Animal PolitiQueer

During August 2019, the MAC welcomed the multifaceted artist Eduardo Alegría and his most recent musical projects Alegría Rampante and Polvos del Sahara for a series of workshops and concerts.

The exhibition showcased some of Alegría's collaborations with other artists through a selection of materials ranging from video, to photo, costumes, drawings and memorabilia, from his own archive.

The exhibition, guest curated by Bernat Tort, presented the evolution of a bestiary of characters and animals ranging from "Lucy" - a 1995 dance piece - to "Giraffe" - a song that refers to the repressed body, which seeks its release. When retrospectively looking at Eduardo Alegría's complete work, a caravan of strange animals is discovered in it –farifos, ducks, iguanas and platypus–; an uninterrupted concern for the evolution of the human through its transformation into the animal.

While it is true that since Aristotle we already recognize ourselves as a “political animal”, this animal of the polis is traditionally seen as an animal of consensus, which negotiates its differences for the benefit of all, which follows a logic of majorities. The one Alegría proposes, however, is a queer political animal.

An antisocial animal, a minority animal; an animal that positions itself - always contingently - within difference and forces the norm to bend, to expand, to break and thus give rise to an unexpected novelty. A political animal as a commitment to the future that can generate that difference.

Eduardo Alegría grew up during the 70s and 80s in Puerto Rico admiring pop culture figures such as Donna Summers, Nina Hagen, Boy George, Grace Jones, the Eurythmics, Sade and Tina Turner, among others.

During the 1980s, when the music video became the main promotional tool for musicians, their creativity provided a window into the possibilities of gender bending through art, costume, design and performance. These early influences are presented in the exhibition through Eduardo’s notebook drawings from 1985-86, depicting admired celebrities and self-portrait collages.

Alegría's desire to "dress up" has evolved into numerous collaborations with artists and designers who create costumes for his musical projects Alegría Rampante and Polvos del Sahara, most notably with Uziel Orlandi Alegría, Gabriel Soto and Albert Torres.

The piece Tipos del Paleo featured two men in a kind of process of evolution. From primitiveness, little by little approaching modernity. This evolution contained a queer element during all its stages. Queerness as natural. Queerness as part of our human evolution.

Domingo (1994) was Alegría’s second stage production, and the first in New York City. It was commissioned by Performance Space 122 and consisted of two pieces: Nice Puertorican! Nice Puertorican!, which included a semi improvised monologue and dance sequences; and Domingo, a comedic piece inspired by Puerto Rico’s countryside extraterrestrial lore.

Lucy is inspired by the paleontological finding of the same name - several hundred pieces of fossilized bone discovered in 1974 in Africa, at Hadar, a site in the Awash Valley of the Afar Triangle in Ethiopia, representing 40 percent of the skeleton of a female of the hominin species Australopithecus afarensis. Lucy is a companion piece of sorts to Tipos del Paleo that references representation and gender performance from a queer perspective.

After spending several years in New York City participating in the downtown performance scene, Alegría started to ponder his economic possibilities and long term desire to stay in the city. In 1997, he decided to relocate back to Puerto Rico to start a musical project with Francis Pérez, a long time friend from his college years at the University of Puerto Rico. The resulting project became Superaquello, a name inspired by a dance piece by Alegría about an unsuccessful Puerto Rican superhero.

Following the final break up of Superaquello in 2011, and after several years of producing very little performance work, Esquina Periferia [Periphery Corner] was Alegría’s first “full evening” production since his New York days. This "post-apocalyptic", according to Alegría, musical theater piece included many of the songs that later became part of the Alegría Rampante set.

The show consisted of two parts: Feoquedigamos en directo desde el lobby del Hotel Puercoespín [Feoquedigamos live from the lobby of the Porcupine Hotel], and a new version of an earlier piece, Bus Boy Love, which had been produced and presented in NY before Alegría’s return to Puerto Rico. In it, Alegría mixed Almodovar-like melodrama with elements of camp and slapstick, which contrast with the emotionally charged and intense vulnerability on display.

The post-Superaquello creativity sparked by the music and lyrics produced for Esquina Periferia marked the beginning of Alegría's musical collaboration with Kristian Prieto who, along with Juan Antonio Arroyo, Nitayno Arayoán and William Jorell Román, would go on to form Alegría Rampante.

Selection of various Alegría Rampante posters and photographs sold as merch and used to promote concerts, including the two night stint at Teatro Tapia in November, 2016 that marked the first time a rock band has played the historic theater in Old San Juan.

During the exhibition, the gallery space was used for rehearsals, movement and scenic presence workshops, as well as the venue for concerts by Polvos del Sahara and Alegría Rampante. The designated "stage" was decorated with a mural inspired by Alfredo Richner's album cover design for Alegría Rampante's Se nos fue la mano. During regular museum hours, there was a looped projection of several of the band's music videos resulting from the enduring collaboration between Alegría and 9A5 Cine Crew (William Rosario and Kemel Jamis).

Among the many public events organized for Animal PolitiQueer, was a Polvos del Sahara concert. This project, which started post Hurricane Maria in 2017, was inspired by cover bands, bohemian nights and gay piano bars music. Pianist Alexandra Rivera accompanies Eduardo Alegría as he interprets popular songs, takes satirical liberties with some lyrics and pays homage to other amazing talents from Puerto Rico's independent music scene.

The concert also featured the premiere of the music video for the song "Jirafa" by Alegría Rampante ft. Fofé Abreu (lead singer of Circo, Fofé y los Fetiches, and Clarias). The video, co-produced by the MAC, was directed by Oswaldo Ortiz Colón and shot in the otherworldly Punta Guaniquilla Natural Reserve in Cabo Rojo.

According to Alegría, the new song was inspired by the human body, specifically the action of walking and finding a healthy physical and spiritual posture to better navigate the ups and downs of life and time. Given the trajectory of the two singers, the song and accompanying video, are also a testament to the enduring power and resilience of the Puerto Rican independent music scene.