Featuring a cast of six, a book by Maksim Tsvetovat and Sandra Flores Strand, and lyrics by Ellina Graypel (English) and Laura Virella (Spanish), Liana is an hour of music, creativity, and self-discovery that flips between the present day in Queen’s and 1930s Grenada.
Liana is young, Latina, and set on a path to achieve fame. Her great-grandmother, Pilar, was a poiltical revolutionary and flemenco dancer. As their personal and artistic resemblances and preoccupations seem to mirror each other, Liana finds her identity through her ancestor’s guidance.
With rap by Nory Aronfeld, ideas of music from the past and present find a voice in each other, while Liana’s parents (Luis Carlos de la Lombana and Milagros Colon) connect with their own romance through song.
As Liana seeks to find herself in the music scene of New York, her cultural heritage seeks to inform her own artistic integrity and identity.
With an on-stage band (directed by Maksim Tsvetovat)and excellent sound and visual quality, this digital capture made available for the Rogue Theater Festival is a very enjoyable musical, a thoughtful and well-written family drama, and a strongly performed love letter to Latin artistic culture and how it permeates current musical forms.
Yenny Sanchez directs Liana and plays the main role, while Barbara Martinez offers a sleek sense of choreography for both domestic and professional settings.
The plot is a little light – the first mention of Pilar to Liana doesn’t happen until the halfway point – but the energy and enthusiasm more than makes up for it.
I valued the two strong women characters who were so close to each other; Luz Jubiere Zapater offered a delicate but steely performance as Pilar and you could well believe she was guiding the young Liana.
The video backgrounds and projections by Maria Arteaga placed us in the time and locations allowed while Matias Ulibari’s lighting allowed the music and dancing to crackle with life.
Liana is available for 48 hour rental until 10 Aug at https://cur8.com/17616/project/132612
4 stars.