2014, Children Friendly, Events, Family Activities, Music, Performance, Residencies, Theater

“La Casita de Julia” Installation by Dey Hernández Vázquez

Posted on by Alejandro

La Casita de Julia

A commissioned multimedia installation in homage of Julia de Burgos centenary.

by Dey Hernández Vázquez in collaboration with Gabo Lugo and Yaraní del Valle-Piñero.
Photographs by: Romina Hendlin
Currently on view at the Loisaida Center, part of the event Muchas Julias which opened November 15th 2014.
By appointment only, to schedule a viewing please call (347)296-5016 (Monday-Friday 9:00am-3:00pm) 

About the piece:

To experience both the inner poetry of Julia de Burgos’ words and the poetics of the house, the artist created a “casita” for Julia. The paper architectural installation explores the way in which the intimate space of home relates to the intimate space of poetry. It is a rhetorical object that both convinces and engages the public to respond. In “La casita de Julia”, Julia’s poetic image creates a space that lifts off from the page allowing ourselves to drift into her poetry.

Dey Hernández Vázquez

 Architect, teaching artist and puppeteer, who works in a variety of media. Issues of race, identity, language, and community are fundamental to her work. She designs and facilitates art workshops wit AgitArte, a non-profit organization dedicated to artistic and popular education projects. Dey is also an artist of the radical workers’ theater collective, Papel Machete. Dey has been an artist in residence here at the Loisaida Center and she is currently based in Boston, MA.

Gabriel “Gabo” Lugo

 Born in Puerto Rico and raised in Old San Juan, he is always humble doing magic behind the scenes. Gabo received a Grammy nomination for his work on Tego Calderón’s 2008 album “El Abayarde Contra-Ataca”. Still in his early 20’s Lugo’s talent, paired with a hunger to learn new things and to innovate, has him poised to fulfill the promise of his musical upbringing. Gabo’s thirst for knowledge led him to Berklee College of Music, where he continues work towards a degree in Sound Design

Yaraní del Valle Piñero

 An actress and educator product of the University of Puerto Rico Drama Department, Yarani has dedicated her life to performing and developing community based art projects. She is a laboratory actor-singer-dancer who trains and works in Latin America, New York, Miami and LA. La Yara is an ensemble member of Pregones Theater/PRTT and the Education & Art Residency Manager at the Loisaida Center.
2014, Events, Performance, Theater

Zoetrope: Part 1 (Excerpts)

Posted on by Alejandro

The Loisaida Center presents:

Excerpts of CABORCA Theatre Co.’s play

ZOETROPE: Part 1

CABORCA Theatre Co.

Friday, November 21st, 2014

(POSTPONED) NEW DATE WILL BE ANNOUNCED SOON!

Zoetrope follows a Puerto Rican family over four decades between Lares, Puerto Rico and Harlem, New York. Divided into two plays, excerpts of part 1, the bilingual version will be presented. This bilingual version was developed during the company’s artists in residence program at the new Loisaida Center.

 

 

 

2014, Events, Partnerships, Performance, Residencies, Screenings, Theater, Visual Art

Zoetrope: Part 1 (bilingual version)

Posted on by Alejandro

Zoetrope: Part 1

Caborca has been selected to present the new bilingual version of their play as part of Encuentro 2014, the largest national festival of Latino theatre in more than two decades in Los Angeles, CA.  Caborca Theatre developed their bilingual version of ZOETROPE as part of the Art Residency Program @ Loisaida Center.

They will present both the bilingual and English version of  Zoetrope: Part 1 completely FREE! 

Join us for a delightful evening of drama and theater.

11:30am-

Bilingual version

1:30pm-

English version

 Saturday, October 11th

 LaGuardia Community College

31-10 Thomson Ave

Long Island City, NY 11101

 

Map content here..
Performance, Residencies, Visual Art

2014 Artist in Residence – Dey Hernández-Vázquez

Posted on by Alejandro

The Loisaida Center is proud to announce our current

2014 Visual Arts-Performance Residency Recipient:

Dey Hernández-Vázquez

Hernández will present the installation/performance piece:

Casita: for Julia de Burgos

About the piece:
 

In the danger of having the memory of Julia reduced to “the stereotype of the bohemian poet who lived a tragically short life…”The artist will use Julia’s poetic images to create a space that lifts off from the page allowing the spectator/participant to drift into the actual space where the artistic experience is taking place, la “Casita”. The architectural installation will mark out personal territory in the public realm.

 

About Dey:
 

Deymirie “Dey” Hernández-Vázquez is an Architect, Teaching Artist, and Puppeteer who works in a variety of media. She is a passionate advocate for the arts as an active educational tool. Issues of race, identity, language, and community are fundamental to her work as a cultural educator and artist. For the past 6+ years, she has designed and facilitated art workshops with AgitArte, a non-profit organization dedicated to initiate and support artistic and popular education projects in disadvantaged and marginalized communities to further the struggle for social justice. Dey is also an artist and puppeteer of the radical workers’ heater collective, Papel Machete. Their performances in community, theaters, streets and protests employ puppets, masks, objects and music to denounce exploitation, build solidarity, and agitate to action in the struggles of the working class. All of their cultural work is generated collectively through facilitated creative processes and construction workshops using papier mâché as their medium and exploring a wide range of forms and styles that include toy theater, cantastoria, shadow theater, table-top puppetry, humanettes, cut-outs, masks, and giants. Dey’s arts and architectural background are key to the design and construction of giant puppets, puppetry booths, shadow shows and toy theaters. Dey Hernández-Vázquez received a MA from the School of Architecture, University of Puerto Rico in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 2010. She currently lives and works in Boston.

 

Dance/Movement, Residencies, Theater

2014 Artist in Residence : Jeca Rodríguez Colón

Posted on by Alejandro

The Loisaida Center is proud to announce our current

2014 Dance-Theater Residency Recipient:

Jeca Rodríguez Colón

Rodriguez is currently in the development stages of a piece with the working title:

(M)others.

About the piece:
 

The piece has four female characters, all women, 2 of which are ghosts or memories from the family of the main character, one character who is the mother of the main character and the main character. Through their movements and their occasional dialog the audience will be able to witness how the invasion of the United States of America influenced and affected each of this mothers. Some were affected directly by the lack of education, others by the alcoholism and abuse of her veteran husband and the others by the unspoken past of their mothers.

 
About Jeca: 

Jessica “Jeca” Rodríguez-Colón  is a Puerto Rican performer with over 12 years of experience as a dancer and choreographer. She began her contemporary dance training with Petra Bravo and Viveca Vázquez. She holds a B.A. from Hunter College with a double major in Dance and Latin American and Caribbean Studies. She was the recipient of Hunter College’s 2005 Choreography Departmental Award. Jeca is an MFA candidate at Transart Institute with Plymouth University. After participating in the EMERGENYC 2013 program at the Hemispheric Institute she began to explore performance arts and public interventions. Her work is connected to different aspects of the maternal kinesthetic language in space and the politics that surrounds it. She is currently part of inaugural cohort of The EmergeLab@BAX, a laboratory initiative with the support of the Hemispheric Institute and Brooklyn Arts Exchange. Her latest work includes a street intervention in collaboration with Mette Loulou von Kohl “Manifest Collective Movement”, a future installation “Sneak into My Maternal Chaos” and future performance “Desde Adentro” to be presented August 2014 in Berlin, Germany.

 

Residencies, Theater

2014 Artists in Residence – CABORCA

Posted on by Alejandro

The Loisaida Center is proud to announce:

2014 Theater Co. Residency Recipients:

CABORCA

Led by playwright/director Javier González, CABORCA is an experimental theatre company making plays that move seamlessly between the irreverent and poetic, the personal and political, and the highly entertaining and intellectually challenging – inspired by Brecht’s view that to be challenged is also to be entertained. Based in New York City and working in both English and Spanish, our work includes new plays, classical adaptations and devised creations.

 CABORCA started working together in 2002 at the University of Puerto Rico, continued collecting at Columbia’s MFA Theatre Program, and officially became a company in 2009.

 CABORCA steals its name from the novel The Savage Detectives, by Roberto Bolaño, in which a magazine of the same name is the official organ of visceral realism.

Read more about CABORCA’S residency program.