Inside Rita Indiana's New York Era
Inside Rita Indiana's New York Era
Rolling Stone writes about "Tu Nombre Verdadero," a Rita Indiana show commissioned by Americas Society.
Last month, at the Clemente Soto Vélez Center in New York’s Lower East Side, Rita Indiana experienced a night of firsts. The Dominican novelist and artist stepped on stage to debut her latest project, Tu Nombre Verdadero, a performance and a collection of songs that she worked on alongside her wife, the Puerto Rican director and filmmaker Noelia Quintero Herencia. The piece marked their first time working together professionally, and it was also the first body of work Indiana premiered live. Days later, she shared that it was a thrilling moment for her: “It made me recover a kind of joy I hadn’t felt in a long time.”…
“It was a spiritual communion,” says Libertad Guerra, the executive director at the Clemente Soto Vélez. “There was a connection with the audience, and whatever she [Indiana] did on stage, people responded.
Guerra worked closely with Indiana and Quintero on the performance, which was first commissioned by the Americas Society in 2021 and brought to life during a micro-residency program at the Clemente Soto Vélez earlier this year. “We wanted to make something that was musical, theatrical, and meant to be presented live,” says Indiana. “We really liked the space [the Clemente Soto Velez Center] because it’s been a door for many immigrants, a sacred land of the Loisaida community, where so many artists we admire have presented their work. It was the ideal place to present this.” [...]
