Novelas de Niñas
Novelas de Niñas
LIZN'BOW, Bow Ty Enterprises Venture Capital, Liz Ferrer
LIZN'BOW, Bow Ty Enterprises Venture Capital, Liz Ferrer
Produced by new media collaborative LIZN’BOW, Novelas de Niñas is a feminist, musical soap opera. Part installation, part interactive theater, this project recreates the elaborate reception of a fiesta de quince años—the momentous event announcing a 15-year-old’s transition into adulthood. In this reinvention of a party that centers the performance of acceptable femininity audience members sit alongside actors in an immersive drama. Set in an outrageously bedecked banquet hall, Novelas de Niñas provides the food, live music, and drama expected at any significant rite of passage.
Stories inspired by the personal experiences of fem, queer, Latinx people materialize throughout the evening in the form of projected mini-telenovelas and live theatrics. Performers planted amongst the audience as hired hands and fellow partygoers enact scripted and improvised scenes in both Spanish and English. Marrying the experimental with the melodramatic, these scenes and videos attempt to contend with issues of marginalization as related to gender, sexuality, language, class, and citizenship through humor and absurdity. This campy approach is a defiant response to the overly emotional, “passionate” character stereotypically ascribed to feminine-presenting members of Latinx communities.
As members of the live band, Niña, hired as the evening’s entertainment Liz and Bow act as interlocutors, addressing the audience directly with original reggaeton songs that reflect upon the evening’s events. Novelas de Niñas burlesques and celebrates the Latinx fem experience, queering environments and genres traditionally associated with latinidad such as the quince, the telenovela, and reggaeton to create an opportunity for greater understanding, acceptance, and fun.
Multimedia Performance, Music, Performing Arts, Theater
2023
About LIZN'BOW
Liz Ferrer and Bow Ty’s collaborative work spans filmmaking, photography, music, video, and performance art. Through a queer and comedic lens, their work together has been building a reputation for critiquing American and Latin pop. Their most recent projects together are feminist reggaeton band Niña and new media collaborative LIZN’BOW. Their work has been featured at Mana Contemporary; Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Art Center; Borscht Film Festival; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; the Bass Museum of Art; the Miami Herald; Young at Art Museum; Albright-Knox Art Gallery; Cunsthaus; Cincinnati Art Museum; the Koubek Center; the Satellite Art Show; the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami; Davey Fest; Museo de Arte Moderno, Santo Domingo; INDEX International Performance Festival, Santo Domingo; the Burchfield Penney Art Center; and the Art Institute of Chicago. Ferrer and Ty are recipients of a Knights Art Challenge award from the Knight Foundation, a Franklin Furnace grant, a Locust Projects’ WaveMaker Grant, Oolite Arts’ Ellies Awards in 2019 and 2022, a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Creative Engagement grant, the Koubek Center’s En Residencia grant, and Borscht Film Festival’s No Bro Zone short-film commission. Liz and Bow have attended residencies at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Knight Foundation and Sundance Institute’s Short Film Intensive: Miami, Caldera Arts, Squeaky Wheel, Mana Contemporary, Koubek Center’s En Residencia, Tempus Projects, ACRE, La Sierra de Santa Marta Residency in Colombia, and Cannonball.
Liz Ferrer and Bow Ty’s collaborative work spans filmmaking, photography, music, video, and performance art. Through a queer and comedic lens, their work together has been building a reputation for critiquing American and Latin pop. Their most recent projects together are feminist reggaeton band Niña and new media collaborative LIZN’BOW. Their work has been featured at Mana Contemporary; Squeaky Wheel Film & Media Art Center; Borscht Film Festival; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; the Bass Museum of Art; the Miami Herald; Young at Art Museum; Albright-Knox Art Gallery; Cunsthaus; Cincinnati Art Museum; the Koubek Center; the Satellite Art Show; the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami; Davey Fest; Museo de Arte Moderno, Santo Domingo; INDEX International Performance Festival, Santo Domingo; the Burchfield Penney Art Center; and the Art Institute of Chicago. Ferrer and Ty are recipients of a Knights Art Challenge award from the Knight Foundation, a Franklin Furnace grant, a Locust Projects’ WaveMaker Grant, Oolite Arts’ Ellies Awards in 2019 and 2022, a Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Creative Engagement grant, the Koubek Center’s En Residencia grant, and Borscht Film Festival’s No Bro Zone short-film commission. Liz and Bow have attended residencies at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Knight Foundation and Sundance Institute’s Short Film Intensive: Miami, Caldera Arts, Squeaky Wheel, Mana Contemporary, Koubek Center’s En Residencia, Tempus Projects, ACRE, La Sierra de Santa Marta Residency in Colombia, and Cannonball.
About Bow Ty Enterprises Venture Capital
Miami, FL
Bow Ty Enterprises Venture Capital (i.e. BTEVC, a.k.a. Bow Ty) is a human business conglomerate working with time, care, multiplicity, fear, joy, transformation, and enterprise.
Bow Ty Enterprises Venture Capital (i.e. BTEVC, a.k.a. Bow Ty) is a human business conglomerate working with time, care, multiplicity, fear, joy, transformation, and enterprise.
About Liz Ferrer
Miami, FL
Liz Ferrer’s work spans film making, photography, music, video and performance art. Her work has been building a reputation for critiquing American and Latin pop.
Liz Ferrer’s work spans film making, photography, music, video and performance art. Her work has been building a reputation for critiquing American and Latin pop.