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José Manuel Domínguez: Watch Out, Joe!
September 25, 2021
By Jordan Levin
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Theater artist José Manuel Dominguez knows about being different – as an immigrant, and as someone who can’t see. But Watch Out, Joe! explores other people’s anxiety at dealing with those who are different. “There’s a moment when I say ‘blind’ and I’m not talking about me,” Dominguez says. “I’m talking about you.”
A former member of Cuba’s marvelously radical Teatro El Publico, Dominguez went blind from meningitis at age 28, and came to Miami soon after, in 2000, thanks to Fundarte’s Ever Chavez and then-organizational-partner Susan Caraballo. Since 2011 he’s led the Antiheroes Project, presenting original full-evening works, and teaches bilingual inclusive community workshops.
Immigrating is traumatic. “You leave behind everything you are,” says Dominguez. “Ever says ‘this country puts you in your place, and your place is nowhere.’ You need to start everything from the beginning.”
He hasn’t decided if being blind made that harder or easier. “I live in a city I have never seen,” he says. “In the piece I say sometimes it’s good to be blind. You can believe in things others don’t believe, because you can’t see.”
Watch Out, Joe!, inspired by an alienating moment Dominguez had on a crowded Brickell Avenue, examines those kinds of questions, for him and others. Dominguez wrote and performs the piece, accompanied by Brazilian musician Marcos Campello. Late in the piece, the audience will be invited to dance with them. Will they accept? Dominguez hopes they will. “Come, break the rules. Break those barriers.”
Author
Jordan Levin
Jordan Levin has been writing about Miami since the early ’90s, including 18 years at the Miami Herald. As a freelancer, she has written for the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Latina, Billboard, and Ocean Drive magazines, among others. Before turning to journalism, she was a dancer/performer in New York City and an arts presenter in Miami.
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