Research Catalog

Title

Interview with Merián Soto. March 6 and 7 2017

Author

Soto, Merian

Publication

2017.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Rivera-Servera, Ramón H., 1973-

Description

3 streaming files (approximately 3 hours and 39 minutes) : digital +

Summary

• Streaming audio file 1, March 6 (approximately one hour and 39 minutes). Merián Soto speaks with Ramón Rivera-Severa about her family background and childhood in Puerto Rico; her early dance training including educational trips to New York; her brief time at Hampshire College and how it opened her eyes to various social and political realities; her return to Puerto Rico where she studied dance and theater at the University of Puerto Rico; her life at this time, in particular the artistic circles of which she was part; her matriculation at the Gallatin School of Individualized Study (at New York University); her time there including a composition class with Meredith Monk; her first choreography, Pedacito de cristal [Shard of glass]; the intersection of her political, artistic, and social activities at this time including her involvement with the collective, the Barrunto Dancers; how she supported herself at that time including free-lance dance engagements and later her salary from CETA [Comprehensive Employment and Training Act]; her work with the Museo del Barrio; her Canal Street loft including its use as a performance and rehearsal space; her CETA project including how it brought her to Elaine Summers; Summers' influence including the use of vocalization and improvisation; creating dances that were performed in her loft including Negro [Black], Blanco [White], and Sueño de Malanga [Malanga dream]; Pepón Osorio including their work Cocinando [Cooking], which was their first collaboration; (briefly) the multi-disciplinary Latino arts organization Pepatián (founded by Soto, Osorio, and Patti Bradshaw); other works she and Osorio created together; the touring organization, Tour de Fuerza: Nuevo Latino Dance and Performance including the crucial support of David White of Dance Theater Workshop; some of the artists involved, including Viveca Vázquez, and works performed; the cultural and political significance of this project.
• Streaming audio file 2, March 7 (approximately 23 minutes). Merián Soto speaks with Ramón Rivera-Severa about her most significant collaborations with Pepón Osorio including Referencias [References] for The Decade Show [Frameworks of Identity in the 1980s], performed at Dance Theater Workshop; its political content, in particular regarding racism; their work Historias, which grew out of Referencias, and its reflections on colonialism; how she assembled the dancers for the work; the source of funds for Historias including residencies; the audience's reception of the work in Mexico, in particular to the sections that included her choreographic method, Shake Mode (shaking); her relationship (as an artist and dancer) with Puerto Rico during this period (the 1980s) including her feelings about presenting her work there; touring in Venezuela and Mexico with a reduced version of Tour de Fuerza; performing in Puerto Rico in 1989.
• Streaming audio file 3, March 7 (approximately one hour and 37 minutes). Merián Soto speaks with Ramón Rivera-Severa about the Rompeforma festival (1989-1996) created with Viveca [Vázquez], including their curatorial criteria; her sense of herself and her work during this period; how her experience with the festival strengthened her professionally; an anecdote about a retrospective of Viveca Vázquez's work; raising her children while pursuing her career including her sense that there was a new openness about being a mother in the dance world; Tamar Rogoff and her work Sleeping beauties in which Soto danced with her son Marcello; the AIDS crisis and how it affected her personally; the decision of her husband, Pepón Osorio, to focus on his visual art projects and how this affected her; the works that grew out of her experience as a go-go dancer including Tú y Yo [You and Me], Broken hearts, and Striptease; the various categories in which she groups her work including salsa and popular forms; Wally Edgecombe and his role in producing her work Familias; the reasons for their break; her work Así se baila un Són [How to dance a Son Montuno]; the use of improvisation in her salsa works; her work La máquina del tiempo including its multiple sections and the videotape shot by her longtime collaborator, Irene Sosa; its use of her Heart Mode; becoming a tenured professor [at Temple University], in particular, how this affected her personal and professional life; her self-documentation in the form of filming herself and her performances; Three branch songs including the duet, most rewardingly performed with the pianist Elio Villafranca; how teaching and her position as a tenured professor inspired her to return to dancing; her installations and how they grew out of her self-documentations; her installation SoMoS, part of her States of gravity and light series; her feelings about having received a lifetime Bessie award [Lifetime Achievement New York Dance and Performance award]; her modes and their relation to improvisational practices; some of her early modes including her Salsa Mode, Line Mode, and Collapse Mode; teaching and modes; her most recent choreographic method, Branch dancing.

Alternative Title

• Dance Oral History Project.
• Dance Audio Archive.

Subject

• Soto, Merian > Interviews
• Osorio, Pepón, 1955-
• Vázquez, Viveca
• Bradshaw, Patti
• CETA Dance Project
• Historias (Choreographic work : Osorio and Soto)
• Dance > Political aspects
• Salsa (Dance)
• Dance > Puerto Rico
• Improvisation in dance
• Dance festivals > Puerto Rico

Genre/Form

• Sound recordings.
• Oral histories.

Note

• Interview with Merián Soto conducted by Ramón Rivera-Severa on March 6 and 7, 2017, for the Jerome Robbins Dance Division Oral History Project at the The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, in New York (N.Y.).
• As of March 2023, the audio recording of this interview can be made available at the Library for the Performing Arts by advanced request to the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, dance@nypl.org. The audio files for this interview are undergoing processing and eventually will be available for streaming on site only at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.
• For transcript see *MGZMT 3-3361.
• Sound quality is good.
• Title supplied by cataloger.

Access (note)

• Access only on site at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, at Lincoln Center.
• Transcripts may not be photographed or reproduced without permission.

Funding (note)

• The creation and cataloging of this recording was made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. The support of the National Endowment for the Arts is also gratefully acknowledged.

Call Number

*MGZMT 3-3361

OCLC

1030962210

Author

Soto, Merian, interviewee.

Title

Interview with Merián Soto. March 6 and 7 2017

Imprint

2017.

Type of Content

spoken word

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

audio

Type of Carrier

online resource

volume

Digital File Characteristics

audio file

Restricted Access

Access only on site at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, at Lincoln Center.

Transcripts may not be photographed or reproduced without permission.

Event

Recorded for the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts March 6 and 7, 2017 New York (N.Y.)

Funding

The creation and cataloging of this recording was made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. The support of the National Endowment for the Arts is also gratefully acknowledged.

Connect to:

Local Subject

Rompeforma (Festival)

Pepatián (Dance company)

Added Author

Rivera-Servera, Ramón H., 1973- interviewer.

Research Call Number

*MGZMT 3-3361