The Museo Travesti appeared at the National University within a geneology of Peruvian ritual dance, always from the body: the bodies of the Chicas Extraordinarias during their intra-university address, and the body of Luis Gerardo Rosero, weaving together objects and subjects of shared memory through his choreography.

It is said that the Danza de Males emerged in pre-hispanic Peru, then traveled to Nariño, in southeastern Colombia. The dance theatre piece by Luis Gerardo Rosero, “Taitico Andino Danzarín,” suggests the construction of one myth over another. Its final words, regarding the power and belonging that the dance conferred, showed the passage from mimesis to citizenship as a political strategy contained within our dances.

Wearing colorful garments both feminine and masculine, his male face painted, with large eyes and scarlet lips, Rosero shouted, “Mi país es de maíz” (“my country is made from maize”). A mythical character of Mallamues, Males, or Imues, an intermediary being between God and humans, “San Dieguito, San Isidro, San Pedro, un taita andino, curiraya-viracocha.” A being that promises the fecundity and fertility of the earth. His movements are subtle, sharp, and his feet mark a pentagram design of musical rhythms as they come in contact with the earth and with the sonority of his golden bells; a proud tradition of the ancestors, who watch over the space: ¡El Taitico Andino Danzarín!

Luis Gerardo Rosero completed studies in dramatic arts at the Escuela Distrital Superior de Teatro Luis Enrique Osorio. He began his studies in contemporary dance under the instruction of Katy Chamorro at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, and he studied ballet and modern dance with Edgar Sandino. He participated in workshops on contemporary dance, jazz, and choreographic composition at the Performing Arts Training Center in New York. He is currently completing a Masters degree in contemporary dance at the universidad distrital in the A.S.A.B. Rosero is investigating popular festive culture and has begun choreography groups and/or collectives at world carnavales, cultural artistic events, and theatre and dance festivals in national and international settings. The premise for his work begins in the indigenous identity from which he comes, as an axis of creation and articulation with other avant-garde contexts.

Chicas extra-ordinarias is a creative-research group that explores the dynamics of the body in dialogue with the city. The group was formed by artists trained in a range of artistic disciplines within the Interdisciplinary Masters program in Theater and Living Arts at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia.
Chicas-extra-ordinarias.blogspot.com
Members: Liliana Martín, Alejandro Cárdenas, Lorena López, Eduardo Ruiz, and Jaime Torres.

Giuseppe Campuzano is a researcher and artist from Peru. Since 2003, he has been working on the "Transvestite Museum" project, an exploration of the realities of transvestism, a staging of its aesthetics, and a confrontation between its forms of knowledge and official discourses.