This is salsa in fugitivity: Black, migrant, and dissident bodies resisting through memory, rhythm, and desire.
€12 reduced
€8 student
VAIVÉN is an atemporal, ancestral, and political journey through the music-dance complex of salsa. The intimate solo performance takes us on a path along Blackness, migration, and sex-gender dissidence converging in a state of constant fugitivity—an ancestral technology of re-existence rooted in the legacy of cimarronaje (escaping from slavery to form a free community). This movement traverses physical, symbolic, and spiritual landscapes, carried by personal and collective memory, and by desire.
VAIVÉN reclaims the popular archive and the salsa imaginary of Black neighborhoods and their diasporas. It is an act of dignifying lives and knowledges historically marginalised and rendered subaltern.
VAIVÉN radicalizes the idea of a scenic mangrove: an interconnected ecosystem without hierarchy, where materials, sonorities, bodies, relationships, gazes, and ways of listening coexist.
about
Camilo Mejía, a multidisciplinary artist from Cali, Colombia, grew up surrounded by music and dance but only began formal dance training at the age of 21 in Barcelona. His passion for improvisation and performance led him to Salzburg SEAD (Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance). In his final year, he performed as a guest artist with the Bodhi Project Company in Cecilia Bengolea’s production "Sounds of Trap". He took part in the Salzburg Opera Festival’s "L'incoronazione di Poppea," directed by Jan Lauwers, and later joined Needcompany, where he performed in works such as “War and Turpentine," “Isabella’s Room,” and “PIE.” Camilo was previously featured at Beursschouwburg in The Sadness by Ula Sickle in 2020 and in DARKMATTER by Cherish Menzo in 2022.
Concept, choreography: Camilo Mejía and José Ramón Hernández.
On stage: Camilo Mejía, su madre Leydi Cortés, su padre Jhonny Mejía, su tía Luz Dary Cortés, su primera pareja de salsa Paola, sus amigos salseros, Cheo Feliciano, Celia Cruz, La Lupe, La Banda Sonora de la infancia, Eleggua, Papá Oggún, mi padrino Morandy Puig y mi madrina Gretel, Siete Rayos, Yemaya y las muertas cimarronas.
Dramaturgy: José Ramón Hernández
Dramaturgical advisor: Nicole Geertruida
Light Design: Pier Gallen
Scenography: Špela Tušar
Costume Design: Patricia Mokosi
Music and Sound: Clay Chénière
Subtitles: Federico Vladimir
Outside eye: Isabel van Hauwe, Cherish Menzo, Adeola Aderemi, Eric Cyuzuzo.
Special thanks for the support : Elisa Liepsch, Personaje Personaje, Marina Santo, Iki Yos Piña, Federico Vladimir and Pablo Lilienfield, Berta Vicente Salas, Catalina Insignares, Carolina Mendoza, Saskia Leudo, Ariadna Peya, Periferia Cimarronxs, Konvent, Buda, EICTV San Antonio de los Baños.
EXECUTIVE PRODUCTION: ANAKU
COPRODUCTION: BEURSSCHOUWBURG (BRUSSELS-BE), VIERNULVIER (GHENT - BE), KUSTENWERKPLAATS (PIANOFABRIEK- BRUSSELS BE) THEATER ROTTERDAM (ROTTERDAM- NL)
WITH SUPPORT OF STUK (LEUVEN -BE), Brakke GROND (AMSTERDAM - NL) & THE FLEMISH COMMUNITY COMMISSION (VGC)
image (c) Bart Grietens
