Quinceañera

From 1979-2009, the New WORLD Theater worked at the intersection of artistic practice, community engagement, scholarship, and activism toward a vision of a 'new world' - one that broke the confines of multiculturalism and was an artistic harbinger of America's shifting demographics. From a geographic 'outpost' in New England, New WORLD Theater evolved from a community organizing project and the Northeast point on a theater touring compass, to a protective studio to hone new work, a site of international intersections from South Africa to the South Bronx, and the home of inspired and rigorous collaborations with Western Massachusetts youth. New performance work development at New WORLD defied the conventional theater play lab as ghetto for artists of color; artists were met where they wanted to be in the imagining of new approaches, methods, and production.

'Quinceañera' is a video documentation of a performance created collaboratively to address the 15th anniversary of the AIDS pandemic. As a collaborative creation, these stories can be read not only like personal stories, but also as the stories of a community. Alberto Antonio Araiza, Paul Bonin-Rodriguez, and Michael Marínez worked together in community-based activism, and create a multi-disciplinary performance piece that involves storytelling, ritual, performance and visual arts. For this reason, 'Quinceañera' transits between the cheerfulness of a creative process and the engagement with a topic that is full of fear and sorrow. The ghost of AIDS permeates relations between persons and their own traditions, stories, and histories. Particularly, the social ritual of the 'quinceañera'- the debutante party reserved for young girls in Spanish-speaking communities - becomes a space of contesting gender and sexuality roles. At the same time that the piece reveals how rituals are gendered, it also highlights how affective responses to pop culture can be understood as newer familiar traditions. The role of Spanish language, unapologetically spoken in the piece, underlines the fact that gender, ethnicity, and race are intertwined in social marginalization. Along with an honest and strong affirmation of race and sexuality, the virus that marks the body signals identity and belonging. The three male characters explain how AIDS affected gay population, and the discrimination that comes with the epidemic. The group of men breaks into songs advocating for justice for all people infected with AIDS, and the entire queer community. The video documentation also features a talk back with the performers and the audience members.