A woman's body is her nation (Feminist Hero) is a multidisciplinary performance project engaging with concepts of isolation and mechanisms for survival. The project combines conceptual costumes, video, Afro-Cuban rhythms, and choreography, starring Romagoza's alter-ego, Cuquita The Cuban Doll. Romagoza is inspired by her experience of growing up in Cuba and as an immigrant to the US. In Cuquita's world, the body is a nation.

The project is a three-act performance comprising various arrangements of short-form live performances and a performance made for the camera, allowing for multiple costume changes. The featured garments are inherently behavioral and present several options for the wearer. The costumes' design engages in transformation, which presents the body as a refuge and a space of survival, resistance, and protest. In essence, a sleeve becomes a neckpiece; a pocket holds intimate objects, memories that Cuquita The Cuban Doll carries everywhere she goes.

Space is limited, RSVP here to have your name on the list: yaliromagoza@yaliromagoza.org

This is a free event-donations are accepted by Venmo @Yali-Romagoza

This work was made possible, in part, by the Franklin Furnace Fund supported by Jerome Foundation, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Much Thanks to Grace Exhibition Space for the generous gift of space

Yali Romagoza is a Cuban-born multidisciplinary artist currently based in Queens, NY.

Romagoza's work approaches feminism, marginalization, and the effects of political trauma on the individual.

She graduated with a master’s degree in Fashion, Body, and Garment from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2016) and a BA in Art History from the University of Havana, Cuba. Her works have been included in Havana Biennial; Bétonsalon, Paris; Art and Social Activism Festival, NY; The Immigrant Artist Biennial, NY. Romagoza has performed at Links Hall Theater, Chicago; White Box, NY; Teatro LATEA, NY; Art in Odd Places, NY; Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, NC; Grace Exhibition Space, NY; New York Latin American Art Triennial, NY.

She has been granted awards and residencies, including Cátedra Arte de Conducta by Tania Bruguera, Bétonsalon Centred' art et de recherché, NYFA Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program, Creative Capital NYC Taller, Franklin Furnace Fund.

Jadele McPherson, (MA UChicago) is a performance artist, singer, actress, scholar, and cultural organizer. McPherson has presented performance and scholarship at the ADRSA and KOSANBA Conferences at Harvard University (2013).

She was in the original cast of PARTY PEOPLE at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's 2012 season and an ensemble member of UNIVERSES. After completing the EMERGENYC program at NYU, her performance was entitled WaterRain using altar space transformation, song and movement to bring a sound narrative alive, about the effects of the Japanese tsunami on the earth. She impersonates the tsunami using AfroCuban orishas, or divine expressions of natural elements. Infusing AfroCuban genres into interdisciplinary arts projects, as a teacher and performer, she is committed to AfroLatin arts education, community building and traditional arts as a healing response to trauma and division in multicultural communities.