Maria la del Barrio, Live Performance, 2017

“Maria la del Barrio” (1995) is considered as one of the world’s most popular and successful telenovelas, having been broadcast in over 180 countries. The show follows the life of Maria: a garbage picker who falls in love with the son of a wealthy family and begins her treacherous ascent to the upper classes - facing betrayal, madness and a diabolical female antagonist along the way.

The performance finds Maria daydreaming about her fairytale future, whilst picking garbage in a landfill. This uplifting and tongue-in-cheek spoof of the telenovela genre will invite the audience to dance along and laugh at the ridiculous amount of gender and class stereotyping, observed in this drenched-in-drama novella.

Maria la del Barrio was funded by Arts Feminism Queer and presented live at Royal Trash: Deep Trash on the 29th April 2017.