River Rail
Fuerzas Sutiles (Subtle Forces)
nibia pastrana santiago’s large-scale choreographic event took place in 2017 inside a hangar at the Isla Grande Airport with the airstrip and San Bay serving as a dynamic backdrop.
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Translated from the Spanish by Nicole Delgado.
Bay, Dance, Territory: Some Notes
the bay is always open
it only closes during storms and hurricanes
it closes for 7 hours during new year’s eve
El Morro Castle II was the first airplane to transport passengers from New York to Puerto Rico in 1923
the bay has a constant entrance-exit flow: ships, vessels, cruises, airplanes, "merchandise" is the term for everything that enters or exits the bay
Ciudad Trujillo, Port-au-Prince, Santiago de Cuba, and Havana were the stops of the Puerto Rico-Miami flight in 1929
since 1934, the U.S. NAVY expressed their interest in building an air base in the infilled land of the San Juan Bay, including Isla Grande and Miraflores Island
mangroves and swamp, that’s what Isla Grande was
“a site capable of becoming an adequate air base for the operation of patrol aircraft”
“whoever controls the docks, controls maritime traffic; we wanted to control the monopoly that companies like The Waterman had at the time”
the San Juan Bay connects to the Condado Lagoon through the San Antonio Channel
annual average: 700 cruise ships and 1.3 million tourists
in the bay, everything that's part of the landscape day and night becomes a waypoint for navigation: lights, towers, buoys, everything that is fixed in space is a marker
the bay is a highly choreographed territory
access is conditioned by a manifesto, this private document details weight, quantities, measurements, and final or partial destination of the products
there have been immigrants who throw themselves into the water from the cargo ships when they dock
float: to maintain a body on the surface of a liquid
5 hours, 900 movements, 23 drivers: to load and unload the containers of a vessel
dance is image
repetitive change in water levels is influenced by the moon, the sun and the earth; when the three celestial bodies align, force intensifies creating a higher tide: the spring tide
depths vary
there’s a channel that only experienced pilots can navigate
in 2015, the federal government allocated $5.7 million for the maintenance of commercial navigation, and $700 thousand for research on the dredging of the San Juan Bay
the bay is protocol
dance is a device
choreography is a net
“los muchachos de Cataño ya no pueden contrabandear, porque el gobierno tiene una lancha que juega con las olas del mar" – plena song
Tropic Express, Isla Bella, and National Glory are some of the ships that enter the docks weekly
Las Cucharillas Swamp functions like a gigantic sponge to prevent floods
chance is an inevitable factor
El Caño Martín Peña connects the San Juan Bay to Laguna San José and Laguna los Corozos, which in turn are connected to Laguna La Torrecilla and Laguna de Piñones by the Suárez Channel
there were small boats that defended the bay from the mangroves, resisting the sieges of invaders from the waterways
post-military never post-tourism
