Le déjeuner sur l’herbe

“Mira El!”
Antonio Ramos and the Gang Bangers

American Realness Festival
Abrons Arts
New York, NY
January 15, 2016

by Martha Sherman
copyright © 2016 by Martha Sherman

 “Look at this!” Antonio Ramos demands, in his naked, lewd, and extravagantly danced “Mira El!” Ramos’s work trains the spotlight on his – and others’ – bodies. An artist whose facebook page has been removed more than once for its resemblance to a porn page, his offering with the Gang Bangers wasn’t surprising, and it certainly commanded attention.

Photo: Antonio Ramos in "Mira El!" ©by Ian Douglas.

Ramos is muscular, with a thickened ballet body still elegant and strong, topped by wild hair and a large, grizzled beard. In his opening solo, naked but for a skimpy black garter belt, under a translucent white raincoat, Ramos dazzled – and not just because he was covered with glitter. Handing a phone to an audience member to film him, he danced for her – casual twirls into pirouettes, loose angular movement in elbows, knees, ankles. And the ever present bouncing of visible genitalia, of course.

The Gang Bangers, an impressive tribe of dancers, followed their leader – also in garter belts, sunglasses, and raincoats. Each was a beautiful mover, long strides and turns, and each moved in a private world that seemed only vaguely aware of others on the stage, until a perfect parallel duet offered a reminder of the underlying choreography.

As the group moved in and out of shifting patterns center stage, Ramos returned in sparkling high platform shoes, hugged the walls and panted aloud as he tugged a filled wagon. When he turned to face the audience, he was also wearing grotesque plastic lips that held his jaws and mouth open, a gaping hole – “Give me more,” that mouth insisted, as Ramos’s tongue lasciviously licked its edges.

After losing their coats, a layer of dancers squirmed along the floor, their legs splayed for best possible genital presentation, in a pattern like a perverse Esther Williams swimming scene. Then they popped up to continue their shifting, slithering, and looping across the stage in animal movements, as they moaned. Watching from behind and enjoying the show, Ramos set out a large picnic against the back wall, and, with another gargoyle-mouthed dancer, they began to feed each other, and chew (visibly, through their horrible maws.)

As the picnic proceeded, the dance became more menacing. A terrified dancer raced up the stairs and around the room as if chased by something monstrous; Luke Miller, tall and stately in his garter belt and torn fishnet stockings, entered in a huge purple feathered headdress, then rode one of the women as if his mount in a Mardi Gras parade.

Ramos and his naked dancers pulled the picnic into the room’s center as the lights came up. Instead of taking a bow, the dancers handed out fried chicken and fixings. Like Manet's gentlemen at le déjeuner, the cool New York audience took it all in stride, munching chicken and chatting with the naked performers. The Gang Bangers just wanted to party, after all. Bon Appetite!

Photo: Gang Bangers in "Mira El!" ©by Ian Douglas.

copyright © 2016 by Martha Sherman