The performance VAIVÉN, by multidisciplinary artist Camilo Mejía Cortés, is conceived as an invitation to enter and inhabit an espacio manglaroso (a mangrove-like place) that functions as a spiritual and transtemporal frame to listen, remember, desire, and dance. Its title translates as ‘sway’ in Spanish, alluding to the dynamics of the body and soul—their un-stillness and embodied sensualities, like waves and matter that come and go. Mejía Cortés proposes an exercise in imaginative memory, the deconstruction of nostalgia, and its transformation into text, movement, and song. In VAIVÉN, he reclaims salsa’s popular archive and its associated imaginary of Black neighbourhoods and their diasporas. In doing so, the work traverses an entangled ecosystem in which the streets of Cali and the stories of the Colombian Pacific intertwine with bodies, sounds, and memories without hierarchy. The vessel of the journey is salsa itself: a dance, music genre, a way of life, and culture, in which desire and mystery coexist with experiences of Blackness, migration, and sexual dissidence. Site-specifically adapted to HKW’s Angie Stardust Foyer, Mejía Cortés’s performance presents its salsa and swing, its vaivén as an ancestral technology of re-existence. These strategies, posed by the artist, are rooted in legacies of marronage, which originally described liberation from enslavement and now names ongoing anti-racist and anti-colonial work.

Presences during the performance: Camilo Mejía, Su Madre Leydi Cortés, Su Padre Jhonny Mejía, Su Tía Luz Dary Cortés, Su Primera Pareja De Salsa Paola, Sus Amigos Salseros, Cheo Feliciano, Celia Cruz, La Lupe, La Banda Sonora De La Infancia, Eleggua, Papá Oggún, Mi Padrino Morandy Puig Y Mi Madrina Gretel, Siete Rayos, Yemaya Y Las Muertas Cimarronas

Concept and Direction: Camilo Mejía
Choreography: Camilo Mejía and José Ramón Hernández
Text and Dramaturgy: José Ramón Hernández
Dramaturgical Advisor: Nicole Geertruida 
Light Design: Pier Gallen 
Scenography: Špela Tušar 
Costume Design: Patricia Mokosi 
Music and Sound: Clay Chénière 
Executive Production: Anaku 

Co-production: Beursschouwburg, Viernulvier, Kustenwerkplaats, Theater Rotterdam, Festival Dias Da Dança With support of: Stuk, Brakke Grond, & The Flemish Community Commission