BaqueStriBois

A creation by José Ramón Hernández y Osikán - creation nursery to starting from an anthropological, social and artistic investigation of gay male prostitution in Cuba

Villanueva Prize 2016 delivered by the Critical and Research Section of Performing Arts of the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba UNEAC

Aire Frio 2016 Award for the best staging delivered by the Hermanos Saíz Association (AHS)

Baquestribois arises from an investigation on gay male prostitution in Cuba initiated in 2015 by Osikán , although José Ramón , as director, had already been working on this issue a few years ago. The approach to the phenomenon came from direct work with sources involved in prostitution in Cuba (clients, active and retired prostitutes, landlords, policemen, lawyers) and national and international studies on prostitution in Cuba and in other countries, as well as that it is a global phenomenon. However, the work does not expose the research findings from a sociological perspective, but rather focuses on the sensitive aspect: on the violence and eroticism of the bodies, on the masculinities that are empowered or subverted, on the relationship of the viewer with the gaze.

The phenomenon of prostitution is very complex and there are different positions before it that go through criminalization, abolition or legalization. In Cuba it is generally associated with the female body, despite the fact that gay male prostitution has been a notably visible phenomenon in recent years.

Baquestribois builds a scenic device that complicates how these bodies look and are looked at. This situation goes through the investigation and is placed in the meeting space of the testimonies of life experts, actors and spectators.

A level scenic language Baquestribois continues exploring Osikán to bet on a performative scene and putting in crisis dramatic representation. If in his previous works these paths were experienced from the design of a spatial format that fostered an approximation and intimacy between actors and spectators ( Keep your children away from alcohol ) or from the work with the theatricality of the family stories of the actors themselves ( Family Trash …), in Baquestribois they work from a physicality to the limit. The actor's body as a risk zone. Before the viewer's gaze, a scenic landscape will be built with the operations that the actors themselves do with their bodies and with other materials (stones, bananas, meringue, believed lipstick, bags, crates…). In Baquestribois the scenic visuality combines the rudeness, brute force and precariousness of some of his acting interventions (the rain of stones that falls on the body of an actor, the rough body of military training, the body subjected to blows, mistreatment, humiliation) with eroticism, sensuality and the fragility of other materials (the meringue body that erases a hegemonic masculinity and inscribes another body on the skin, the playful body that finds pleasure in the collision with other bodies). In the dramaturgy of the proposal, the presence and mutability of these (scenic) bodies alternate with the irruption of other voices that come from the investigation. A lawyer, a drag queen, two transsexuals, a client and two prostitutes will share with the audience their life experiences, connections and views on prostitution. The previous testimonies appear in different formats (voice-over, video or physical presence). A sound and visual atmosphere is also superimposed on the above that recreates the spaces of Havana that these bodies and stories pass through.

One of the fundamental elements that is explored in Baquestribois is a sensitive and reflective relationship with the viewer. An approach to the world of gay male prostitution in Cuba that breaks the treatments of victimization or demonization with which this and other phenomena are sometimes addressed in the media, in art, in popular imaginaries and in daily practices.

Yohayna Hernández Gonzáles

Concept, dramaturgy and direction: José Ramón Hernández

Dramaturgy: Yohayna Hernández

Performers: Alain Cantillo

David Daniel Izaguirre León

Gabriel Estrada Reyes

Experts from life: Rufino Napoles

Andy Frank Ruano Medina

Angeline Llorente

Nomi Ramirez

Scenic design: José Ramón Hernández

Audiovisual design and production: Roberto Ramos Mori / Gabriel Estrada Reyes