Sofía Reeser del Rio / Interviews Nicolás on Performing the Bronx

Sofía Reeser del Rio: Nicolás Performing the Bronx began in 2015. Can you share what initially sparked the idea for the project and how your vision for it has evolved over time?

Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles Morel:  Sofía, here we are a decade after we worked together at El Museo de Barrio on Office Hours, the experience that put me in touch with all departments at this organization and that kept me playing there for one full year. You were then an Assistant Curator at El Museo and acted as the Project Manager for the idea that I set in motion with El Museo’s staff, audiences and with a group of artists. I have such good memories about this and remember how supportive you were of all of my creative mischievousness!

2015 marked the fourth year of my baptism as a Bronxite at Drew Gardens. This was a rite of passage officiated by Martha Wilson and for which I asked Bill Aguado and Susan Newmark to be my Godparents. This action involved interactions with neighbors, communities and organizations, as well as with other creatives. As a result of my baptism, I understood that I was called to learn more about the place that I call home, the South Bronx, and so Performing the Bronx was a way of being guided as to histories/herstories/theirstories, stories and legacies by some of the luminaries of our borough.

Up to now, I have performed the Bronx with Arthur Avilés, Bill Aguado, Benny Bonilla, Mili Bonilla, Caridad De La Luz ‘La Bruja’, Dr. Drum, Ana ‘ROKAFELLA’ García, Reverend Danilo Lachapel, Wanda Salamán, and Rhina Valentin. Like most of what I do, I do not see Performing the Bronx as a project because this experience is very much about life and not an endeavor in the sense of getting something done career-wise. What happens is that, with Performing the Bronx, like with a great deal of the actions I kindle, I was mentored by people with whom I continue to be in communication with at a personal level. This is one of the reasons why I purposely choose carefully who I want to work with, because of the ties that are formed in the process. I have been blessed with a circle of people who I support and who support me.

Regarding your question pertaining to whether my vision for this experience has evolved over time, it depends. The core of Performing the Bronx remains intact conceptually yet, if I were to continue to think of new chapters, I would like to focus on African American, First Nation, and Mexican individuals whose contributions to our neighborhoods are central to our part of the City. I am curious as to how Mexicans moving into our area are layering the conversation with cultural forms that were not necessarily here 10 years ago to the extent that they are today. I would love to learn form the Black activists who have been keeping our place alive through many of the crises, including the fiscal one in the mid 1970s, and who are a tremendous part of the culture of our city. This is to name just a few of the communities who continue to shape the South Bronx.

SRdR: What changes have you observed in the Bronx since you began working on this project, and how have these transformations influenced the stories you’ve chosen to highlight?

NDEREOM: Rather than trying to cover too much territory, in nine out of the first ten chapters in Performing the Bronx, I work with Nuyoricam, Puerto Rican and New York Rican Bronxites. My entry point into the South Bronx as a community has been influenced for me by many people connected to this Caribbean island. After my baptism I became aware how, for me, in order to be a Bronxite I also needed somehow to explore the possibility of becoming Puerto Rican, New York Rican and or Nuyorican. I also wanted to learn how these Caribbean siblings of mine have managed to generate culture, overcome adversity, remain proud of themselves, and continue the struggle in a city that not always thought much of people like us. I have been visually and emotionally inspired by the presence of the Puerto Rican flag all over the Bronx, and I was like, wow. This, in my opinion, is about claiming space without having to apologize to oppressive systems, and making sure that those systems that are still seeking to exterminate Others who look, speak or are seen as unlike them know that the Other is here and has not only managed to survive but to keep the cultures alive.

I do not think that growing up I ever heard about the Bronx. It was not on my radar. I was in the Dominican Republic and my world revolved around Lebanon and the Caribbean as cultural threads for who I was. I do remember that a Cuban friend born in Puerto Rico had told me that if I visited New York, she would speak with her Cuban husband’s family to see if I could stay with them. She told me they lived in the South Bronx and things there were rough. It was not until 1991 when I started to visit places like Hunts Point, where I finally became an Art Consultant for a series of Head Starts name La Peninsula, which Martha J. Watford had founded with parents in the community. And before La Peninsula, it was the Bronx River Restoration Project, where I was hired by Nancy Wallace, a Bronx River advocate, to work teaching art to children in the Fordham Road section. The Bronx was meant to be in my life and I am happy it did. I am who am I am today in great part because of the Bronx and its peoples.

So, to answer your question, I was visiting the Bronx at a time when there were many empty lots, when I would sometimes be the only soul in the train car traveling there from Manhattan, and when national and local fear about the place ran high. I did witness some of the danger in the form of muggings, shootings or killings, and I always felt emotionally safe there because the love I received was greater than any other force I could have encountered. Part of me is aware that places change, that New York City neighborhoods shift rapidly. Part of me understands that many of the neighborhoods in the South Bronx are underserved and still I would not like to see gentrification wreck our place the way it has happened in Brooklyn and Queens and on the Upper West Side in Manhattan where I used to live. I am here because of the people. I am here because I wanted to live in a place where neighbors look like me and vice versa, and where I would not be asked one more time where was I from: that has been the Bronx to me. Plus, the blessings from passersby. Where else? This is of course my personal story and it might certainly not match those of others living here. Life is and can be very difficult for many, many Bronxites as a result of environmental racism, obvious city neglect, and the stigma of the borough which persists, until developers find a way to tell newcomers that this is the cool location to move to. All of what I have shared here so far has influenced the narratives that Performing the Bronx brings forward and which speak of hardships but also of playing stickball in the streets, of dancing in legendary nightclubs, of writing poetry with neighbors, of bringing mothers together to protest rapacious landlords, or feeding blocks of people, and drumming as nourishment for the spirit.

SRdR: As part of Historias with The Clemente, a program centering the impact of Latinx communities in NYC, how do you see your work resonating with broader themes of Latinx heritage, identity, and transformation across the city?

NDEREOM: I have been talking about how Latinx are invisible in the USA imaginary. Nowadays, you hear more about us because we supposedly gave Trump a victory. Aside from this, this country, in my opinion does not know who we are as a people. But perhaps we do not know either. Latinx can be all and many things and I am not so keen with the term–although I value the gender affirming x part. I see myself first and foremost as a Lebanese Dominican from the Caribbean. But, for when it comes to supporting our common struggles, which are real, I am Latinx. You can count me in. Many of our stories in our city run the risk of being dismissed, no matter how many of us live in this place. You come to my neighborhood and we might be the majority, our languages are everywhere, and our food and cultures cannot be hidden, but they are. When I thought of launching Performing the Bronx in 2015, I wanted to offer a platform to the many people in the Bronx who have been here for me and countless others, who have shown me and many neighbors kindness and who understand oppression. I personally wanted to honor them, even if modestly and let them know that I see them and that what they have been doing means a lot. I have said this here before, the Bronx is the only place in New York City that registers as the City in my psyche. People here set chairs on the sidewalks to engage in conversations. That says a lot about the spirit of our neighborhoods. The reality is, that this might not last for decades to come. Gentrification is always lurking in a city like this. We have been lucky in this respect. We might have to deal with wilted vegetables and overpriced processed food, but there is still community.

SRdR: The artists and cultural figures featured in Performing the Bronx are deeply rooted in their communities. How did you approach collaborating with these individuals, and in what ways did their contributions shape the final work?

NDEREOM: These are all individuals who I admire. I cannot work with a person just because of the potential success that that they could bring to my career, especially at 57. And I don’t have a career, since I do not see myself running after anything. Instead, I see myself walking a path. This is where inviting others comes in. Sometimes the path can get lonely and it is wonderful to have company, to be guided by mentors, to mentor others, to co-create, or to share what we are going through in life. To be more specific about Performing the Bronx, I met Arthur Avilés years before I conceived of this experience. Bill Aguado is my Godfather as it relates to my baptism along the Bronx River. I met Wanda Salamán, and Danilo Lachapele through Alicia Grullón. Wanda Salamán introduced me to Mili Bonilla. Milia Bonilla introduced me to Dr. Drum. Christine Licata introduced me to Benny Bonilla. I had worked with Caridad De La Luz ‘La Bruja’ as part of a program at Bronx River Art Center for which I served as a consultant. ‘La Bruja’ put me in touch with Ana ‘ROKAFELLA’ García. As for Rhina Valentin, I met her 20 years ago at Longwood Art Gallery/BCA, when Edwin Ramoran introduced us. Isn’t this wonderful? I very much enjoy seeing how this web was been weaved and how it continues to expand.

SRdR: You place a strong emphasis on reclaiming histories and narratives at risk of erasure. How do you see Performing the Bronx contributing to the preservation of cultural memory in the borough?

NDEREOM: There are several places in the Bronx that preserve histories and stories, including The Bronx Music Heritage Center (BMHC), led by Elena Martínez and Bobby Sanabria. There is also BAAD! the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance where Arthur Avilés and Charles-Rice González have given a home to the queer theirstories in our borough. The thing about the Bronx is that, at least creatively, it is a very atomized place, and therefore I don’t feel the same kind of cohesiveness that I experience in the Lower East Side in Manhattan, where artists from each generation know and support each other. I see this as unfortunate, but remember that the Bronx is big and that it does not tend to generate the kind of homogeneous situations like the Lower East Side, Washington Heights or Williamsburg. Take as an example the considerable number of Dominicans moving to the Bronx. and yet nothing resembling Washington Heights will be replicated here in terms of a single distinctive culture. This will likely inform how Performing the Bronx will proceed if I were to co-create many more chapters in the years to come. As I stated above the stories and histories of the Mexicans arriving in Longwood section are crucial, and so are the Black and African American ones, and the Garifuna and Jewish European ones. The Bronx to me resonates with the US mainland in ways that the other boroughs might not. We are tangibly connected by land to the rest of Turtle Island.

I would like to close my response by saying that Performing the Bronx’s contribution to the telling of histories/herstories/theirstories/ourstories is done in a non-linear way, more like in a spiral. Remember that I am approaching this experience from the perspective of a person versed and trained in performance art. Therefore, when I invite an iconic Bronxite to tell their story it is about enacting it together. It is about walking, dancing it and awakening the narrative in their/our bodies and communities and giving it shape beyond words. That is what makes what other creatives call social engagement and storytelling and sharing different for me. In my case, it is about living it in the present and not only about remembering.

SRdR: How do your broader artistic practices—particularly your interests in ritual, ceremony, and healing—intersect with the creation of Performing the Bronx

NDEREOM: It is interesting that you are asking this question because I did not think of it, the reason being that ceremony and ritual have been common threads in what I have been doing creatively for decades. I did not learn about staging ceremonies and rituals through art, it has been the opposite way around. I grew up in a syncretic home in the Caribbean where I had my own altar in my bedroom. It is at the core of religion and spirituality where I am introduced to the arts and to performance, and I must clarify that those were not names or terms that were used. Creativity and performance were imbued in the ceremonies and rituals that I partook of, and ranging from family weddings to Catholic and Afro-Caribbean spiritual practices. I can say with no hesitation that I received my artistic education through spirituality. In the 1990s doing healing work in an art context was not accepted as it is now, and those like Linda Mary Montano, Donna Hennes (Mama Donna), Liz Munro, Billy X Curmano, Linda Sibio, Josefina Báez, Charo Oquet, and Geo Ripley, to name just a few, are among the trailblazers who younger artists seriously experimenting with healing should definitely research.

Like attracts like. I would not tell those I invite to be part of Performing the Bronx what to do. However, both ritual and ceremony have been present in many of the chapters. There is the silent dance which Arthur Avilés and I did around the block where he lives in Hunts Point and which was informed by whirling in slow motion. Arthur drew inspiration for this from the Sufi Whirling Dervishes. The action with Dr. Drum entailed percussion and the winter solstice. The gathering was absolutely trance-like, with people attending having the option of an array of percussion instruments. Rhina Valentin chose to recreate hers and her mother’s walk from their former home in Parkchester to the subway station nearby. Angel Rodriguez played sacred music from the Caribbean. As for healing, I am trying not to use this word anymore because it has been so coopted by Art, but sometimes I have no choice so I have to say it. My consolation is that I am trying to use it sincerely. Yes, healing is part of all 10 chapters. It not possible to perform the Bronx with Ana ‘Rokafella’ García, or with Caridad De La Luz ‘La Bruja’ and not to undergo some kind of healing. Thank you so much, Sofía, for asking.

SRdR: With the ongoing changes in the Bronx, what’s next for Performing the Bronx? Do you plan to continue expanding the project, and if so, in what direction

NDEREOM: The direction will unfold organically. I do see dance and movement continuing to be central to all of this. I have so much territory to cover and just enough time to respond. I would like to do a 45-minutes to 1 hour documentary on the legacies of late Martha J. Watford, a community organizer who helped open seven Head Starts in the Bronx, named La Peninsula. This effort has meant a lot to teachers, parents, families, children and to communities at large. I worked at La Peninsula for a decade and what a school to learn about the Bronx! When I first got the job, I was commuting from the Upper West Side in Manhattan, where I was living then and I had no idea of the realities of the many in the Black and Brown communities in the South Bronx. This place opened my eyes as to the rampant oppression that the systems imposed on us have made the norm. I also got to experience the joy of laughing, dancing and being creative despite all of this. La Peninsula remains in my heart and I would like to honor Martha by putting together a video with interviews from as many of those who worked with her and whom she supported, and I would like to generate a gathering with stories, music and food. “It is nice to sit together and have food with friends.” That is what children and teachers at La Peninsula used to say before each one of the communal meals in the classroom. I too want to do a chapter with Nancy Wallace, one of the women who helped care for the Bronx River, together with many others. When I came to the Bronx to work with the Bronx River Restoration Project I was in my mid-twenties and had no idea of the significance of what I was trusted to do: to teach some of the younger generations of Bronxites and care for the Bronx River. 30 years later, I am still walking along this fluid being and loving it more and more.

SRdR: In a borough known for its resilience and diversity, how do you navigate the balance between representing personal narratives and the collective identity of the Bronx?

NDEREOM: As you know, I was born in the Dominican Republic. I am an adopted child of the Bronx, and I am conscious of those who have been here for generations. I am relatively a newcomer. I approach my relationship with the Bronx from the standpoint of learning and a desire to be in community. With Performing the Bronx, I work as a conduit for stories to be told, enacted, lived, contested and experienced. It is clear to me that my role is to allow the individuals and groups I work with do the talking. I am here to listen and to facilitate.

Pertaining to personal narratives and the collective identity of the Bronx, these are intertwined and feed each other. Those with whom I have co-created actions belong to and work with communities and all aspects of this back and forth shows up in the whole persona of the borough. To say that there is one Bronx would be to essentialize a rather complex place where there are peoples of all cultures, and yet everyone is constantly nurturing this being and shaping it and reshaping it–some more than others. This is the reason why I chose to focus on movers and shakers in the Boogie Down: the one writing poetry that speaks of the soul of our streets, dancing queerness, organizing mothers to talk back to slumlords, interacting with the drums that decolonize the heart, and re-membering (as in putting together the scattered parts) where we have come from so we can have a clear view of where we might want to go.

Part of my family was a rescued cat from the Bronx name Scooter Marie. We would take her to Upstate NY for the weekends and for the summer. When traveling back home Downstate, she would curl up into a ball in the car, but she would perk up and get up the minute we would arrive in the South Bronx. She knew she was had arrived where she belonged. The same happens to me.

SRdR: What role do you envision the audience playing in engaging with Performing the Bronx? Do you see them as witnesses, participants, or something else?

NDEREOM: There is not one single format that Performing the Bronx deploys in terms of engaging audiences. Some of the actions can happen in private. In the case of Artur Avilés and A Gentle Act of Men in Hunts Point, the audience included an intimate group of friends, then mostly passersby, and a neighbor who was dying in her living room. I recall not knowing what was happening toward the end of the dance piece. The agreement was to start and end at Arthur’s home on Manida Street. All of the sudden he was guiding me into a home across the street. We entered the ground floor apartment and there was a beautiful elder in a hospital bed to whom Arthur had thought to bring the performance to. She was approaching the end of life.

The audience in Taking it to the Streets, with Wanda Salamán was passersby and, at the end of the journey, those attending a large meeting held by Reverend Danilo Lachapel at Iglesia Evangélica Española del Bronx. In I have been There, with Danilo Lachapele, there was no audience per se. We walked at sat at different locations in the Bronx to talk about key issues pertaining to our communities. This action will find its audience through those who will watch the recording of the encounter. As for Bill Aguado and Sitting on the Stoops, we had an audience that traveled from different parts of the City, as well as some neighbors from different parts of the Bronx. Mili Bonilla and I did some Walking with a Timeline but without a Watch, and met people along the streets. Some were curious passersby who wanted to know more about the photographs from Mili’s personal archive that we carried with us on a clothesline. Other were people who Mili had met during her early years of activism. Caridad De La Luz ‘La Bruja’ and the Bronx Mic brought together friends and neighbors into her performance space in Soundview called El Garage. Participants wrote poetry in situ and then shared it. The action with Benny Bonilla took a detour as a result of the pandemic. Casita Maria and I had planned an in-person celebration and it all had to be moved to a documentary format. I was sad that we missed the opportunity to dance in physical form, yet the good part of this is the historic document that resulted from putting all efforts into filming a carefully edited video on Benny Bonilla’s legacy. Dr. Drum and I put together a solstice celebration, Winter Drums, to which neighbors and friends showed up and joined at the Andrew Freedman Home. Rhina Valentin wanted with The Metropolitan Portal to do a walk and ritual honoring her mother Christina María Bruckman, and she extended the invitation to master percussionist Angel Rodríguez, and BronxNet Executive Director, Michael Max Knobbe to perform with us. The site of this were the streets of Parkchester, right at the height of the pandemic. I remember we all wore masks. The last action to date was with Ana ‘ROKAFELLA’ García, and we worked together Befriending the Pavement. We did that on the plaza where the 6 train station in Hunts Points is located. We wore masks again, and I even wore blue latex gloves since we had to be on the sidewalk and touch it.

It is worth pointing out that Performing the Bronx has been first and foremost generated with the Bronx in mind. I am happy that people from all walks of life and places get to experience this work yet, as with my praxis in general, my aim is not to produce actions in communities that are then meant to be canned and consumed by the mainly Euro-American audiences who attend museums and galleries far removed from where the experiences took place. I am uneasy about this form of creative trafficking, in which even some BIPOC artists engage. But hey, most artists want to make a buck, have The New York Times write about their work, and get to ride the cool curators, funders and art star guaguita, little bus, of success. I would like to remain truthful to the communities who have trusted me. Thank you again for this opportunity to have this conversation.

Thank you to Elias Rischmawi, Rafaelina Tineo, and Argenis Apolinario for your help photographing the different chapters of Performing the Bronx / Thank you Geofery Jones for filming and Editing / Thank you to Michael Max Knobbe for the additional footage and filming

All photographs in this interview are courtesy of BAAD! Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance / Photographer: Richard Rivera

ABOUT Performing the Bronx / A Living Archive of New York City’s Most Iconic Borough: Nicolás invite a group of remarkable Bronxites to co-develop with him actions embedded in the day-to-day of their beloved home borough. The gestures that emerge between them are presented in private spaces, as well as in the Bronx's public realm, and focus on the roots that weave these visionaries with specific communities and neighborhoods in our part of the City. Performing the Bronx is an expansion of Nicolás’s ongoing efforts to generate work with and within different communities in the Bronx and, more specifically, in the South Bronx. It is also representative of his interest in honoring, recovering, reclaiming and remembering herstories/histories/theirstories of the area’s inhabitants and its trailblazers that run the risk of being effaced by time, lost in the midst of neighborhoods in flux, or dismissed by dominant discourses that often position themselves at the center of the conversation.

Performing the Bronx as a whole has been supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, Casita Maria’s South Bronx Culture Trail Festival 2020, and the Bronx Council on the Arts. It has also received love, space and support from Mothers on the Move, BronxNet, The Andrew Freedman Home, and BAAD! Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance.

About Historias / Celebrating the transformative impact of Latinx communities in New York City: Historias is an expansive citywide initiative that weaves scholarly research, oral histories, and cultural programming to re-center Latinx narratives in NYC. Unfolding between 2024 and 2026, presented in partnership with the LxNY Consortium with lead support from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Historias marks the largest initiative in The Clemente’s 30-year history.

Historias, meaning both histories and stories, is more than just a celebration—it is an urgent political intervention. Historias aims to fill voids in the collective understanding of New York City's evolution by presenting a more honest, thorough, and intersectional perspective that celebrates the profound impact of Latinx communities.

Sofía S. Reeser del Rio is a curator, scholar, and artist whose practice bridges the arts, education, and community engagement. She co-leads the Historias initiative at The Clemente, where she serves as Associate Director of Programs & Curator, and collaborates with Mujeres de Islas, Culebra, PR, since its founding in 2013. Her work focuses on ecological experiential practices, access, equity, and the power of art to reclaim narratives.

Sofía began her curatorial career at El Museo del Barrio, where she contributed to over 30 exhibitions and played a key role in cross-departmental initiatives that engaged artists, educators, and donors. She has curated and exhibited work at institutions including BronxArtSpace, The Latinx Project at NYU, EFA Project Space, Museo Memoria y Tolerancia, Loisaida Center, The Clemente, and Museo Casa de África.

A graduate of SUR Escuela at Universidad Carlos III in Madrid (Master’s) and Pratt Institute (BFA), Sofía is also the recipient of fellowships from CCCADI, NYFA’s Executive Leaders of Color, and the A&L Berg Foundation. Her ongoing project, Localidades Alternas, reflects her commitment to exploring resilience, identity, and place.

Sofía Reeser-del Río’s website

Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles Morel treads an elusive path that manifests itself performatively through creative experiences that he helps unfold within the quotidian. He is the founding director of The Interior Beauty Salon, an organism living at the intersection of creativity and healing. Nicolás served recently as a Senior Lecturer and Social Practice Artist in Residence in the Art and Art History Department at The University of Texas at Austin; and is currently a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow. Nicolás has exhibited or performed at Madrid Abierto/ARCO, The IX Havana Biennial, PERFORMA 05/07/21, IDENSITAT, Prague Quadrennial, Pontevedra Biennial, Queens Museum, MoMA, Printed Matter, P.S. 122, Hemispheric Institute of Performance Art and Politics, City as Living Lab, Princeton University, Anthology Film Archives, El Museo del Barrio, Center for Book Arts, Longwood Art Gallery/BCA, The Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, Franklin Furnace, and Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Nicolás has received mentorship in art in everyday life from Linda Mary Montano, a historic figure in the performance art field. Residencies attended include P.S. 1/MoMA, CEC ArtsLink, The Performance Project, Soaring Gardens, Jentel, Henry Street Settlement, Center for book Arts, Lower East Side Printshop, Artists Alliance Inc, Yaddo, and MacDowell. He teaches widely with different art and healing programs including EmergeNYC, Transart Institute, Copper Beech Institute, and the Breath-Body-Mind Foundation, among many others. Nicolás holds an MFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, where he studied with Coco Fusco; and an MA from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. Born in Santiago, Dominican Republic, he was baptized as a Bronxite in 2011 https://www.interiorbeautysalon.com