Cornell colleagues Debra Castillo and Juan Manuel Aldape Muñoz, working with colleagues in Hobart and William Smith, Colgate, and Syracuse universities, have recently convened a new working group with support from the CNY Humanities corridor. This group, focusing on (Afro) Latinx, Latin American, Caribbean and Indigenous performance, has focused this semester on microtheatre, and is participating in the April 18, 2022 microtheatre festival hosted at Syracuse by the organization Performing Identities Across Cultures. Castillo is directing a short collective creation play, “Entre silencios,” that focuses on the challenges of communicating migration stories in a detention center. Actors in the play include a Cornell grad student, a Cornell undergrad, a Cornell alum, and a local community member.
Under the auspices of Teatrotaller, Debra Castillo is directing a full length play on gender violence in Latin America, entitled “Diamantina rosa: se vale bailar,” by local singer/songwriter/playwright Ana Florencia López Ulloa. This unusual play includes monologues by four women, interspersed with opportunities for the audience to get up and dance. The play has been performed in October 2021 in Arts at the Palace in Hamilton, NY, and is scheduled for performance in Syracuse University, Ithaca College, and in downtown Ithaca at the Community School of Music and Arts in April 2022. An English adaptation for a single monologist and DJ, “Pink Glitter,” will be performed at the Cherry Arts Space in early May.
