La Jaba (2003)
This video references the Banana Dance performed by Josephine Baker. The word “jaba” is a negative informal expression from the Dominican Republic that is the equivalent to the term “high yellow” used here in the United States, meaning a very light skinned black person. In this video, the performance artist Nicolás Dumit Estévez wears a skirt similar to the one worn by Josephine Baker in her dance and the mask is that of my face. However, instead of bananas, the skirt is made up of miniature doll heads. By re-enacting this performance, I wanted to make reference to this historical act, but in presenting a man in the guise of Josephine Baker, I wanted to reconsider the original narrative of the Banana Dance, which eroticized the black, female body and the consummation of such.