A symposium that centers on a table reading of Marival (1996) by Felix de Rooy, a landmark play about Caribbean queer experience in the shadow of Dutch postcolonialism.

INTRODUCTION
(Genealogy)

Rhythms/Performances of Subversion & Conformity is a one-day symposium that draws inspiration from critical studies that challenge conventional understandings of Caribbean performance. Scholars like Lyndon K. Gill, who examines queer activism in Trinidadian Carnival and calypso traditions; Kristie Soares, who investigates pleasure-based politics in Puerto Rican and Cuban pop culture; and Matthew Chin’s analysis of queer performance in Jamaica provide foundational perspectives. Nicosia M. Shakes’s research on Black feminist theatre in Jamaica and Carlos Ulises Decena’s study of queer spiritual performances in Santería and Lucumí further illustrate the intersections between activism and cultural practices.

Convened by Dr. Wigbertson Julian Isenia, Alejandro Navarrete,
and BAK Community Portal
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TABLE READING 
(Marival (1996) by Felix de Rooy) 

READERS 
Collin Edson, Damani Leidsman, JeanPaul Paula, Laurindo Andrea, NØËL, and  Wigbertson Julian Isenia 

MODERATOR 
Alejandra Ortiz 

The symposium unfolds around a table reading of Marival (1996), a landmark play by Felix de Rooy that examines Caribbean queer and trans experiences against the backdrop of Dutch postcolonialism. By combining mariku (a Curaçaoan slur for gender and sexual nonconformity) with the term carnival, the play unflinchingly explores the lives of queer immigrants in Amsterdam’s Bijlmermeer. The reading will be followed by a conversation moderated by trans artist and activist Alejandra Ortiz. An interlude of intergenerational conversation will be woven between acts, exploring the memory of two audience members who experienced the original 1996 production.  

This act of rehearsal and remembering sets the tone for the rest of the program, which presents interdisciplinary explorations of performance as a tool for reimagining gender and identity in the critique of colonial legacies. 

FIRST CALL
(Lecture) 

LAWRENCE LA FOUNTAIN–STOKES 
Ana Macho and Tropical Decolonial Drag 

The distinguished work of Lawrence La Fountain–Stokes—scholar and professor of American Culture, Romance Languages and Literatures, and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor—studies Puerto Rican drag and trans performance along the intersections of race, gender, and diaspora. This lecture examines the figure Ana Macho, a Puerto Rican nonbinary música urbana pop singer who debuted as a drag queen in 2016 and has since received significant media attention. Engaging with theorists like María Lugones, Diego Falconí Trávez, and Kareem Khubchandani, La Fountain–Stokes demonstrates how Ana Macho uses transloca drag performance for extraordinarily political ends. 

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FOUR RESPONSES 
(Research Presentations) 

JUSTICE JAMAL JONES 
Notes on a Siren  

A film essay about Vodou lore and its links to Black, queer, and trans identity. Shot in the Cayman Islands—a location often overshadowed by resort culture and tax-free capitalism—the film confronts the filmmaker’s colonial experiences as a Black queer individual subjected to the gaze of others. 

ELIZA KHODABUX
Post-Independence Surinamese Cinema: Gendered Subjectivities, Creolization, and National Identities in Post-Colonial Dutch Caribbean 

A presentation on post-independence Surinamese cinema that offers another perspective on Caribbean identity. Specifically, Khodabux examines the film Wan Pipel (1976), directed by Pim de la Parra, analysing its depiction of Suriname’s becoming-nation through an engagement with racial, ethnic, and gender dynamics shaded by Dutch postcoloniality and Caribbean multiculturalism. 

JONATHAN TJIEN FOOH  
From Colonial Violence to Re-Storying Our Ancestors’ Dreams: Javanese Indentured Labour, Embodied Healing and Resistance in the Caribbean 

Combining ethnographic fieldwork in Suriname and the Netherlands with archival research and critical fabulation, Tjien Fooh creates an immersive audiovisual collage. Drawing from family archives, poetry, gamelan music, and traditional Javanese storytelling, this work breathes life into erased histories. It venerates ancestral stories and ways of knowing. 

STEPHAN LOOR  
Beyond Empathy and Representation: On the Political Potential of Opacity in Caribbean Performative Practices  

This presentation invites us to reconsider how Caribbean performative practices serve as aesthetic expressions and political acts—they engage with colonial history to foster change. 
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WIDER CALLS 
(Critical Dialogues) 

FELIPE ZÚÑIGA, MIGUEL CORRAL, AND TERRY HOLIDAY  
Practices of Restitution: The Dangers of Commodification and Fetishism of Memory  

This conversation, facilitated by Zúñiga, examines the risks and possibilities that emerge when archives are activated. Terry Holiday, a prominent trans figure and artist from Mexico, employs “patchworks” to recover the voices of colleagues and friends who have suffered institutional violence and are no longer among us, addressing the politics of the body and its representation. Miguel Corral analyses how archival practices can reactivate memory, offering new approaches to disentangle institutional imaginaries and narratives surrounding bodies living with HIV. He also examines the impact of antiretroviral therapy and PrEP on sexo-marica (sex among queer men), highlighting how health interventions intersect with sexuality and societal perceptions. 

RED COMUNITARIA TRANS 
(Daniela Maldonado Fonseca, Katalina Angel, and Pascale Espinosa) 
Other Architectures: Ephemeral Appropriations  

This dialogue explores the concept of ephemeral architecture born from the urgent need for marginalised communities to find a place in an unwelcoming world. The transformative actions of trans*, queer, and HIV-positive individuals in urban areas reflect a significant and radical reinterpretation of spaces structured around heteronormativity. These structures fight back and change as examples of strength and creative expression, challenging-to-alter oppressive systems.  

CURTAIN CALL 
(Goodbye, Community Portal) 

This event closes five years of fermentation at the Community Portal, BAK’s Civic Praxis program. Since 2020, it has been retooling the ways in which the cultural institution, BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, meets communities, collectives, and otherwise organised groups. Alongside many accomplices, it has conducted fieldwork and applied research on communal forms of labour and organisation, focusing on four themes: hospitality, circulation, access/belonging, and endurance/affordance. At its closure, Community Portal is convened by art historian Alejandro Navarrete; artist, publisher, and educator Clara Balaguer; activist, anthropologist, and vegan chef Grace Lostia; and artist Jeanne van Heeswijk. 

GRATITUDE 
(Supporters) 

Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science 
Municipality of Utrecht 
Netherlands Institute for Cultural Analysis (NICA).