Photo by Paulo Cezar Alves
Audio By Carbonatix
The origins of Roxana Barba’s latest multimedia work, “Apuntes Americanos-Kanay,” are rooted in ancient history – 3,000 years before Christ, pre-Incan civilizations that had a deep study of cosmology and intricate relationships with the natural world.
“The cosmology really explains their view of the world and their existence and how the natural world, meaning their ancestors, their family, and themselves, they were all interconnected,” says Barba after returning to Miami from an intensive month-long residency in the Peruvian rainforest. “I found that understanding was powerful and very relevant to me personally now, during these times where a main crisis has to do with the environmental crisis and our disconnection from the world around us.”
With support from the Knight Foundation, Barba began the research and development of the work in 2019 and created an early version, which she presented in 2021 in Peru with support from Alliance Cultural Française de Miraflores and Correlación Contemporánea.
Using archeological research of 19th-century French explorers as an entry point, “Apuntes Americanos-Kanay” has Barba reimagining the Eurocentric vision of ancient Peruvian culture, excavating and sifting for truth among the long-held European archetypes of indigenous cultures and how they impact present-day thinking.
“The French explorers presented the image of this indigenous savage man and woman. For me, that was also particularly interesting because, you know, when we come to understand how we see race, how we see social classes, all these things are very rooted in historic events.”
The work mixes movement, iconography, text, and music that is informed by the past with a vision of a future, represented through augmented reality video projections by artist Leo Casteneda. Audiences are invited to enter an archeological excavation into a world of surprises.
Performer Briana Mendez in Roxana Barba’s “Apuntes Americanos-Kanay” at Alianza Cultural Francesa de Miraflores in Lima
Photo by Paulo Cezar Alves
“We take the liberty to make a little bit of fun of the French gaze towards what was observed through dance, through text,” she says, “with the idea that we reflect critically on our past, but use that – use what we learn to decolonize the way that we envision our future as better embracing our place in the world.”
The piece plays with the idea of time, borrowing from how ancient cultures viewed it. “One of the main things of the ancestral cosmovision is the way that time is viewed,” says Barba. “It is so unlike the way that we see time, which is linear – past, present, future. They see time as cyclical, so that’s why there’s a life and an afterlife. When I started thinking of these cyclical phases, perhaps like personal phases, while also looking at the world and what cycles we go through now, I felt that I understood what was happening in a larger dimension.”
The observation of these cycles and how early colonial framing of indigenous cultures continue to be portrayed in the present was further reinforced for Barba during the 2022 social and political protests in Peru, political violence that Amnesty International ascribed to systemic racism ingrained in Peruvian society and its authorities for decades.
“Watching this from afar and having just presented an early version of the piece in Peru, it felt terribly upsetting, and I felt I had to respond to these events somehow through the work.”
The resultant multisensory experience is ultimately meant to invoke curiosity, understanding, joy, and a deeper connection to the natural world and humanity.
As Barba says, “It includes some surprises where we hopefully make people laugh, but then also walk out with a sense that they may have had a profound experience.”
– Rebekah Lanae Lengel, ArtburstMiami.com
“Apuntes Americanos-Kanay.” 8 p.m. Friday, October 27 and Saturday, October 28, at the Koubek Center Theater at Miami Dade College, 2705 SW Third St., Miami; 305-237-7750; koubekcenter.org. Tickets cost $15.
