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The exhibition is organized within the program of Days of Mexico in St.-Petersburg, in collaboration with the Embassy of Mexico in Russia and ADELANTE Center of Spanish Language and Culture, under the auspices of St.-Petersburg Committee for Culture.

«1950s mark the start of the golden era of Mexican cinema and simultaneous rise of popularity of cabaret in Mexico. At this time, there were approximately a hundred cabarets in Mexico city. The classical Mexican cabaret has been captured in cinema by Emilio Fernández, in photography by Gabriel Figeroa. My aim was to document what remains of it now. My project is a sort of farewell to this formerly popular entertainment» – Eujenia Arenas says in an interview.

The exhibition comprises about 30 photographs made in three cabarets of Mexico city: Bombay, Run Run and El Barba Azul - of which the latter is the only one still open today. Run Run was closed down in 2008, and Eujenia Arenas' photograph is all that remains of it now.
«I saw some extraordinary women among cabaret dancers. They were usually single mothers or poor students who earn their living by dance. Most of them are deceived, uneducated women, but I treat them with respect and avoid condemnation. I think that their social environment is to blame for their current situation, Eujenia adds. Besides, being a woman myself, I quickly found common language with them and now sometimes help them change clothes».

In Mexico, cabaret dancers are called ficheras (from Spanish 'la ficha' – chip, token) : at the rise of cabaret popularity, men had to buy special tokens to dance or have a drink with them. Seventy years later, with her exhibition that has traveled to Los Angeles, San Francisco and Madrid, Eujenia Arenas tries to justify ficheras and overcome the despise that they are still treated with in Mexican society.

© Eujenia Arenas, Noches de Cabaret.

Eujenia Arenas was born in Mexico, learned photography in Kodak studio in Mexico and school of Nacho López, studied under Francisco Mata y Lucien Clerc. Eujenia worked as press photographer for the culture and politics sector of El Dia newspaper. Her photographs have been published in respectable Mexican newspapers and magazines: La Jornada, Proceso, Milenio, Excelsior ? Reforma. Eujenia Arenas was the producer and host of Inner Light, TV broadcast dedicated to photography on one of the leading Mexican TV channels. The show endured 32 issues that well known Mexican photographers took part in.
Eujenia's first independent project as photographer was her exhibition Review of Views: portraits of Gabriel García Márquez, Álvaro Mutis, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Hugo Argüelles, Cachirulo and Alí Chumacero. The International Book Fair in Guadalajara featured Eujenia's Adventures in the Night telling of the night life of Latin American underground writers. The project dedicated to Mexico's vanishing cabarets, has been built since 2004 as combination of Bombay Queens and Secrets of Run Run series. In 2009 the exhibition received international acknowledgement in Mexico, Spain and the USA. At the moment Eujenia Arenas is working on her project dedicated to the so called 'muxes', men raised as girls with aim of having them later take care of their elderly parents (tradition spread mostly in Southern part of Mexico).

Vignette :  © Eugenia Arenas.