mateohurtadothings

[mateohurtadothings]

The words we use are who we are.

Anna Deavere Smith

[mateohurtadothings]

me reading Pedro Pietri’s taxing, laborious, existential, hilarious poem “Suicide Note From a Cockroach in a Low Income Housing Project” (From Pietri’s poetry album “Loose Joints”, 1979) whilst celebrating Dr. Sandra Ruiz’s new book, Ricanness: Enduring Time in Anticolonial Performance 

Grab the book here:

https://nyupress.org/9781479825684/ricanness/

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YouTube channel launch!

Y’all! Catch and share feelings?? Jk. My YouTube channel is here:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-0EII7NM5wcXu6OcIQ-muw

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Rican Incantations: A Synthesis of Sonero Stardom and Caribbean Colorism in Joaquin Octavio’s staged reading of “ECUA JEI”

By: Mateo Hurtado 

“Cortijo had created a recipe with a taste, un bocaito for everyone, and isn’t that how we, as island people eat, with everything on the plate instead of separated into neat, American TV dinnerstyle compartments?”

-From “Ecua Jei! Ismael Rivera, El Sonero Mayor (A Personal Recollection)” by Aurora Flores

What happens when the joy of your upbringing, your becoming, transfers to a space that you think is rather removed from your roots? When you have that exhale that you sustain after winning dominó combined with smelling the arroz con gandules moments after its ready to eat, does time stop? Reaching tangentially at possible ways of understanding Rican existence but mostly cueing my (in)finite memories of growing up in Chicago as a freakin’ MexiRican, my experience last summer in NYC at Cherry Lane Theatre certainly stopped me in my tracks with my memorias. Featured in the reading series presented by the Dramatists Guild & Cherry Lane, Power Grid: A Festival of Puerto Rican Theatre Voices, was a performance piece que se llama Ecua Jei penned and helmed by San Juan based director-dramatist multihyphenate Joaquin Octavio.

The performance which I hesitate to place or position as a play as much as it encourages you to do so, follows the origins of iconic Salsero sensation, Ismael Rivera. Rivera being a Puerto Rican black individual desde Santurce who began working as a bricklayer then skyrocketed to international music acclaim as an improvisational Sonero star. Assuming the role of El Sonero Mayor was Mr. Volmar, Andres Waldemar Volmar, that is ; Modesto Lacén dived in as his right hand man and fellow sonero, Rafael Cortijo. Yet, equally as important as the two actors reifying the seminal Salsa figures, what certainly is as alive as the island (#tamobiencc: Bad Bunny) to consider in the staging of this story is the fierce ensemble combined with the otherworldly music direction from Desmar Guevara fused with percussions by Marcos Lopez & Camilo Molina. The band, the band, the band, the music, the sounds of being together and collective noise is what sang the song of this spontaneous Rican Incantation that night. As the actions, inactions, existential woes, cries for dear life and death echoed from character to character, the ghosts of substance abuse as well as colorism attacked the key players. Yet, to not conflate or polarize these power dynamics, it was partially through music and aesthetic intervention in tandem with reinvention that in the 1970’s “As far as Cortijo was concerned, it is the skill and precision of the indio and not the choice of arrow that hits the target. The bomba was now needed for a newer insurrection, a cultural one inclusive of both black pride and Boricua identity unifying the lighterskinned jíbaro with his black coastal cousin.” (Flores 66)

So what of this Sonero stardom and its persistent ability to surpass, to a certain extent, or at least combat caribeño colorism? What does it mean for (and pardon my lighterskinned jibaroness, I’ll check my bias at the door) this retelling of -Ismael Rivera’s claim, little bit of shame, then claim to fame shining as bright as possible- to be unearthed in this political moment? Perhaps this inkling to latch onto all-things-improvisational by nature is helping me make sense of what I experienced that night as an audience member, as a pseudo-perpetual-performer that evening. To specify, to hone in on this investigating, I want to take a closer look at both meanings of incantations; the first being “a series of words said as a magic spell or charm” followed by the second “the use of words as a magic spell”. QUIZAS, the Rican incantations in the space deflected, refused, and dare I say resisted (ugh) the opportunity for subjectivity in the confines of ONLY Theatre, a concert, words that always have meaning, a freestyle, a poem, a speech, a lovely gathering of minds and spirits with seldom worries about a fire hazard, a protest, a town hall meeting, an embodied manifesto. On the verge of 3 hours including an intermission, this glimpse, this window tan abierto with every smell you could hypothetically imagine was left wide open for all to look at and look with- a shared feeling, a shared sentimiento, a shared orgullo of Salsa, of Ricanness, of a place that’s not-yet-imagined, all left spread across your plate.

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Photo credit: Allen Henson (2016)

http://www.allenhenson.nyc

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THE OVAL OFFICE ADDRESS OVAL OFFICE ADDRESS

written, performed, and staged by Mateo Hurtado 

Special thanks to: Teresa Cruz, Sarah Einspanier, Sophie Ruiz-Gehrt, Ryan Carson, Jayel Gant, Sandra Ruiz, and B. Gisela with the creation and conceptualizing of this character (THE WHITE HOUSE, THE LITERAL BUILDING). And gracias again to Citizens United. 

“-------------------------- Ars Nova Presents: -------------------------- One Night Stand CITIZENS UNITED II: WHAT HAPPENED?Wednesday, January 17 @ 8PM Curated by CITIZENS UNITED with performances from AMBER ALERT, KYLE DACUYAN, JESS GOLDSCHMIDT, ARTI GOLLAPUDI, DEEPALI GUPTA, MATEO HURTADO, EMILY OLIVEIRA, CHRIS TYLER, ELISABET VELASQUEZ and more!

----------- ABOUT -----------

On November 8, 2016, a group of drag queens, poets and punk musicians gathered to commemorate what they assumed would be the election of the first woman president of the United States. On January 18, 2017, they reassembled on the eve of a fascist inauguration. One year later, they convene to (re)consider: What Happened?

--------------------------- ABOUT THE ARTISTS ---------------------------

CITIZENS UNITED is a leftist performance collective comprised of Kyle Dacuyan, Jess Goldschmidt, Deepali Gupta, Kate McGee, Emily Oliveira & Chris Tyler. This is their fourth project together. “

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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/01/arts/music/claire-chase-pan-the-kitchen.html

a rehearsal snapshot from PAN. 

““PAN is a 90-minute participatory performance for flutist, electronics, and mass community participation in the form of a large ensemble of non-professional or trained players/collaborators. Imani Uzuri joins as a featured performer.Composed by Marcos Balter, directed by Douglas Fitch, and produced by Jane M. Saks and Project&, the piece uses seven tableaux exploring the life of the god Pan, one of only two Greek deities said to have been put to death. It marshals myth to articulate and explore the tensions of our contemporary lives and world. The experience and creative participation attempt to demonstrate, rather than speculate, how music-making allows for societies and communities to create together, shape space, question, reflect, re-visit, re-order and arrive in new and re-imagined locations again and again.”

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“Back to John”: Relaying Laughter, Place at Play, and John Early’s Now More Than Ever at the Bell House 

By: Mateo Hurtado 

********************************************* “There must be another way Cause I believe in taking chances But who am I to say What a girl is to do? God, I need some answers” -Britney Jean Spears, Overprotected, Britney (2001) It’s a Friday night, almost 9:30pm, so naturally, I’m on my way to catch NOW MORE THAN EVER, a performance by John Early at The Bell House in Brooklyn. Early being a Nashville born and raised, now bicoastal comedian, actor, and host. Spanning from his tenure as host of Showgasm, a variety show that continues to cause a wildly fun time at Ars Nova, to his current role as host of his own show at The Satellite in LA, John has found his way revisiting his old haunts in Brooklyn. Literally a block away from arriving to the Bell House, a peculiar site and sight caught my attention. Stopping me dead in my tracks was a deli on the block of 7th street called “Back to John’s Deli”. Now what are the odds of that? I absolutely took this name as a cue from the universe that whatever I was about to experience would be simply John, or Literally Me, the latter being the name of a solo show of his from back-in-the-day. Moments after the surreal deli encounter, I messaged my friend Sandra Ruiz about what I found and made sure to mention how the name was incredibly fitting with John’s aura. Or to put it differently, if Early himself ran a deli, it would certainly always be: back to John, back to John. Ruiz, who also was his professor during his undergrad days in a solo performance course at NYU, totally agreed that the deli name was symbolic, symbolic, symbolic. At 10, right after the 7:30 show, things were set in motion via the vivacious mix of performers including: the house band Yazan and the Gates Family, Theda Hammel, and Bowen Yang. Theda Hammel sonically energized the space over at Ars during their Showgasm days, meanwhile Bowen was one of the ‘gasm guest hosts last year at the start of the Showgasm Post-Early era. Yang’s stand-up set was met with some trivia and gags up his sleeve steamrolling through fragments of Asian culture as it relates to his identity and the many riotous stereotypes along the way. Never shying away from the political and in tandem, the personal, John stormed the stage by conjuring up one of his fav tracks: Kitty Kat, Early made sure to mention that this track is notably excluded from Beyonce’s mainstream canon. The reason why? It’s yet to be seen. Yet what was as clear as day, expected from the get-go, was immense laughter transmitting from the audience to Early, then from Early to Early without missing a beat, followed by even more energy thus bringing the house down. What I am referring to specifically is John’s keen ability to organically allow laughter, even at himself, to be an instrument, a tool in his bag of tricks,instead of deterring or squashing his rhythm. Subversive from second to second, Early toys with the politics of artifice in striking ways which could be traced throughout his work, one example being his recent web series 555 on Vimeo opposite his frequent collaborator and partner in crime: Kate Berlant. While John took time in between acts to reassure to the audience that the evening’s show could be an opportunity to ignore the political climate, each spontaneous and rehearsed moment seemed to accomplish the exact opposite. Rounding out the evening, John’s character Vicky with a V, from his Netflix special: The Characters, returned to the spotlight where should had been all along, with her denim, of course. After Vicky’s skit, John decided to leave on the Vicky get-up to wrap things up by singing Donna Summers’ I Feel Love. This choice feels especially in sync, or might as well N*Sync (tbh) with his style since Early’s comedic voice is activated by his own personality. Constantly pushing the boundaries between character and himself, this last musical number was arresting yet not disorienting as the iconic Summers ballad was splashed with both Vicky, John, and a groovy undercurrent beaming with love and possibility far different from our current abysmal world of hate and dismay. So while the true spirit of Early may still be unraveling before our very eyes, Now More Than Ever glowingly came to a close, paradoxically, with vulnerability while still under the guise of Vicky with a V: by deeply looking for another way to be-in-the-world.

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! The Co-Dramaturg’s note from this year’s staged reading of THE SUCCESSFUL LIFE OF 3. https://www.facebook.com/browntheatrecollective/

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PRESS: 

Check out this high octane thrill ride of an interview with me and the fantastic Emily Oliveira (http://emilyaoliveira.tumblr.com) 

we run through my artistic origins, inspiration for my latest show UNCUT FROM AIR! directed by Dusty Childers, and a wholeeeee lot more. 

[mateohurtadothings]

Irony is a tool of modern creativity.

Virgil Abloh