Photo/ Foto: Marlène Ramírez-Cancio

Virgin Cabaret

This cabaret offers artists and participants a chance to "come as their favorite virgin". A play on religion, sexuality, and the prevailing believe in miracles.  Carmelita Tropicana performs and is the Emcee for the evening. 
The cabaret included  Semon of Seven or More Words by Susana Cook,  On the Immaculate Conception of a Flower by Angeles Romero, The Virgin of Perpetual Security by Roberto and Lian Sifuentes, and presentations by Edmundo Torres and Marga Gómez. 

Biographies

Internationally renowned performance artist, Carmelita Tropicana (Alina Troyano) won the 1999 Obie award for Sustained Achievement in New York's downtown theatre scene. She is famous for her sparkling wit, her bilingual and bicultural cultural crossings, and her campy performance style. Carmelita is the author of the Lambda Award nominated book I, Carmelita Tropicana, Performing Between Cultures, which includes her plays Milk of Amnesia, Chicas 2000, and The Conquest of Mexico as Seen Through The Eyes of Hernan Cotez's Horse (Beacon Press in 2000). Her film I, Carmelita Tropicana, Your Kunst is Your Waffen (directed by Ela Troyano) was awarded Best Short at the Berlin Film Festival and won the Stolichnaya and Audience award at the 18th International San Francisco Lesbian and Gay Film Festival.

Marga Gomez has been writer/performer of five previous theater solos, "A Line Around The Block," (Public, 1996) "Memory Tricks," (Public 1993), "Marga Gomez is Pretty, Witty & Gay," (Whitney Museum & PS 122, 1994) "Jaywalker" (PS122, 1999) and "The Twelve Days of Cochina" (which worked-in-progress at Dixon Place, as well as out of town in San Francisco and Boston during 2001). She received Theatre LA's Ovation Award for "Carpa Clash," a collaboration with Culture Clash at the Mark Taper Forum, and the Bay Area Theater Critics Circle Award for "Memory Tricks." Selections from Gomez' work have been published in several anthologies including "Extreme Exposure" (TCG Books), "Out, Loud & Laughing" (Anchor Books), "Contemporary Plays by American Women of Color" (Routledge) and "Out of Character" (Bantam Books).

Roberto Sifuentes is an interdisciplinary artist from Los Angeles and now living in New York City. His work combines live performance with interactive technologies and video as a presentation medium. As a member of La Pocha Nostra from 1994 - 2000, Sifuentes collaborated with performance artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña, presenting performance and installation work at over 200 venues throughout the United States, Europe, and Latin America. Recent performance projects by Sifuentes include: performance installations "Undermining the Machine" 2001, and "14 Unnatural Acts" which will begin touring in late 2003. Sifuentes is currently the Artistic Director of the Trinity/La MaMa Performing Arts Program NYC

Lian Amaris Sifuentes is an interdisciplinary artist and writer from Massachusetts. She has been collaborating with Roberto Sifuentes in performance projects including Certain Dark Things/Ciertas Cosas Oscuras and 14 Unnatural Things. She is currently an MA student in Performance Studies at New York University.

Edmundo Torres Tresierra was born in Puno, Peru. Since his childhood, he has danced the traditional dances of his region. He received part of his educational background in the Fine Art Schools of Puno and Lima, and then moved into the theatre arts, graduating in acting in the National Conservatory in Lima. He worked with Yuyachkani in Allpa Rayku, Los músicos ambulantes and Contraelviento. He learned mask making techniques in Italy, in Milan's Cívica Scuola di Arte Drammatica.  His work has been exhibited in Peru, Italy, Spain, Germany and Hungary. Edmundo Torres has developed his own performance work with his characters, "Ekeko", "Frida Kahlo", "Calaca Catrina", and "Agapito".