a word on name.

My name is Deborah (deh-boh-rah) Zanelli (zah-nell-lee) Maciel (mah-si-el). I love my name. It holds for me the prophetess Deborah, feminist of ancient biblical times; the Hebrew word for worker bee; the tenacity and will to live of my mother with whom I share Zanelli; and the tender strength of my Father who gave me Maciel. I especially love how it sounds in their Peruvian-Brazilian Spanish acento, and I love how it rolls swiftly off my tongue. Like pouring water.

But I have gone by Debbie for most of my life. In school, I went by Debbie. So every teacher, fellow student, colleague, and compatriot that met me in all the years I did not know how to explain or embrace Deborah Zanelli knew (know) me as Debbie. I’m ok with that.

But then I became a professional art-maker. And I started making work I could stand behind realizing I did not have a public name I could also stand behind. I did not like the feeling of sharing work to have onlookers see it presented by “Debbie” who is she? Even though she is also me. So DZ. I arrived at DZ... I did not have a beautiful image or metaphor to name a company by other than myself, and I did not see myself as Debbie so I named my dance-theater company (and myself) DZ Maciel. DZ holds for me all the aforementioned details about family, meaning, place and: this play-space I loved as a child, which is now closed, also called DZ short for Discovery Zone; a phonetic similarity to ‘dizzy’ and ‘daisy’ two things I sometimes feel while dancing because I love to spin, invert, and bloom and because making art in NYC feels like spinning and blooming; capital letters because I’m here and alive; mystery because it doesn’t give everything away but allows me a choice ‘there is more to the story, yes, and now it is up to me to share’

and on that note, DZ does something Debbie never did:

People ask me what DZ stands for. They are curious to know, and I am usually happy to tell them. I am keen to share my story, where I come from, how I was born premature so my dad placed the Z in my name in case I passed so I would always have a piece of my mother too. How the Maciel is Portuguese and the Zanelli Italian because my great grandfather immigrated to Peru from Italy, and how the Deborah is Hebrew for no particular reason, but I did learn Hebrew in Jerusalem so it was maybe a prophetic naming. How I have struggled to find people who would try to roll my name off their tongues. How I have deeply loved the people who found their nicknames for me along the way. How my best friends have always called me “bb” “boo-boo” “Debita” “fox” “Paloma” and hardly ever Debbie, as if by instinct.

Nobody ever asked me what Debbie was short for.

So DZ, that’s what I would like to be called. That is the name I put behind my work.

gracias,

DZ