Bring All of Your Soft Feelings and get Ready to Sparkle With LIZN’BOW
Video artist team present their new work, Novelas de Niñas.
By Melissa O'Neil, Centrum
Performance April 9th, 6 p.m.
Fort Worden, Building 305, North Gallery
Video Installation: Novelas de Niñas
On view until April 10th, 12-4 p.m.
Monday through Friday
Fort Worden, Building 305, North Gallery
It took me a little less than 24 hours to fall in love with Liz Ferrer and Bow Ty, whose combined stage name is LIZN'BOW. They do not get introduced as Bow and Liz very often, if ever. It was when they were described as a radical, queer, femme-reggaeton, Bad-Bunny-esque duo that I started to lean in.
But my love solidified the morning after meeting them, when I walked in after a hard morning, weeping, and Ferrer first asked if the tears were real. It was a legitimate question. On our first meeting the day before, I had, in fact, wept, like we all have, over a generous gift of a mechanical milk frother my dear friend and coworker Libby Pratt had given me.
Once Ferrer determined my tears were from sadness and distress, instead of stepping away, she stepped in. She gave me a hug, and she held on, not rushing to let go, just holding me tightly, securely. When I calmed down, I sat with Ferrer, Ty, and Pratt, drank coffee, ate pastries and laughed, tears forgotten.
LIZN’BOW are a part of Centrum’s In the Making residency, and their offering feels like stepping in. It is a glorious, pink, sparkly, unicorn with Latino femme music, something flashy and open, like a little piece of Miami has dropped in with the spring weather, gifting us with something fun that gets to the heart of who these performers are.
We sat, very much at ease, as Ty talked about computer systems like Linux and coding, sat at ease while Ferrer asked very direct questions, not shying away from anything. Ferrer has a way of getting to the heart of the thing, stripping away any fluff and nonsense and going directly to what is at the underbelly of someone’s story.
This past month did what March does: it came in like a lion. The world at large seemed fraught with tensions, stressed and distressed, like all the seams had finally split, and bombs were leaking into the cracks. On a local level, those cracks were very visible. Kids came out in droves this last month, asking to be seen and heard and prioritized, and, thank goodness, some adults listened to them.
Other adults wanted to quibble, wanted to fight about minutiae and rules, about where a line is drawn, and who is responsible for what on which side of that line. What the kids see is easier to discern, like a straight-forward Ferrer question: they see when we choose them, and they see when we don’t choose them. I learned a long time ago that kids are very perceptive. They hear what we say, then they watch us like hawks to see what we do, because, as children will tell us if we are only willing to listen, our actions speak louder than our words.
What if when we strip everything away, strip away the fluff and nonsense and go directly to what is at the underbelly of someone’s story, what if we step in instead of stepping away, like Ferrer did for me, a virtual stranger?
LIZN’BOW are offering up a glimpse into Novelas de Niñas, a multimedia feminist musical reggaeton soap opera project set in the pop inspired universe Niñalandia, which blends music, performance, and visual storytelling. Sometimes it involves a large inflatable unicorn on a jet ski (though not this time), and their offering is like alchemy, when one thing transforms into something else, through music and movement and implausible costumes worn by beautiful Latino femmes. Like whatever happens in coding when a digital recipe is followed and one thing leads to another that leads to another, with a predictable outcome. My computer engineer father would be appalled that coding is still such a mystery to me, but Bow Ty understands it beautifully. Their Novelas de Niñas might make you forget that the quibbling, foolish adults ever got you down.
LIZN’BOW’s video installation is on view until April 10th from 12-4 p.m. Monday through Friday at Fort Worden, Building 305, North Gallery. They have a brief, 15-minute performance on Thursday, April 9th, at 6 p.m., also in the North Gallery. Come and prepare to be dazzled.
