Viveca Vázquez
She // Her // Hers
Experimental Choreographer
San Juan, Puerto Rico (Borikén)
Viveca Vázquez (b. 1950) is a pioneer of experimental dance and performance in Puerto Rico and a founding member of Pisotón (est. 1979). Vázquez is also a founder of Taller de Otra Cosa (Something Else Workshop), now headed by Teresa Hernández, which has established particular forms of making and producing contemporary dance concerts and events.
She has received commissions from dance Theater Workshop, PS122, Danspace, and MoMA PS1, as well as grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture. In 1985, she began teaching dance in the Drama Department at Universidad de Puerto Rico, a position she has used to support and develop her creative work and production-scale capacities. She was later awarded a position as a performance artist at the College of General Studies, where she is now full professor and teaches entry-level humanities courses as well as the Gender and Performance course she developed for the Women’s and Gender Studies Program.
In 2013, the Puerto Rico Museum of Contemporary Art held a retrospective of her thirty-year career as a dancer, choreographer, and performer, accompanied by a bilingual catalogue with critical texts. This marked the first time the museum acknowledged dance as a contemporary art and celebrated movement and a movement artist.
From 1989 to 1996, Vázquez, along with Merián Soto, coproduced and codirected Rompeforma, the first international experimental interdisciplinary art festival in Puerto Rico, which had a big impact on artists and audiences alike. Presently, Vázquez and Soto are developing a documentary based on the festival, funded by the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures and the National Endowment for the Humanities.