This article appeared in the fortnightly newspaper Última Página [Last Page], published in the city of Barranquilla, four months after the prize at the VIII Salón Regional Zona Norte [Eighth Regional Salon, Northern Zone] was awarded to the performance piece El Ribereño [The Riverside Dweller] by Alfonso Suárez Ciodaro. There is a photograph on the cover showing the artist wearing the traditional costume worn in the “Las Farotas” tribal dance that was part of the celebrations at the carnival in Barranquilla. The accompanying headline announces that Suárez Ciodaro was the winner at the Salon. Inside the newspaper, under the heading “El Ribereño: arte objeto, disfraz y danza” [The Riverside Dweller: Object Art, Costume, and Dance], Suárez refers to his personal and cultural background and describes the origin, roots, guidelines, and causes of his project, and explains his objectives for staging it. He therefore identifies himself with a culture he describes as a confluence of signs that come from different places and are in a permanent state of development; through his work Suárez seeks to affirm that trait either as an intrinsic and essential aspect of the performance act or as applied to himself as a person and an artist.  

This document is important because it is the only published article in which the artist Alfonso Suárez Ciodaro was able to describe the creation and production of his performance piece El Ribereño [The Riverside Dweller]. This article was written by Suárez Ciodaro, which sets it apart from the other newspaper stories that only vaguely quote what Suárez said about the project, and are more interested in the artist’s awards than in his work. Suárez’s article clearly explains and analyzes the origins of the “Las Farotas” dance; discusses what the dance means in terms of its cultural importance to the region and to Colombia; and in particular, describes how the author approached the project with great sensitivity from the very beginning.

The article—written in the first person in a narrative form that makes the story easily accessible to readers from anywhere—is structured according to the same polymorphous logic that underpins the artist’s performance. The story addresses several different matters, such as: the origin of the author’s early interest in the “Las Farotas” dance; the acknowledgment of several races in a mestizo mix that generated a variety of customs; and Suárez’s own powerful personal affirmation as a Caribbean. All this produces a polyphony of voices that enhances the anecdotal form of the text since this strange sense of being “one and many” exposes the uncertain blend that lies at the root of our society. This is accomplished just as it would be in a family story, by referring to the creation of a foundation myth concerning the development of a diverse cultural mix of slaves, Spaniards, natives, and immigrants. In his story, Suárez acknowledges the importance of all the component parts of the mix without granting priority to any of them, thus allowing him to see himself as both one and the other. In other words, he approaches his narrative from a personal perspective and as a work of art, as a permanent edifice built with pieces that come from different places, as a transvestite native who consciously seeks vengeance in his Spanish identity for his indigenous death.

Alfonso Suárez Ciodaro (b. 1952), a Colombian artist, won the XXV Salón Nacional de Artistas [Twenty-fifth National Artists Salon] (1994) and the seventh and eighth versions of the Salón Regional de Artistas Zona Norte [Regional Artists Salon, Northern Zone] with the works: Visitas y apariciones [Visits and Apparitions], 100% frágil [100% Fragile] and El Ribereño [The Riverside Dweller] respectively. He is currently a teacher at the Escuela de Bellas Artes [School of Fine Arts] in the city of Barranquilla, where he lives and works.