Also this issue: Momma Drama David Wise channels his grandmas into a show with everything and the kitchen sink. -Debra Auspitz Jazz It Up -Juliet Fletcher Trio with Brio -David Shengold Get Lost -Toby Zinman Street Smart -David Anthony Fox Cry Havoc -Toby Zinman PROK -David Anthony Fox Tied with Strings Edward Said and Daniel Barenboim ponder music’s place in the world. -Andrew Ervin

January 23-29, 2003

dance

Q&A with Merián Soto

by Interview by Deni Kasrel

Ever since she was a toddler, Merián Soto has had the urge to dance. Starting off as a "little girl bunhead" in her native Puerto Rico, after moving to the U.S. she briefly took up modern dance, then found solid footing in improvisational formats. Her work has evolved into a study of accessing memory, culture and emotional awareness through the body. From 1985 to 1995, Soto concentrated on community-based projects created in collaboration with her husband, sculptor/set designer Pepón Osorio. For the Wilma's second DanceBoom! series, Soto performs a solo piece, Prequel (a): Deconstruction of a Passion for Salsa, where she dances, sings and makes noises with her body to turn herself into a one-woman salsa band.

City Paper: Your bio says that in 1996 you decided to focus on salsa. Why so?

Merián Soto: I've always done salsa pieces. The first one was in 1975. But there was a timidity in me in developing it for other people. It was mostly solo work and it was kind of formalistic. Then I decided I wanted to go into it fully. I had certain dancers who could really do it, who could move freely in the medium of what dancerly dance is as well as hardcore club dancing. So it was really that I had the right people.

CP: If all your work comes from salsa, how do you keep from getting repetitious or boring yourself?

MS: It's an improvisatory form, so it keeps changing. There are schools of salsa that are very strict. I'm not into that. What I do is bring everything I know. I move through layers and that's not boring. It's really interesting, finding the different connections.

CP: Prequel strikes me as postmodern avant-garde salsa. Do you agree?

MS: It's not even salsa. It's deconstruction of my passion. It's more about me seeing my love for the form and where it came from. It started out in the movies I used to see. Or dancing with my dad, or watching people dance under palm trees on the beach. How romantic is that? So I was working with the idea of memory. Also I was working with the idea of salsa -- does it come from the music or from the dancer? And it's like a time-travel thing in a way. I use this loop pedal and I loop my voice. It's kind of close to hip-hop, how they use the beat boxes. It's a lot about hybridity of influences.

CP: Did something set you off in this direction? Why decide to do Prequel?

MS: Well, it's very much about who I am as a dancer. I had quit dancing pretty much. I had performed off and on since I had my first child, but not a lot and not this way how I celebrate my body. I wanted to perform again. I don't want to say that because I'm 48, I'm over the hill and I can't dance and I can't be sexy.

CP: I wasn't sure if you were making fun of the sensuality in salsa. Is that part of it?

MS: Oh gosh. I think it's just having fun. It's celebrating all the parts of it. It's more fluid than one thing or another.

CP: What kind of reception has your work gotten from the Latino community? Since it's not strict salsa, is it seen as a kind of bastardization?

MS: The first performance of Asi se baila un Son was controversial within the whole salsa community. It was surprising. There was a group of Puerto Rican intellectuals who felt I was reinforcing stereotypes of women. And hardcore salsa people think I'm crazy. But I would imagine every person gets that about their work. It depends on the viewer. And nothing is authentic. Especially salsa. You think you know it and it gets changed. Salsa in New York is different than the salsa in Caracas, and it's different than the salsa in Las Vegas or L.A. Different communities move it in different ways. I'm not preserving anything. I'm playing with salsa on a very contemporary level.

Merián Soto performs at DanceBoom! Fri., Jan. 24, 8 p.m., Sun., Jan. 26, 2 p.m., Sat., Feb. 1, 8 p.m. and Wed., Feb. 5, 8 p.m., $15-$20,Wilma Theater, Broad and Spruce sts., 215-546-7824.