Super Merengue

I invite the audience to join me on a dance flight that does not require an aircraft. SM (Super Merengue) is a character I created who leads an existence both here and there, as well as in the void that links both places: the air space between the U.S. where he claims citizenship, and his place of birth: the Dominican Republic. Performed at Temple University Gallery, Philadelphia, PA; Dixon Place, New York, NY; and the Newark Museum of Art, Newark, NJ. Documentation of this performance has been exhibited at El Museo del Barrio and Longwood Art Project/Bronx Council on the Arts, New York.

More: In the mid ’60ss, when a shift in U.S. immigration policy granted a higher quota of visas to many “Third World” nations, including several in Latin America, a considerable number of Dominicans began to emigrate to the United States, especially to the New York City area. A segment of this population became part of a transient community that relied on the services of an expanding aviation industry to make it possible for it to call both places home. Washington Heights soon established itself as the epicenter of this culture, with neighborhood stores catering to it by carrying summer goods year round, while an array of communication businesses in New York and the Dominican Republic urge customers to purchase beepers and cellular phones, and promise to deliver flowers, messages and money to either place in a matter of hours. Super Merengue, the character in this performance, is the by-product of an American Airlines-traveling line of ancestors. SM has successfully evolved into a sky-dwelling creature no longer dependent on airplane turbines to satisfy his need to fly. As such, SM single-handedly functions as the captain and flight attendant for his innovative way of traveling. 

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