Ser! Is a one
muxer performed show that takes the audience through a match of nepantla between
location, culture, and identity. The show gives light to Argentina’s political
climate, the Chican@ culture of LA, and the Anzoategui family dynamics and it’s
all sewn with techniques from the Theater of the Oppressed methods that Karen
has talked about in her other performances like Catholic School Daze.
Karen’s performances never cease to
amaze me. Witnessing if only a preview of her performance, Ser! I was able to pick up both the hurt and
healing processes of finding place and peace. She physically crosses borders
but finds herself constricted to the culture borders that are set based on
narrow mentalities of “what it means to be from here.” It’s a struggle that Anzoategui
is able to perform and at the same time show us how she overcame this othering
culture by finding the comfort in her contradictions, mestiza consciousness.
Along with location, Karen finds herself being policed by gender expectations
as she’s discouraging from playing the “boys game” of soccer. She does it anyway
and Karen’s ongoing soccer-game-style narration takes the “boys game” and makes
it her own.
Announcing the point-winning events
in her life, gave the audience a taste of accomplishment and excitement to the
small wins or big wins in her life. It also made me think back to when I was a
kid and scoring checkpoints as if my life were a huge car race. I wonder why
this part of the performance stood out to me and I realize that this was a form
of finding survival in our oppression. It’s not about trying to fit in its
about being, its simply para ser!
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