GERY MENDES BORBOLETAS
BY LYNNEE DENISE

Feb 2023, seen at Bijlmer Parktheater.

Gery Mendes is an instrument. And what I mean by that is that Gery Mendes is music. BORBOLETAS is a stage-enacted musical intervention. 

After watching this show, a few multi-instrumentalists come to mind. Stevie Wonder and Prince. But Stevie and Prince are not actors. That’s a skill set separate from the crown they carry as Black sonic geniuses. Likewise, we need new and imaginative language to hold the expansiveness of Gery as an artist because, with BORBOLETAS, he soars at being a musician and many other things. He treats theater like an instrument; his guitar, flute--and the sharp blade he used to create a song by scraping it against a metal pole--become characters—instruments as cast members.  

The question about new and imaginative language sent me thinking. 

I’ve longed for inspiring work that teases out interdisciplinary practices, outside of westernized universities, in new and creative ways—something much more soulful and accessible but still layered and critical. Gery offers a fix with his nuanced journey into family, inter-generational challenges, and the seamless blending of geographies and genres. 

BORBOLETAS is an exercise in craft and memory. It’s one of the best stage performances I’ve seen, which might surprise you because I’m Black American who only speaks English. BORBOLETAS was performed entirely in Kriol and Dutch. I was forced to rely on every one of my senses, which required my full participation. I was called on to be an intentional witness and forced to keep up with the pace of his solo performance, which had him jump from character to character--as he jumped from instrument to instrument. 

The success of this play can be found in the fact that I was moved while not understanding a single word. To ask me why or how I found it profoundly rich is to dismiss the sounds, well-articulated feelings, and diasporic rhythms, none of which can be contained or defined by language, that he displayed with the spirit of years in the making. BORBOLETAS is a highly developed production and project. 

So please don’t pity me for enduring and engaging without some of the needed contexts only language conveys. Instead, I think about what happened to me that night as a gift to my imagination. Even with the language barrier, I could access cultural wealth without the presence of the colonial hand. I understood every word and every musical composition in the play, making it a win for global Blackness. 

Lynnée Denise is an artist, scholar, and writer whose work reflects on underground cultural movements, the 1980s, migration studies, theories of escape, and electronic music of the African Diaspora. Lynnée Denise coined the phrase ‘DJ Scholarship’ to re-position the role of the DJ from a party purveyor to an archivist, cultural custodian and information specialist of music with critical value.