MUSA PARADISIACA is a multi-disciplinary evening- length performance offering a sensorial landscape of body inclinations, spicy beats, chopped chords, undulating myths, local garlic, much play and more! Somewhere between fiction and the present moment, we celebrate delicious experiences that are both pre-determined and improvised this group of collaborators steep painful and sweet memories that are remembered, transformed and shared by the collective.

It explores the dancing body and music as sites of resistance. This theatrical dance work challenges Lantix stereotypes while celebrating different layers of my cultural heritage. It explores Puerto Rican bruised identity as experienced in the richness and tensions that run through my muscle memory from years of movement training in the island and abroad. ‘Musa Paradisiaca' is the scientific name for the plantain tree, its fruits, the plátanos, they serve as a symbol of identity which is appropriated, peeled, cut, smashed and fried over and over to be consumed by the patriarchal colonial gaze throughout most of our history. I dress as the plantain tree and pull out from my chest garment the fruit to be cooked. The Puerto Rican dishes made in the performance are served to the audience during the intermission and end party. The performance became a community event for celebration, embodied processing when eating/dancing and conversation.

Musa Paradisiaca 
Choreography: Marion Ramirez
Performance- Jungwoong Kim, Michele Tantoco, Tim Early ,Megan Stern and Marion Ramirez
Music composition- Victor Pablo Garcia and Denis Guevara
Lighting design- Jimena Alviar
Costume and stage design- Patricia Dominguez
Set construction and design- Jungwoong Kim 
Advisor- Merian Soto

see the review:
Cooking and Dancing in the Kitchen 
by Jonathan Stein
Video clips:
musa paradisiaca