A Dance MFA project by Giovanna Sosa Santos

Body of work comprising Tense-Gritty and Scopes of Dialog

Committee chair: Luis A. Lara Malvacías

Collaborators info:

Movers: Allison Rodríguez, Linda Nuñez, Victoria Sagardia, Jose Reyero and Yan Collazo

Sound Design and Live Music: Santos “Sancho” Benítez Ortíz and Arenga 

Costume Design: Sara Cristina Cruz

View the poster

Bomba Extractions is a body of creative artistic work that seeks to inquire the fundamentals and explore the possibilities of existing and mutating that Afro-Puerto Rican music contains, in particular, bomba. The sharing of this research is composed of two multidisciplinary projects created on the basis of the Experimental Bomba concept, which seeks to reveal the production of knowledge that occurs in the bomba gatherings/dances. The first version of the experiments is a sculptural installation called Tense-Gritty, followed by the sharing of a live solo/duo performance called Scopes of Dialog.

In this research we ask the following questions: 

How can Afro-descendent practices and values be amplified to reimagine the constitution and future presence of the body? As puertorriqueños, how do we negotiate the tensions we experience as political individual subjects when expressing ourselves and communicating with each other in the batey (considering the batey space as a way to experience life)? How do we apply lightness when working with/in resistance?

DISCLOSURE:

Some performances might include nudity, mature themes, profanity through the music, or experimental corporeal practices.

Performance Dates & Times

Live sharing/performance:

March 4, 2022 at 5 p.m. AST.

Hospital Aguirre, Salinas P.R.

Publication of audiovisual documentation:

March 11, 2022 at 3 p.m. PST

Watch the video

Artist Talk via Zoom has been CANCELED.

Bio

Giovanna Sosa Santos, Ella/She
gsosa008@ucr.edu
Bachillerato en Artes Escénicas con especialidad en Danza. Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, Puerto Rico
Giovanna Sosa Santos is an experimental dance artist who focuses her dance making in rhythmical, improvisational and traditional dances from Puerto Rico, specifically Bomba Puertorriqueña. Currently developing several interdisciplinary projects, the artist questions are invested in the process of knowledge production by afro-Caribbean ontologies of the body. Her actual research is motivated by the sound perceptions that the body can grasp from the musical instruments, songs, corporeal relationships, and the eventual reminiscences left in the space where the bodies performed. Her aim is to create cultural appreciation and navigate possibilities in the meaning making of culture and its practice.

Image credit: Research process photographs (2020-2022). Giovanna Sosa Santos