Jesusa Rodríguez / Liliana Felipe
Arquetipas: a prehispanic cabaret
Jesusa Rodríguez (*1955, Mexico) is a theatre director, author, actor, performer, artist and social activist. Her solo shows combine elements of Greek tragedy, pre-Columbian indigenous culture, opera, revue and political satire. She also writes for the feminist magazine Debate Feminista. Liliana Felipe is an actor, singer, pianist and composer for cabaret, theatre and film. She also collaborates with the organisation H.I.J.O.S., which represents victims of the military junta in Argentina. In 1976, she fled from the Argentinean military junta to Mexico, where she met Rodríguez. The two became partners in life and art in the 1980s and were married in 2000. They ran the theatre cabaret El Cuervo in Mexico City before establishing the performance “off-space” El Hábito and the Teatro La Capilla in the 1990s. In 1999 Rodríguez and Felipe both won an Obie Award for best actress for Las Horas de Belén, A Book of Hours (1999). Between 2018 and 2021, she was a senator to the Mexican republic. MM
For the theatre cabaret Arquetipas: A Prehispanic Cabaret, Jesusa Rodríguez and Liliana Felipe created characters such as Freaka Kahlo, la Serpiente Enchilada
and Coatlicue as archetypes of a queer culture. Performed by Rodríguez and accompanied by well-known songs by Felipe, they criticise the repressive politics of the US toward foreigners, its neoliberalism as well as its influence on Latin America.
Courtesy Jesusa Rodríguez / Liliana Felipe & Hemisspheric Institute
Format
Video, colour, sound, 86:00 min
Issue date
2004