Carmelita Tropicana

March 8, 2022

Season: 2020/21

Dear Soho Rep Friends,

My name is Carmelita Tropicana. During my time as a Project Number One Artist, I created a podcast, That’s Not What Happened, which explores my difficult, often imperfect, process of remembering.

My work has always drawn on my own lived experiences to engage contemporary social issues. I’m interested in how my own past as an immigrant and political exile fits in the current cultural and socio-political climate.

That’s Not What Happened juxtaposes memories from my childhood, my obsession with food, and the legacies of queer figures like José Esteban Muñoz and José Martí.

Listen to all 9 episodes of this series below.

With music by Marc Ribot
directed by Ela Troyano
sound design by Margaret Crimmins
project manager Cristina Martinez.

Alina Troyano aka Carmelita Tropicana has been performing in New York’s downtown arts scene since the 1980’s. Her work straddles the worlds of performance art and theater with irreverent humor, subversive fantasy, and bilingual puns.