Puerto Rico (2019): Program in Educational Theatre

Workshop Day#1

Workshop Day 2

Sea turtle! 

Please view my videos to “read” my blog! Hope you enjoy it! 

Our breakfast! Carey was lovely enough to bring amazing, delicious donuts from Hudounts. If you have a chance, go and check it out! 

Renana Fox

The Performance

Heading to el Cascaron for our final day of rehearsal and performance was both exciting and sad. Having spent so much time in our separate studios, both groups looked forward to the opportunity to see what the others had been working on. Of course as artists we almost always wish we had just a little more time to perfect a piece, but there was an added air of excitement to finally get to share our experiences with a new audience.

In some last minute changes to the movement performance, Alejandra’s studio decided to add music which required the use of a Bluetooth speaker. Luckily for us, Quenna was on the task and braved the crowded streets of San Sebastián to retrieve one from our hotel. After a quick lunch break, we returned to the studio to finish running through our pieces (with the speaker!) and set up the space for our guests.

True to form, Deborah and her class were ready to start right at 4 PM, and what followed was a performance that was both funny and incredibly impressive. From movement, to painting, to pirotechniques, to mask making, Deborah’s students demonstrated skills I wouldn’t have thought possible could be learned in just two weeks. Despite having little or no experience with masks before the trip, each of her students left with a love for the craft and a strong foundation in the work. When asked about their experience creating the masks and their correlating characterizations, Asha described the creation process as being a “conversation with the clay” in which you have to listen to the artistic tools you are manipulating.

You can see video clips of their performances here:

https://youtu.be/j-u6wwG-JZs

https://youtu.be/CPRkRHxiWoQ

Alejandra spent her time with the movement studio emphasizing the innate creativity we hold within our bodies. Teaching a concept that is often frustrating to read about (but somehow entirely logical to practice in her studio) we learned to listen to our bodies and allow that awareness to inspire movement. Stringing together a series of devised movement pieces, we incorporated poetry, music and dance as we explored our bodies in space. Similar to Asha’s description of working with clay, Alejandra taught me to be in conversation with my body.

Art is a process, not a product, so learning to listen to our creativity means we can’t always demand something beautiful, but we can always find something authentic.

A few segments of our final movement studio performance can be seen here:

https://youtu.be/yfoSxLXUgxw

Our Teachers

Throughout the program, each of our teachers took time to share some of their artistry with us. Deborah presented a mask piece she is in the process of developing, Rosa Luisa shared several performances with us, and after our final presentations, Alejandra stepped onto the stage to share several of her own devised movement pieces. In a group of so many educators, this is a reminder that great teachers take joy in both their students and in their craft. And our teachers overflow with joy. To say we were lucky to have worked under such incredible and talented artists is an understatement.

Farewell to the Island

Walking back to the hotel through the crowded streets of Old San Juan, I felt a tug of sadness begin to pull at my heart. As I watched the sun set over the ocean, listened to the roosters crow and the coqui frogs chirp, it was hard to imagine returning to winter snow and saying goodbye to this island. In our time together, we have come to love not just the natural beauty of this island, but the beauty of its people and its culture. There is a joy here that comes from a celebration of pleasure and of community. And so of course the only logical way to end our time here, is through both. With our last few hours, we sat down to a shared dinner full of laughter, hugs, photographs, and a promise to stay in touch.

Of course the unspoken promise of coming to this island is that you’ll leave a piece of your heart behind, and the only way to get it back is to return to Puerto Rico. So for those who fulfill that promise, this isn’t goodbye, it’s “until we meet again”.

by Jing Dong

Today is the third day of San Sebastian Festival. The traffic in the morning going into Old San Juan is not as heavy as in the first two days, but there are more people than before in the cafe I go for breakfast near our hotel. The atmosphere is still quite relaxed. Don’t be surprised if you meet these friends on the way.

Artisans’ Market

Artisans’ market is a big part of the San Sebastian Festival. There are hundreds of booths in the city. Business people there are not just souvenir sellers. There are many serious local artisans displaying their best works. Starting from noon time, in Old San Juan, artisans’ markets and bars are packed with people. I followed Deborah to the best artisans’ market located in the beautiful courtyard of Museo de las Americas. She showed me many interesting local goods. Her favorite one is a pottery booth which is quite popular on social media. All the cups and mags there are handmade using safe materials. The glaze on the pottery was made by the artisan himself. He also explains that he pays decent wage to people who work for him. When we are at his booth at 1pm, his most popular items, cup-shaped earrings, are already sold out. It seems like he is running a quite successful and heathy social enterprise.

I also found local sweets very attractive. They are good looking and have all kinds of flavors. Gofil is a type of traditional corn candy filled in colorful paper cones. Cremitas de Coco is a type of crisp coconut candy. It is light and fragile. There are also soft candy cakes made of coconut with flavors of milk, almond, and guava among others. Resisting them is really really hard.

There is a booth displaying beautiful traditional toys such as Yoyo, Onda, Trompos, Valero, and Gallitos. There are several booths selling traditional instruments like Guiro, Maraca, and local Cuatro. We also find many interesting handmade kitchenware: a wooden ware used for pressing mashed plantain into pieces, a wooden mortar and pestle for grinding food, and coconut shell cups.

There are many artists in the market too. Several booths belong to mask makers. I see many kinds of materials used by them in mask making as shown in the pictures. One artist uses soft sponge to make very light masks that can be immediately put on by people celebrating on the street. Small sculptures of religious figures are also very common in the market. The most popular ones are the Three Kings, and of course the famous San Sebastian with arrows in his body.

Artisans’ market is a great place to learn about local culture. During the festival, local artisans are able to share their crafts and works with visitors face to face. It is a nice experience that I can meet with people who make the things I eat and use.

Deborah and I talked about the kind of old fashioned market where people sell things their make or grow by themselves. This kind of pre-industrial experiences now are rare and expensive. Often in farmers’ market, groceries are much more expensive than in supermarkets. The farmers’ market is now something luxurious. The power of chain grocery stores and highly developed logistics networks make our choices very limited and identical. Fruits and vegetables that are too fragile to be transported across states are gradually disappearing. In Puerto Rico, where 85% of its food comes from outside the island, it is not easy to find a variety of vegetables. The selections of vegetables in local restaurants are often even worse than in NYC.

Street Art

My new discovery in Old San Juan today is this abandoned building with a black-and-white Puerto Rican flag painted on its door. There are also sixteen important local graphic artists’ images painted on the facade of the building. A poster on the wall explains this project to visitors. In fact, the whole building is a political manifesto made by local graphic artists in 2016. As a reaction to the economic, political and social crisis of Puerto Rico, the artists are questioning their national identity, the power of the US, and most urgently PROMESA (the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act).

Today when Deborah pointed out this building to us, I did not realize that it was such an important political move of local artists. After knowing what this was all about, I think about how Deborah and other people we met have talked about this issue many times in the past several days. I’m very impressed by that the radical political proposition is so well expressed through the art, and has influenced many people. This is another great example of how art functions in Puerto Rican society. This kind of art is happening everywhere in Puerto Rico, like what we saw on the streets and in the markets of Rio Piedras, and in Papel Machete’s performance.

There is also another type of painting that we see a lot on the streets. Those are abandoned houses painted in bright and elegant colors. They seem like brand new buildings from the distance, but are actually torn down by the hurricane or by time. Some of them only have trash inside. Some of them don’t have roofs. The colorful paintings have covered up the reality to serve the need of the festival. The abandoned houses are well disguised so that tourists don’t have to feel scared when they walk by these buildings. It makes sense because most tourists don’t expect to see ghost houses when they come to enjoy a festival. When we saw the beautifully painted streets in Yauco, I felt that it benefits the local community by bringing in more consumers, and that it also satisfies visitors eyes. Generally speaking, those houses look good, although the owners don’t necessarily like the aesthetics. The paintings become a part of their life and their reality. But how should I perceive the painted ruins? Do they serve local people or the opposite?

Enjoying the Festival

After the afternoon studio, several people from the mask group go to Plaza Colón for drinks and live music. Savanah and Sara have got their giant sangria kits. Deborah, Si-Yeung, and I stay loyal to Medalla, a light local beer being sold on almost every street. We are lucky to see a fantastic musicians group named Taller Palenque performing bomba music and mountain music. Deborah talks about the distinct life style of the mountain people. People in the audience are dancing with the band. They even have invited a lady from the audience to dance bomba on stage. I’m so excited to see live bomba performance happening in front of me.

There is a group of people going to the La Perla stage for Sebastián Otero’s performance. Sebastián has become the star for our NYU group! There are also many circus performances happening outside El Bastión during the festival.

Mask & Puppetry Workshop

Now let’s take a look at today’s Mask & Puppetry workshop. The major task today is to prepare for tomorrow’s showcase performance. Our group already had a structure and major materials yesterday, so today we are focusing more on blocking, timing, and details. The run-through has already taken shape. 

The first emphasis of our rehearsal is practicing with objects. Because we use a lot of objects in our performance, it is important to get familiar with them to avoid being “hijacked.” (Deborah) For example, I need to hang a fish to a hook held by Asha. In the rehearsal process, we discovered that the fish line could get stuck to the hook. The solution we found was to cover the hook with silver tape, so that the surface of the hook becomes smooth. We also learned how to use different sizes of cloth to create illusions for different scenes. This is my first time using cloth in the way Deborah uses it. It is very impressive and full of imagination. I’m not explaining what the cloth is used for because that way it would become a spoiler for tomorrow’s showcase. There are more surprising objects to be discovered tomorrow!

Another aspect we spent a lot of time on is how we move through the space, and how we pass each other. The basic principle is that we need to make sure no one is blocking other people’s way. It was never a problem when we acted before, but now we have masks on and have very limited sight. I am only able to see a small area in front of me. Another principle with masks is that we need to be aware of where our masks are facing. It is not interesting to see the profile of a mask. Besides that, we should also try to bring more air when we move in the space to create a sense of fluidity. Meanwhile, the balance and composition of the stage image is also very important to keep in mind. Thanks to the teaching of Deborah, I now have a sense of how to work with masks.

by Ellie Harrison

(paradegoers with umbrellas following the start of the rain)

The San Sebastian Festival - or SanSe for short - seems to an outsider like a huge party; as one member of our group put it, “this is like Mardi Gras on steroids!” What many people may not realize, however, are the rich cultural and historical traditions surrounding the festival that have given way to the highly populated, multistage madness that one sees today. 

Every year on January 20th, the Catholic Church holds a feast day to celebrate the life of San Sebastian, an early Christian saint and martyr. Sebastian, despite normally being portrayed as tied to a tree and shot with arrows, did not die of this cause; rather, he was clubbed to death after trying to warn the Roman Emperor at the time, Diocletian, of his sins. Saint Sebastian is the patron saint of archers, the plague, and soldiers.

(San Jose Church on Calle de San Sebastian in Old San Juan) 

The Festival of San Sebastian was started in the 1950s by Father Juan Manuel Madrazo, the priest of the San José Church on Calle de San Sebastian. The San Jose Church, pictured above, is the second oldest church in the Americas - we walked by this church on the day we visited La Perla with Tito Otero but did not go inside. Father Madrazo instituted this festival to celebrate the life of Saint Sebastian on his feast day as well as to raise money to repair the church. In 1970, it was instated as an annual event, and over the past 50 years, the festival has grown in size and in notoriety until it has reached today’s proportions, with over 200,000 people frequenting Old San Juan to listen to music, mingle with local artists, eat delicious (mostly fried!) food, and party. The SanSe of present day runs from the third Wednesday to the third Sunday every year, and shows off many aspects of Puerto Rican culture and heritage. It officially starts today, Thursday, January 17, with a parade and opening ceremony.

Through Deborah’s mysterious connections (I swear, between her and Rosa Luisa, they know everyone on the island!), the masks group was offered a space in the parade. Deborah was additionally generous enough to extend that offer to the physical theatre group, with the condition that they also “mask up”. As assigned blogger for the day, I declined the offer to put a mask on but agreed to accompany the group through the parade. We arrive for the parade around 4:30 pm, stepping out of the doors of El Cascaron and immediately into the line up. 

(the fearless Macanuda directing her fellow masks to suit up and get into formation)

Deborah immediately began maneuvering everyone participating into two lines and organizing them from shortest to tallest. Behind our group, men and women in stilts were laughing and joking, swinging each other around with effortless balance that I could only hope to ever achieve. Directly in front of us, there was a band and men wearing capes and masks (see below).

(our parade buddies - not pictured: the large metal box that was being dragged along the ground to hype everyone up)

These men were LOUD, and I loved every minute of it. Definitely the hype squad of the parade. They were dancing and singing and screaming and getting up in people’s faces, and taking lots and lots of photos with people. It seemed like we were milling around in what could perhaps be best termed “somewhat organized chaos” for a while, but eventually there was some unseen signal, a trumpet went off, everyone cheered, and we were off! By this point, it had begun to drizzle, but I don’t think anyone minded, least of all the masks people - it cooled everything down and those masks and heavy clothes get hot regardless of the outside temperature. 

(traditional Vejigante mask)

As we walked alongside the folks in masks, I was struck by how strange it was to have so many cameras turned on me. I was taking lots of pictures, and for every picture I took, I’m sure that at least 10 were taken of me just because I was walking “in” (a very loose word, to be clear) the parade. People kept jumping in and out of the parade, dancing in the middle of the street, and grabbing parade members (including our masked friends!) to take pictures. As I have been throughout most of this trip, I was warmed by the sense of love and community as we traveled along our route. It seems like all of these community events that we attend, particularly those pertaining to Puerto Rican culture and heritage, are filled with passionate people who share a level of affection and camaraderie that it doesn’t seem like we often see in the continental United States.  

(the tables have turned - the photographers become the subjects)

I also couldn’t help feeling like I should’ve worn a mask to be walking in the parade - the people in masks were totally transformed and some people who had been nervous about dancing in public prior to putting the mask on were suddenly dancing and mime-ing freely and exuberantly. We slowly walked through the streets, and every part of the experience was overwhelming in the best way: the colorful sights, the mouthwatering smells of food, and the rhythmic music. I honestly wasn’t even paying attention to the rain, although at this point it had become more of a sprinkle than a drizzle. Eventually, we reached the plaza of San Sebastian, where the paraders circled a few times and settled in to watch the opening ceremony, which was entirely in Spanish and, as a result, somewhat challenging for me to understand as someone who does not speak the language. What I did find interesting, though, was that there are SO many people here who love the arts, and who are committed to creating, maintaining, and preserving space for the arts within the different communities in the city of Old San Juan. We’ve seen this throughout our entire trip with the different people we’ve worked with, but this festival really cemented that idea for me. When I brought it up later in the day with a Puerto Rican friend, he responded, “Well yeah, we’ve been through a lot... we need to find some way to express it.”

(close up of Asha in her mask, Kate/Jess/Lauren in training masks)

Wednesday January 16, 2019.

Having been the blogger for the day carried an unexpected weight to the role. I was a bit on edge to ensure I was covering every aspect of the day and I felt that weight again as I stared at a spinning wheel attempting to exporting my video blog out of iMovie.

I had the special privilege of covering our partial day off, and attempted to check in with members of the group to find out how they spent their mornings. Then in the afternoon we met with Antonio González Walker who led us on a walking tour through Río Pedras. As he guided us through the city and to the Plaza of Mercado of Río Pedras, he spoke of the abandonment facing the city but how there are also many people still trying to rebuild the city. One way people are trying to rebuild is through their art and engaging their art with the community.

We also had the opportunity to speak with two directors on their process in creating: Gisela Rosario Ramos (the director of the documentary Recetario) and Kairiana Nuñez (the director of Espírita Santa(liz).) Hearing how they approached their work and challenged traditions was exciting, and something I hope to incorporate in my future artistic endeavors.

Here’s to pushing boundaries, asking questions, creating, mixing mediums, and telling stories!

by Anthony Sun Prickett

On this Tuesday, January 15th, our cohort got the amazing opportunity to do a full workshop with Rosa Luis Marquez on the technique of image theatre. Working with Rosa was thrilling for both the body and the mind, as the ways in which she was able to create 

(we do a short physical warm-up with Rosa) We first started by watching a video in which Boal and his son, Julian, explained the basics of forum theatre, and a video of a forum theatre piece which Rosa directed, in which a young woman tried to decide how to protect her relationship with a black boyfriend from her racist parents.

It was terrifically exciting to see forum theatre in action, as somebody who’s read about it but had never seen it. And the discussion that came afterwards had major implications for us as facilitators, as Rosa explained our responsibility towards the communities we work with in creating art that liberates rather than harms. She told us the story of how she first started working with the young man playing the professor when he had just turned 18, and he didn’t yet understand what it meant for himself to be black, nor even could fully articulate his queerness. Simultaneously, when he created art, there was an incredible beauty, a deep imagination. As she put it: “He was an artist, but didn’t know he was an artist!”

In hearing that, I felt something deep inside shift. Rosa seemed to have a vision: a vision that what had been done could be undone. That the pain, the trauma, the being told (as I had been told): “You have nothing worth saying. You have no story. You have no history,” that all that could be undone. That our art didn’t have to be answerable to that voice in your head, inherited from generations of abuse and poverty at the hands of white supremacy and homophobia. That Art, to use a cliche, could help us to uncover the beauty inside of us that oppression had tried so hard to hide.

This isn’t a given, nor a task to take lightly, as Rosa made clear. She told us all that the facilitator must take great pains to make sure they are not furthering the oppression of individuals by recreating the experiences that have traumatized them, and then placing them right in the center of those traumatic experiences to live them again. “They already face enough pain in the outside world,” she said, “I don’t need for the pain to be made worse through my work.” Therefore, she has be deeply reflective about how she works with the stories the community offers her, particularly with the casting and the ways in which she centers the stories: she has to choose whether she is going to make the person being focused on the one experiencing the oppression. She explicitly chose in the scenario described above, for example, not to replay a scenario of racism against the black professor, but to address racism more obliquely, because she did not want to retraumatize the young black man who had only just begun to unpack the ways in which racism impacts his life. (She has also told me in a previous, one-on-one discussion, that she tells her students explicitly: while she will treat the stories she receives with care, her practice is not psychodrama, and that she may not be able to create a space for them to heal from a traumatic experience. In fact, playing them out on stage could potentially make them worse.)

(Michelle and Si-Young do the fill in the gaps exercise)

We then engaged in our own practice of image theatre. Image theatre is a technique of Theatre of the Oppressed in which the participants use their bodies to create images of various themes in their lives, and they then discuss those images. She started with a demonstration where she created a story using multiple tableaux (or images involving multiple people in various poses) of Jessica and Steph in order, and then had us interpret those images as a story. This game, she said, demonstrated our ability to make many meanings out of a single series of images. We then played a game in which we would fill in the gap of an image created by another person. The images were at first abstract, just meant to have the smoothness of melted butter or the way mercury moves, but eventually Rosa asked us to choose specific themes.

(Savannah, Asha, and Ellie create an image together).

(An image that Rosa created by adjusting Jing and Renana)

We first chose mental illness, and then addiction. As we created tableaux, sometimes of a person reaching out and another reacting with ambivalence, sometimes of deep pain and the attempt to comfort, Rosa would occasionally step in to gently move a person in their pose just to create a new tableaux, without altering the person’s fundamental gesture. She described these poses as being like the building blocks, or language, which we could use as directors to create a theatre production’s choreography. She eventually asked us all to enter the tableaux, to create a larger landscape of poses. Three people would be left on the outside to “direct” the tableaux, moving the people around the landscape or positioning them on chairs to tell one story or another.

It is hard to describe the ways in which the exercise changed and connected us, but I will attempt to: as we gave embodiment to the different aspects of how mental illness impacts our lives, it was as though the dialogue which is so often silenced in our society around the pain which so many of us feel was invited into the space. Ironically, the silence facilitated a deep, embodied dialogue, as the lack of necessity of words to describe our experiences allowed us the safety to be honest about of the sheer horror of what mental illness means for ourselves and those around us without either critique or judgement. We wouldn’t have to search for words, but could listen to the deep knowledge our bodies hold about our lived experiences.

Acting as directors in itself allowed us to make new ways of making sense of the images: for addiction, for example, would we elevate the image of the money-grubbers, implying a position of power for them over all the others? Or would we elevate an image of anguish, highlighting instead the overarching emotional destruction wrought by addiction felt by all who are touched by its terrible power? Would we move the money-grubber nearer to those who are suffering, suggesting that they are fully aware of the suffering and do not care, or even enjoy the suffering? Would we move the person drinking away from the others, to suggest their isolation?

As our next image theatre exercise, we had to craft sculptures around the theme of oppression. I tried to decide what the sculptures would look like, and ultimately decided for myself on depicting the school-to-prison pipeline, symbolically representing it through a sullen student in the center, a scolding teacher on the other side, and a person with a gun to the student’s head to the other.

I tell this story because an observation that Ellie made shortly after illuminated enormously just how such an image could pose problems. She noticed: many of us created images where we ourselves were not placed in the position of the oppressed. This is revealing, as I believe that none of us truly want to relive the experience of oppression that we depict through image theatre, and we place somebody else in the position of the oppressed so as to distance ourselves from that experience, and lessen the burden of retraumatization. When we act as the sculptor, we must consider whether the person we are asking to play the oppressed will be able to do so without forcing them to relive something traumatic.

(The human domino game)

And the adventure continues, this time with more community collaborations! Since there are two posts for this day, my post will focus mainly on our first half of the day (see Si Yeung's post below for more specifics on our workshops with the local students in Yauco!)

On Sunday, January 13, our group woke up extra early to board a bus to Ponce, which is about an hour and a half drive from San Juan. On our sleepy and slightly bumpy ride up through the mountains, we watched through our windows as the terrain changed from tropical and humid to mountainous and...well, it was still very humid (I have photos of my poofy hair to prove it!) Regardless, we mentally and emotionally prepared ourselves for what we expected would be a very long but incredibly rewarding day full of art, conversation, learning, and fun (and indeed it was!).

At 10:30 am, our bus pulled up to Antonio Martorell’s studio. As soon as we walked inside, we all began to express our collective awe and wonder of the space before us with gaping mouths, as we were quite speechless (Sidenote: for those of you who aren’t familiar with him, Antonio Martorell is an interdisciplinary artist who is quite famous in Puerto Rico--he does mostly visual work, but has also written plays and has done some work with documentaries, too. In short, he is incredible and an inspiration to all of us!).

I have seen works of art at museums and art galleries before, but never in my life had I seen what I saw on this visit. My surroundings became full of colors, ideas, and even physical manifestations of feelings. There were so many shapes and patterns and textures—it was a full-on sensory experience.

As we walked through the space, Antonio encouraged us to simply observe and take everything in for ten minutes before taking pictures, so that we could take advantage of the present moment and of the experience. As I did so, I was reminded of an earlier time in my life when I allowed myself to take the time to fully observe my surroundings, and to let my curiousity take over and not feel guilty about it; spending a few extra minutes lingering behind on class trips to museums and zoos as a child allowed me to absorb more information and be more connected to the exhibits. By allowing my curiousity to take over in Antonio's studio, I could feel myself becoming more connected to the space and to the works of art, too.

After familiarizing ourselves with the space, Antonio invited us to gather around in a circle to have a conversation together, and to ask him questions about his work and his life. Though I am sure each one of us has many pages of wisdom and quotes written down from that conversation, I am aware that I can't include all of that information into one blog post. However, there are a few pieces of information that I think should at least be highlighted here. The first involves Antonio's description of his view on the purpose of art, and how we, as artists, can be affected by it. He reminded us that art should be enjoyed, and that the experience of engaging with art involves learning. So, when we create or engage with art, we should try to remember to not treat it as work or a struggle, but instead as an opportunity to gain new perspectives and take in the beauty and sensation of an artistic work. In other words, "knowledge is pleasure."

Another takeaway I have from our conversation with Antonio involves his advice for us on following through with our artistic dreams and endeavors. He reminded us that the "most important quality in an artist is awareness." He believes that art arises when people start to become aware of their surroundings and of happenings in the world, and that art is a way to communicate one's responses to all of these things. He also emphasized an important note on the connection between an artist and their work: "you transform the object, and the object transforms you." According to Antonio, it is almost as if the artwork's purpose is to inspire change and introspection within the artist. There is no need for the artist to impress or compete; there exists a beautiful and honest relationship between the artist and the artwork, and it is that relationship that brings out the beauty in both of them.

After our heartfelt conversation with Antonio, we proceeded to the next phase of our visit, which involved a tour of his studio and a workshop. As we passed through the space, we learned a bit more about our host and about his projects. A few pieces that come to mind include his collection of pieces commemorating the 2,975 people who died in Hurricane Maria, in addition to the numerous masks and portraits that filled the space on the walls and on the ground.

Once we finished the tour, we headed outside to his backyard and workstation, so that we could begin our workshop. He demonstrated to us our task: roll paint onto the designated recycled objects, and then stamp/stomp the object onto the fabric squares that we were each given, either using our hands or our feet. Though things certainly got a little messy, the stains on our clothes were well worth it! We took turns rolling the red, black, and white paint onto squished water bottles, paper cups, and metal-like cursive letters (and for some of us, our gym shoes!), and then stamping the objects onto our pieces of fabric.

We also created a group mural together, each adding our own personal touch to the work. Antonio helped us figure out where to add certain colors and shapes, and even had the idea for Asha, Quenna, and Kate to stamp the bottoms of their shoes as a way to frame the entire piece.

After taking a few group photos and exchanging final thoughts and hugs, we said our goodbyes to Antonio and his studio assistants as we boarded the bus to head off to our next activity of the day in Yauco.

About a half an hour drive from Ponce, Yauco is a small yet vibrant city closer to the west coast of the island. As we arrived, we were greeted by Rafael Mejía, Executive Director of Art, Culture, and Tourism of the City of Yauco and Director of Teatro Ideal. Rafael and a few other community members gave us a tour of Yauco, stopping at community hotspots such as the set of stairs painted by students from the Magnet School of the Arts Ernesto Ramos Antonini, and a strip of homes that were painted in bright colors by the community and by local commissioned artists. We learned that the community in fact plans to continue painting more homes in bright colors, as it has become a way for the community to come together and curate their own space.

Following the tour and a short stop at a local historic site/museum, we then made our way over to the local theatre to greet the students from the Magnet School who we would be working with that afternoon. The workshops we led were based off of themes that we have learned from our puppetry, physical theater, and Theater of the Oppressed work with Alejandra, Rosa, and Deborah. We spent about two hours interacting with middle school and high school students through these activities, and we enjoyed every single minute of our time there (Amy pointed out in a later conversation that we all were smiling and very joyful the entire time...I think it is safe to say that we enjoyed pretending to be animals just as much as the students did!). In this space, we not only were facilitators; we were also learners, and we did our best to give each other the space to facilitate and learn simultaneously, so as to avoid creating unnecessary power structures in that environment.

After the workshops ended and we took our final group photo, our NYU group and the community members from Yauco all headed over to a local restaurant to celebrate a successful day of arts learning and educating.

All in all, Sunday was a day certainly full of colors, community, and creativity (not to mention a two for one sangria deal to top it all off!). I cannot wait to see how else we engage with and learn from our collaborators here in Puerto Rico.

We began our day with a ride to a Southern city Ponce to visit Antonio Martorell, a prolific Puerto Rican artist. We visited his house, which is full of his original artworks, created individual and collective artworks, and talked with Antonio about his philosophy and his thoughts and inspirations behind different artwork. It has been a fruitful and amazing experience.

After our visit to Antonio’s house, we then went further to a southwestern town called Yauco. We boarded a trolley for a city tour in Yauco. In the tour, we visited many artworks, mostly murals, of the project Yaucromatric, an urban art project that transforms abandoned places and neighborhood with artistic work. 

There are paintings on walls of buildings all around downtown Yauco, as well as in the community of La Cantera on the Yaucano hill, where macro-mural was put onto the wall of the residents.

The colorful mural ‘Brisa Tropical’ brings liveliness to the community and also to the attracted lots of tourists to the area. As explained by our guide, the project Yaucromatric has involved many Puerto Rican artists aiming to revitalize the community with art.

Besides the tour on murals, we also visited the El Centro de Arte Alejandro Franceschi, an early 20th century heritage in Yauco. The interior design was delicate and showed a wealth lifestyle by the time.

After the trolley tour around Yauco, we headed towards El Teatro Ideal where we will conduct a workshop with students from the Magnet School of the Arts Ernesto Ramos Antonini who study dance, music and theatre. Our cohort was divided into four groups to conduct different theatrical activities related to the physical theatre and mask studio, as well as Theatre of the Oppressed. Each of us put what we have learnt in the studio into practice. To apply things that we just learnt into practice has been nervous challenge to us. Nevertheless, we enjoyed very much playing and doing theatrical activities with the students. We facilitated theatre activities like mirroring, verbal language vs gesture, portraying emotions with eyes closed and with minimal use of facial expression, etc. After each activity, we explained the rationale of the activity, in an attempt to connect theatrical literature and theories with the contents of the workshop.

Today, we watched our peers try on each other creations. Watching everyone create a character with intention was a great experience.  I felt like I was sitting in the director’s chair.  Looking at what works and what doesn’t work to create something that translates to others is an art in itself.  Watching my classmates make choices was also added an element of surprise.  Our creative processes in making the masks are as unique as our fingerprints. This also includes the choices we make once the mask is on.  

Taking a step back and letting go of this thing I created gave insights we hadn’t considered.  Antonio Martorell stated that “our art should be like if we’re parents to children, we have to create it and let it go and do its own thing.  If we can’t do that then we’ve failed as artists and parents.”  Every facilitator has stressed letting it go. Its been the overarching theme.  Allow your art to be democratic and have a voice of its own.  

So today I leave you with some snippets of the trust we built with each other by letting go and allowing others to give life and become an extension of what we created.

Steph’s Blog January 11

A Day of Self Discovery

After an exciting week of getting to know the history and a feel for Puerto Rico, today was our first long studio day with our respective groups, and so in some ways it felt like a new beginning. The physical theatre and the masks/puppetry groups divided and dove right into long, intense, and ultimately transformative labs days. In the physical theatre group we focused on work surrounding two major practices, Laban movement and authentic movement. For clarification and sense of context, I will briefly elaborate on those two concepts. Laban movement, by definition, is the method and language for describing, visualizing, interpreting and documenting human movement. Authentic movement is an expressive improvisational exercise that allows for the dissociation of the body, and focuses on the idea of listening to the body and what it is trying to tell you. All team members are at different levels and exposures with this kind of intimate work, and so it only added to the value of the authenticity and excitement in the room. I was especially happy with the energy in the room, where everyone was in an honest, judge-free state and ready to tackle the exercises with the best possible attitude.

The first exercise we did and perhaps my favorite was one called “the watcher and the mover.” It was, an incredibly intimate experience for both parties involved, and really brought us back to human fundamentals, raw and vulnerable. The mover was instructed to do a full body meditation however they saw fit, and with the knowledge that they were being watched and supported. The watcher, on the other hand, was instructed to carefully watch, to actively practice the the action of observing without intention to react. It is endearing the way these actions seem so simple, so simple in a way that upon hearing them, it seems like something we probably do all the time. We mentioned in class how overtime it seems like society has lost the art of simply observing, and how important and valuable it is to be able to do so. We often become so caught up in our reaction that we miss subtle and important details in other people, overlooking much of what’s staring us in the face. We broke up into partners and began our exercises, which had the most heartwarming results, most seemingly positive.

After doing the exercises, it became clear why we were doing so in the first place, and how much it was helping us all understand each and every group member. My partner and I decided to do our exercise outside, and I was interested in how different the experience must have been for those inside and out. For me personally, doing this outside helped me further connect with earthly energy and trust whatever it is I was following. It made me wonder what the experiences must have been like for those inside, and just how much it made a difference. Everyone must have had an incredibly subjective experience, and so it’s hard to speak for everyone, but for me personally, it reminded me of how animalistic we really are. When both watching and being watched, we came into really raw, vulnerable positions that often resembled animals and instinctive behaviors.

Additionally, we tended to create a bit of a narrative for what we were watching as the viewer, and it was interesting how objectivity was hard to maintain throughout this exercise. When analyzing someone that carefully in such an intimate state, we naturally aim to understand what they are experiencing and aiming to express, and imagine our own versions of what is being presented to us. Whether we’re correct or not, it makes us feel closer to our partner because we now take abstract guesses on what they could be feeling, and either way, it makes us empathize and care for their inner spirit, or at least that was my conclusion. When we began this exercise, it felt like I had to understand something by the end of it, and it was nice to see that that wasn’t really the point. It was to be there for someone, judge and word free, and be witness to their experiences without any need to know what they were thinking. This exercise brought out a variety of emotions between the team members, some emotional, some joyous, and some simply cathartic. It was also beautiful to collectively come down from that headspace with the group, as we took much needed and appreciated time to decompress and fully get back into our bodies. When doing this work, it’s so important to be responsible and take the appropriate time to both warm up and back down, and thankfully that time was well accounted for. After this emotionally intense morning, we went off to lunch.

Upon returning, we continued into more Laban work, and started working on something our instructor referred to as “movement gestures.” This, also, produced an incredibly intimate setting where we learned about our styles as people, artists, and language vocabulary. The exercise was to create your own personal dance, with 8 movements, and then teach it to another person in the group. As previously mentioned, some people in the group were unfamiliar with this type of activity, and so it was fascinating to see how they tackled such a new concept so creatively and carefully. After mastering their own, it was telling to see how they went about teaching it to someone else, and the challenges that follow that process, and the bond that creates between two people. It forces you to analyze your own movement in an objective way when teaching it to someone else, and then to create new ways to instruct it. After successfully sharing this activity with the class and performing it together as a duo, we as a class discussed some of it’s benefits. Among all the points raised, the benefit of gaining new body language vocabulary resonated the most with me and seemingly everyone else. It’s fascinating to think about all the ways there is to do one action, and how small and subtle differences can drastically change performance and intention. Team members also explained how others did mundane, simple actions in ways that hadn’t occurred to them before, and it really forced us to give attention to detail.

Additionally, we came to the conclusion that many people reveal much about themselves in the movement gestures that they choose. Many colleagues seemed to capture their own essence and/or energy in their piece, and when comparing it and teaching it to other colleagues, that became especially clear and even magical to watch. We concluded it was generally a useful tool that serves several purposes at once.

These exercises led to a wonderful discussion revolving acting, and raising different points about styles, meaning, and perspectives that come with it. As actors and generally artists, we sometimes tend to get too stuck in our heads, and so I felt these exercises were particularly useful for addressing just that. If we can control our movement and become completely aware of how we’re coming off physically and not just in our heads, we will inherently become better performers. All of the work we did is beginning to build up and layer, taking us from our raw states and building us into something stronger, both individually and together.

Theatre has a plethora of benefits, and the therapeutic aspect is just one facet of them. I felt today we covered and explored that, and since several students were rather unfamiliar with it, discovering that as a group was truly wonderful. Some students joked that they didn’t know they had signed up for a spiritual retreat, and it made me realize just how impactful the work we are practicing was. Aside from learning useful tools to help people better understand themselves and their bodies in the world of theatre, it was useful to see them reap personal benefits for development.

Despite a rainy start to our day, day three was filled with laughter, dance and lots of learning while venturing out to the University of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras.

We started off our day by dodging the rain and loading into two large taxi vans that took us about 20 minutes away to the University of Puerto Rico in Rio Piedras, which is the most preeminent public university on the island and also where many of our teachers, including Rosa Luisa and Alejandra are faculty! The university was founded over 100 years ago- in 1903- and is has been the site of many protests and activist demonstrations that have taken place on the island.

We started off our visit to the University with a trip to the University art museum. There, we met with Gloria Ramirez who told us about the museum’s beginnings during the 1920s and the current restorations happening to the space in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. Rosa Luisa then instructed us to close our eyes while she blindly led us in to a gallery space and placed us in front of one of the most famous paintings by the Puerto Rican artist Francisco Oyer. When we opened our eyes we found ourselves face to face with a larger than life painting that revealed something new every time you looked at it. Rosa Luisa asked us to look at it as if it was a theatrical stage and make the noises that we would be hearing if we were in the room the painting is set. Suddenly the quiet gallery space was filled with loud cackling, crying, barking, singing, and yelling! After talking about the painting and the artist more with Gloria, we had a chance to look around the museum and even make our own texture rubbing art pieces!

After looking around the museum we went outside to learn more about the famous performer, educator and playwright Augusto Boal from Rosa Luisa, who was actually a student, apprentice and close friend of his! We started off by playing some fun theatre games that had us laughing and moving around. Then Rosa Luisa told us about her time working with Boal and many of the things she learned from him. We talked about some of Boal’s work including Theatre of the Oppressed and Invisible Theatre and how they were born out of necessity at that specific moment of time. Rosa Luisa also spoke about Boal’s amazing ability to truly engage and involve the audience in his work.  

After our talk with Rosa Luisa about Boal we met up with Agnes Bosch who helps run the theatre at the University. The theatre was newly renovated after Hurricane Maria thanks to a 1 million dollar donation from Lin-Manuel Miranda and the Hamilton foundation in order to restore the theatre so that Hamilton could play at the University theatre this January- which was the plan until two weeks ago when the Hamilton producers decided to move the show’s venue to another location in San Juan due to safety concerns. The Hamilton set had even just been removed from the theatre prior to our visit this morning.  Agnes took us into the theatre which seats over 700 people and is absolutely beautiful. We had the opportunity to speak with Agnes about issues such as the enormous budget cuts the University is facing and what that will mean for students, faculty and the arts at the university. According to Agnes, many students will lose tuition waivers on top of already rapidly increasing tuition prices and a huge decrease in grants, fellowships and other opportunities for students.

After touring the theatre, we headed to lunch at a nearby restaurant called Café Paraiso. We chowed down on some traditional Puerto Rican dishes like mashed Yuca, sweet plantains, and codfish. We were all so hungry and the food was so delicious- I’ve never seen a group of students eat so quickly!

With full bellies we headed back to the University for a Bomba workshop with the incredible Awilda Sterling- Duprey. Bomba- a traditional Caribbean dance style that is rooted in African tradition- is a dance largely of improvisation and communicating with the drummers by dance who play the beat to match the dancer. Dancers uses their skirt or scarves to make dramatic gestures while dancing followed by the beat of the drummers. We all had such a blast letting loose and learning to communicate to the drummers with our bodies through movement. Awilda even told us the names of place in New York City we can practice Bomba and we all can’t wait to show off our new skills back home in NYC!

We’re continuing to settle into San Juan! Day 2 continued to deepen our understanding of the context in which we’re working, artistically, historically, culturally, and politically.

(A representative photo here, in which we’re all having fun in the sun while TA Quenna works tirelessly to make this trip run smoothly <3)

The day began at the studio, where (after a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday to Asha!) we broke off to work in our studio groups for the first time. Six of us are working in masks and puppetry with maskmaker, puppeteer, and performance artist Deborah Hunt, and the other eight (including myself) are focusing on physical theatre with choreographer, improviser, and dancer Alejandra Martorell. Alejandra began our session with a quote from Nietzsche: “There is more reason in your body, than in your best wisdom.”  While pointing out the irony in this phrasing (in using the word “reason” Nietzsche still operates within the logic he seeks to critique), Alejandra set the tone for our work in physical theatre: we will be working with our bodies, changing our awareness of our bodies, seeking and storing knowledge in our bodies… For a bunch of NYU students (even theatre people) who are used to sitting in a classroom and using only our brains, this is exactly the push we need!

Alejandra started by cluing us in to a quick anatomy fact: your spine actually ends closer to where your eyes are, not where we normally think of as the base of the neck. Way up there, your skull rests on the top vertebra of your spine, nestled in sort of like if you fit the knuckles of each of your hands together. The way that most of us carry ourselves belies our own anatomy: our necks are usually tense, perhaps hunched over our phones. And it turns out that is a hard habit to break! The number of times Alejandra instructed us to release our necks, or physically lifted and shifted our skulls into their proper position indicated just how challenging.

Thinking about this part of our body was part of an aspect of Alejandra’s practice called Alexander technique. Frederick Alexander was a theatre actor who realized that the way he was using his body as an actor was hurting him, not from one instance of injury but rather repeated patterns that contradicted the body’s normal functioning (imagine the late 19th century version of hunching over an iPhone). Even though it’s hard to break those conditioned habits, returning to the body’s natural anatomy and way of being actually lets us try less hard, strain ourselves less, and work more sustainably.  Throughout the studio, various simple physical exercises allowed us to gain an awareness of this part of our body, and it became clear what a difference it makes. In a game in which one person guides another around the space, the follower became noticeably more willing to yield to the leader. Even just lying down becomes more restful when your head is properly aligned. Don’t let the photo fool you: supported rest is hard work when you’re trying to do it right!

While those of us in physical theatre were changing our awareness of our bodies, our mates doing mask work were having a similarly impactful experience. During a brief midday check in, they shared experiences of working to get out of their minds and into their bodies, disengaging from themselves and letting the mask tell the story, and embracing being completely out of their element. For both groups, today’s work set the stage for the creative endeavors to come during our studio time. You’ll get a more detailed report from a friend in the mask and puppetry studio soon. For now, a taste of their work for your viewing pleasure.

To continue our context-building around the history of Puerto Rico, we visited el Museo de las Américas, housed in a series of rooms connected by a terrace encircling an enormous courtyard. As children kicked a ball around the courtyard, we explored the African Heritage and Conquest and Colonization exhibits, which emphasized that Puerto Rican society has evolved from the melding of the cultures of the indigenous Taíno, enslaved Africans forced to the island against their will, and the colonizing Spanish. Throughout nearly 400 years of slavery on the island, both the indigenous Taíno and Africans and their descendants resisted their unjust treatment, rebelling against the colonization of their lands and revolting against their enslavement from the start.

Our final activity today was a lecture by another of the incredible artists we’re blessed to call a teacher on this trip: Rosa Luisa Márquez, a prolific theatre artist and pedagogue. Rosa’s lecture (though I hesitate to call it that lest I evoke a tweed-elbowed professor dryly talking at an amphitheater of yawning students) beautifully connected the seemingly disparate work of the morning and the museum in the afternoon. Armed with a table full of masks and other props, Rosa weaved together the arrival of the Europeans on the island and the disastrous consequences for the indigenous people and the Africans eventually brought here and enslaved, with a broad overview of the spectrum of street theatre in Puerto Rico and throughout the Americas. Much of this street theatre is explicitly political, such as that of Marisa Barsy, among whose works include tattooing “colony” on her back, the Clown Police in San Juan, who both satirize the violence of the state and act as mediators between the people and the police who aren’t wearing red noses, and Tito Kayak, an engineer and activist who doesn’t consider himself an artist, but who stages dramatic public acts to protest illegal development in San Juan and Puerto Rico’s colonial status (I recommend a quick Google search to find video of his aerial and aquatic feats).

The work of these artist-activists is situated in a long history of theatricality in the streets in the Americas, one that Rosa emphasizes predates the arrival of the Europeans. History as we learn it, she says, is written history. Everything else is considered “prehistory,” and is denied. Similarly, theatre that doesn’t stem from the written word is devalued, considered minor, a craft rather than an art. Speaking profoundly to this dual social studies ed and ed theatre student, Rosa used the history of street theatre to challenge these colonialist notions. She reminded us of the wisdom that exists in the body and not the mind, gave voice to history of marginalized communities that are often denied it, returned political agency to activists and everyday people whose actions are often ignored in favor of individual government leaders, and labeled the street as a stage, positioning those who perform there as artists. 

After presenting the work of Marisa Barsy, Rosa shared that that was where she had intended for the lecture to end. But, as she put it, life is stronger than art. We were invited to place our shoes on the stage, at which point Rosa told us about an action/installation created by two Puerto Rican poets when it was revealed that 4,645 people were estimated to have died as a result of Hurricane Maria, a number that far exceeded what the government was willing to admit. What began as these poets’ spontaneous work of art grew into a cemetery, as more and more people contributed shoes, including those of the dead, family members of those who died spoke, and the community honored those they lost. Through the placement of the shoes, Rosa said, “the absent bodies were conjured.” This was Rosa’s final example of street theatre, in which the community bore witness to lives lost, to the ineptitude and intransigence of the government in the face of this loss, and to their own capacity for closure and healing. It was a powerful reminder of the context in which we are here as students, educators, and artists from the United States at this significant moment in Puerto Rico, in the wake of a tragedy that is a result of a history of colonialism and government neglect. In this context, Rosa told us our responsibility as visitors: to bear witness.

Today was our first day out and about in San Juan! It was action packed, and there was a great deal of energy and spirit felt within the group, especially after having our welcome dinner and Three King’s festivities the night before. It was a warm, inviting way to kick-off the trip. 

Our day consisted of introductions to Physical Theater and Mask and getting a lay of the land. Most of the group walked the 40 minutes from Miramar to Old San Juan while the rest of us hopped on the public bus. I arrived earlier and wandered aimlessly for 30 minutes, going into artisanal shops and scoping out El Cascarón for coffee. I was in awe of the colorful facades as I walked up and down the cobblestone side streets. I learned from Tito that buildings with facade colors are regulated in Old San Juan, meaning they cannot be renovated or painted a different color.

Rosa Luisa rang her bell at 10am sharp and class was ready to begin. She gave us an overview on the history of San Juan, the major radical changes at the University of San Juan, the Hamilton controversy, and Puerto Rico’s current fiscal war. In addition to Rosa’s informative introduction, she gave us the lowdown on keeping the studio space clean and safe. After that, we took our shoes off, got on our feet, and were ready to go!

The first portion of our Ensemble Building class concentrated on Physical Theatre led by the wonderful Alejandra! Our primary focus was on being seen and getting comfortable in the studio space. Alejandra’s exercise involved using our skin, muscles, and bones to heighten the awareness and consciousness of our physicality; forming a physical relationship with the space. We also walked around the space to practice being seen and did a (somewhat) cat and mouse activity by choosing one person to follow. Being a newbie to the Theater Education group, I found it helpful walking around and looking at people as a way to familiarize myself with the folks I’ll be working with these next two weeks. You’re all super cool! 

The next portion of the class was working with the lovely Deborah Hunt on Mask and Mime. She asked us to pretend we were experienced, skilled fisherman and to throw an imaginary 50 lb. fishing net into the ocean. We all did this collectively and then proceeded to do it one at a time to practice being seen. Deborah commented on the position of bodies and facial expressions, making us aware of how convincing, or not, our renditions of experienced fisherman were. We then had a chance to do it collectively again, only this time with specific circumstances, such as “Party at my house!,” or “The enemy is coming!.” I was intrigued by my colleagues’ reactions to these specific situations, going from relaxed to panic mode with their fishing nets.

The last exercise happened to be my favorite, which required us to perform the fisherman activity with masks on. I found myself choosing a mask I most relate to, or perhaps the current mood I was in, and it was truly liberating. I also got a kick out of seeing my classmates embody and transform into their masks. Deborah Hunt ended by saying, “We all have a mask. We all have a persona that we create throughout the years.”

Following our lunch break, the group reconvened on Calle Luna and took off on a walking tour led by Amy. From there we passed by a plethora of photo worthy sites, feral cats, and pigeons!

Our walking tour led us to our next point of interest: El Morro. It seems that we made it there in the nick of time, for El Morro will be closed starting tomorrow due to the government shutdown (what else is new, Washington?). We went ahead and purchased tickets to the fortress and learned about the history of this historic site, how their cannons, ramparts, and layered defenses have guarded the walled city for centuries. We took in the amazing views of El Morro. and the one thing I love about the area is that it’s full of locals flying kites on the high sea winds and playing with their kids. The hills were even steep enough to roll down on!

After our break on the grassy knolls, we continued our afternoon events by meeting up with Rosa Louisa and Tito, a citizen of the La Perla community, and heading to La Perla.

Tito mentioned that La Perla was initially home to many descendants of former prisoners from the countryside. Although La Perla is a community made up of low income housing that’s still recovering from Hurricane Maria, I believe La Perla to be a beautiful symbol of what it means to be a village that takes care of its own. I observed La Perla’s citizens make use of their community boxing rink, witnessed children engage and read books at a mini library situated on what looks like to be a proscenium stage, watched a musician sing and play his guitar while standing on the ledge of an empty pool, and saw a beautiful mural created as a response to Hurricane Maria. The end of the mural consisted of a painting that translates into the following words: “Dedicated to the souls that left with the passage of Hurricane Maria and the beauty and perseverance of the Puerto Rican people.” This is a truly touching message to read after having walked most of La Perla at this point. Rosa mentioned that most Puerto Ricans were only able to get news coverage from the States during/after Hurricane Maria.

I was surprised to hear that La Perla’s walls belong to the government and most of the buildings are “illegal,” according to Tito. Most people don’t have property papers and La Perla citizens are technically living outside the legal system. In addition to these sites, we walked passed a pre-school (known as a maternal school to Puerto Rico citizens), The Centre Head Start, founded by no other than Eleanor Roosevelt. The last stop on our walking tour of La Perla was a cemetery, and Rosa pointed out a gravesite belonging to her husband’s family as well as José Ferrer’s grave, who won the Oscar for Cyrano de Bergerac (one of my favorite classic films)!

We left Old San Juan tired, but chatting and reflecting on our incredible first day. I am already finding the work intriguing and the island of Puerto Rico rich in culture and beauty. There is still so much more to see, but for now I will wrap up this blog post with sharing a group photo below and eating olives from La Hacienda (a dynamite grocery store located across the street from our hotel).