Cultural identity and memory are among the many things explored through the combination of movement, song and dance that makes up “Hijos del Limbo” (“Children of Limbo”), which will be presented at GALA Hispanic Theatre Oct. 23-25.
For almost a year, Gabriela Fernández-Coffey and Mariana Osorio have collaborated as part of their group, Las Jamonas. “We’ve been working together on physical performance, movement-based work,” said Fernández-Coffey in a recent interview. “The piece is founded on action, which is sourced from images and memory as well as from text.
“I came from Puerto Rico when I was about 7 and Mariana came from Bolivia when she started university. We wanted to explore this pervading sense of feeling in-between, of emptiness, of not belonging. For some people, feeling ‘in-between’ doesn’t have to do with a country, but with whatever it is that makes people feel they do or don’t belong.
“We began with the things that evoked the greatest nostalgia in us and tried to get at what it was we were missing: was it the actual land, the people, the flag, the memory of my grandfather peeling a pear? The piece has become an exploration of something that’s very difficult to articulate, including the passage of time. We started with the music, looking at traditional ballads and rhythms from each of our countries.”
There is text for the production but it’s secondary to action and music.
“You don’t always hear the words of the writers,” Fernández-Coffey explained. “We would take a poem and from its words find actions, some of which are abstract, they seem dance-like.
“There’s a kind of folkloric aspect to this production, too, as some of these traditional songs are fading even in our home countries. We call it ‘the music of our grandparents.’ The piece is an activation of memory on our part, an activation of a culture that’s dying in many cases. We’re engaged in preserving the songs as well as in preserving our own personal connection to our heritage.”
For more information, visit www.galatheatre.org.
