Awilda Rodriguez Lora: Queer homes, artistic ventures

Linking up with her at home shifts the relationship Rodríguez Lora’s work has with Columbus, Ohio, and the United States in general. The residency is specific in its use of Spanish as the primary language, with English translations. “Here I was working, always in Spanish,” Rodríguez Lora said. “So, I was in that language, most of the time. When I go to Columbus, I am in English. I would like to see, how does this really work in the creative process, right? I'm having to switch… Because of Puerto Rico, Spanish is the main language, but you know, I fall in love in English, too. So, it's really close to my heart to be able to communicate in the other language.” Holding the residency in two languages, Rodríguez Lora said, recognizes those in Columbus who speak Spanish and brings the project into conversation with imperialism. Both Puerto Rico and Columbus were sharply colonized in the quest for greater wealth, and Rodríguez Lora is specific in her desire to recognize Indigenous lives. 

Home becomes the access point for Rodríguez Lora’s choreography. Watching her live movement sessions, especially the third session, there’s an attention and care to the way she interacts with her home and the articles in the space. She tracks an idea, plays with it, and then returns to the starting thought, repeating it and approaching it with a new perspective. She makes a bouquet of kitchen utensils; she slides down the wall. Caring for others in her home is important to Rodríguez Lora, but she said that it is also something fraught. “I don’t have to become like my mother,” she said. “We as adults get to choose the domestic space… I’m thinking of this domestic space… as a queer space for queer practices. I love taking care of people, but I also need to know what it is to be taken care of by other people. The space of resting and laziness as a strategy to resist the system…”

While there is a feeling of something having emerged in this residency, Rodríguez Lora said that improvisation and room for constant revision is key: “We have to leave it open, that door needs to be open, or maybe some tiny window, but leave it open, just in case.”  The ever-changing turmoil of our current political and social climate adds to this sense of vulnerability and of being suspended in time. She asks, for example, what might this election mean for her work?

As a project, SUSTENTO has a broad reach because Rodríguez Lora works on a wide scale. Home and domesticity are crucial to her work, but she approaches the domestic sphere in a pointedly queer way, blurring the line between public and private, dealing with multiple languages and nationalities, and choreographing with an eye toward the explorative and the meaningful. In spring 2021, Rodríguez Lora will premiere SUSTENTO at the Wex, either with or without an audience. This evening-length work is the culmination of what will be a three-year relationship with Columbus and the Wex.

______________________________________

This selection is part of Writing about the Performing Arts at Ohio State, an interdisciplinary student-led seminar during the 2020-21 academic year. With guidance from Department of Dance Professor Karen Eliot and the Wexner Center’s Alana Ryder (Manager, Public and University Programs) and Lane Czaplinski (Director of Performing Arts), students with backgrounds in dance, economics, math, microbiology, political science, psychology, statistics, and beyond will serve as ambassadors and advocates for the arts. As a cohort, they will approach broad theoretical and philosophical issues behind contemporary performance as well as questions about the roles of arts critics and of arts criticism, especially in the era of COVID-19, racial equity, and social justice movements. For more information about the seminar, email education@wexarts.org.