Call Number:

C1533

Repository:

Princeton University Library: Manuscripts Division

Extent:

3 boxes

Language:

German and Italian

Preferred Citation:

Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Pedro Consuegra Papers, Box and Folder Number; Manuscripts Division, Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

Date:

1959-2007 (inclusive)

Creator:

Consuegra, Pedro

Form:

Postcards.

Abstract:

The Pedro Consuegra papers include postcard correspondence with Néstor Almendros, German Puig Paredes, Severo Sarduy, and others. The papers also include original issues of SIE, a handwritten underground tabloid, or zine, Consuegra edited for and about gay Latin American expatriates living in France.

Pedro Consuegra is a Cuban born French choreographer. He was born in Camajuaní, a municipality and town in the Villa Clara Province of Cuba in 1938. He settled in France permanently in his youth.

He studied ballet at Sociedad Pro Arte Musical de La Habana (SPAMH), and is a member of the National Ballet of Cuba. He is affiliated with different ballet companies in Europe, where he has worked as a dancer, choreographer, and maître. He worked with the Ballet National de Marseille and has held the post of Inspector General of Dance of the municipality of Marseille. In 1998, Consuegra choreographed "Cinderella" with the Ballet Nacional de Cuba in New York City which marked the company's return to New York for first time in 19 years.

He has received numerous awards including the Medal of the City in Marseille. In 1996, he received the Distinction for National Culture granted by Cuba's Ministry of Culture.

Includes postcard correspondence and printed materials from Consuegra's underground tabloid zine, SIE. Consuegra received postcards from various male friends who signed off with female pseudonyms and referred to themselves and Consuegra in the female pronoun. This close knit circle of friends were mostly homosexual men of Latin American origins living and working as artists, writers, and filmmakers in Europe and the United States.

According to Ramón Alejandro, who was known as La Tetona, each member of the group had a female nickname. Consuegra was known as Papayi Taloka and signed his editorial work on SIE as so. Néstor Almendros signed much of his correspondence with Consuegra as Adua la Pedagoga, a name that later became the title to Alejandro's 2012 book. Severo Sarduy was known as La Chelo or Chelo Alonso, the real life name of the Cuban-Mexican actress famous for playing femme fatales in Italian cinema in the 1960s. Many nicknames found in the correspondence allude to old-Hollywood and international starlets like Dolores del Río, Concha Piquer, Fanny Schiller, and Renée Adorée. Other nicknames were tongue-in-cheek, sexual innuendos like La Warrah, La Incalculable, and the aforementioned La Tetona.

The papers also include zine matter and magazine clippings for SIE. Consuegra edited and compiled SIE, a multilingual (mostly Spanish-German with occasional English) handwritten magazine in the 1960s. Consuegra most likely circulated SIE to his circle of friends who may or may not have been living openly as gay men. The zine took the form of a fake tabloid scandal; its topics ranged from nonsensical to humorous and tongue and cheek, implying gender based and sexual innuendos. Included in these materials are transfer lettering alphabets, outlines, and the Diccionario enciculopedico, a list of slang gay sex vocabulary.

Organized into the following series: Series 1: Correspondence, Series 2: Zine Matter and Other Printed Materials.