorell (recently awarded the National Medal of the Arts), Pepón Osorio (whose solo exhibition is currently at the New Museum in NYC), Raphael Montañez (founder of El Museo del Barrio in NYC), David Zambrano (celebrated dancer, master teacher, and director of TicTac Art Centre in Brussels), and renowned theater artists Carmelita Tropicana and Guillermo Gómez Peña. The documentary also features the work of Nuyorican poets Sandra María Esteves, Pedro Pietri, and Miguel Algarín, among many others.

Viveca Vázquez is a leading figure in experimental dance and performance in Puerto Rico. A full professor at the University of Puerto Rico, she teaches movement in the Theater Department and classical studies in the School of General Studies. Vázquez is also a 2022 United States Artists Mellon Fellow, and has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña. In 2013, the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico (MAC) presented a retrospective of her work, CONDUCTA Coreografía del Error [CONDUCT Choreography of Error], marking the first time a museum in Puerto Rico celebrated the work of a movement artist on such a significant scale. Her performances have been presented in experimental venues in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Venezuela, Mexico, Argentina, Portugal, Ecuador, and Brussels. In 2023, she co-produced and co-directed Fenomenal, Rompeforma 1989–1996, a documentary film with Merián Soto.

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This two-day colloquium is organized by the Performance and Media Arts Presentation (PMAPS) series. Inaugurated in Fall 2021, PMAPS is the latest iteration of a colloquium series within the Department of Performing and Media Arts. Its greatest vision lies in offering graduate students a space to present their work to students, faculty, and professionals of similar fields and interests. The content of its presentations ranges from media studies to dance, and such diverse nature has earned the attention of related communities both within and outside Ithaca, NY.

These two events are sponsored by the Latin American and Caribbean Studies Program and the Einaudi Center for International Studies. Co-sponsored by the Performing and Media Arts Presentation Series, Department of Art History, Latina/o Studies Program, American Studies Program, Department of Literatures in English, Department of Comparative Literature, and Feminist, Gender & Sexuality Studies.

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