With musical theater, documentary film, and an interactive party-style show, performance art ensemble from LA, My Barbarian, presents a unique live entertainment experience, which also strings in a political message. Presented by Museum of Art + Design at Miami Dade College (MOAD) Bride of the White Widow will show the Light Box Theater on Saturday evening.
“A shared sense of humor and outlook on life and a desire to play together for 18 years” is what has kept the art collective My Barbarian going strong for almost two decades, according to one of its members Alexandro Segade. His MFA educated playmates include Malik Gaines, an NYU professor of performance art, and Jade Gordon, who teaches theater at the Stella Adler School in LA and is skilled at mask making. Their longevity is being celebrated in their latest installment Bride of the White Widow. The three-in-one show is a restaging of My Barbarian’s Voyage of the White Widow, originally commissioned by De Appel, Amsterdam, in 2006, and included in Performa 02 at the Whitney Museum, New York.
The White Widow is a fictional Dutch ship, named after a strain of cannabis, an homage to the country that first decriminalized the recreational use of the herb. The performance is set to take viewers on a journey with the doomed crew on their lost voyage to the New World. Bride of the White Widow follows the misadventures of a colonial ship that trades in goods and people. Segade explained that the performance will have three separate aspects: a musical theater, a video installation, and an immersive interactive party-style show. Like in all their shows, the trio brings attention to contemporary issues of cultural appropriation, globalism, and environmental collapse. Some of these include problems affecting the environment such as climate change, a good fit for Miami. 
Segade mentioned that there is a whale in the show, which may remind one of the plight of the orca Lolita, who is sequestered at the Miami Seaquarium.
The way that animals like Lolita are violated by being abducted from their families and taken forcibly from their natural environment mirrors the disrespect of nature prevalent in modern society. Focused on greedy profit making, corporations that exploit animals are leading to the our downfall. Animal agriculture is the leading cause of climate change and Miami will be the first American city to reap the effects of sea level rise. We are already feeling it. My Barbarian brings attention to this issue, along with others, and bridges the gap between politics and art, making self-expression through live performance a greater statement of warning carried in humor.
My Barbarian: Bride of the White Widow
Performance: Saturday, January 20, 8:00 PM
Miami Light Project at The Light Box at Goldman Warehouse
$15 general admission; $5 students with ID; free to MDC students.
Tickets at MOAD MDC website at http://www.mdcmoad.org/.
The show is part of MOAD’S Living Together 2018 series.
Living Together will take place at various sites across the greater Miami area from January to September 2018 and will include works by 17 of the most acclaimed national and international artists, art collectives, musicians, and writers. Events in the series will be produced by MOAD MDC in collaboration with a range of other Miami institutions, and most events will be free and open to the public.
Miami Chronicles 