Jorge Luis Morejon: Biography

Jorge Luis Morejon's debut took place at the Camajuani Theatre

(Former Munoz Theatre) He represented his elementary school Joaquin Paneca (La Ceiba)

as a chorus member during the Municipal Children's Festival in 1973.

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Jorge Luis Morejon performed at Teatro La Caridad, Santa Clara.

He represented his elementary school Joaquin Paneca as a chorus' soloist during the Provincial Children's Festival in 1973.

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Jorge Luis Morejon represented his Secondary School, ESVOC (Escuela Vocacional Roberto Rodriguez (El Vaquerito), Tres Atejes (Punta Diamante) during the Provincial Secondary Schools Festival. He was a marching chorus member which performed around Parque Leoncio Vidal, Santa Clara, in 1975.
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.Jorge Luis Morejón’s artistic versatility has been nourished by two decades of theatre, opera, dance and performance art experiences. He started singing as a soloist at the age of ten in a Children’s Choir directed by Rebeca Urribarres in his native Villa Clara, Cuba. In 1972, with the Clindren's choir, representing his school Joaquin Paneca and under the supervision of his teachers Elio Cruz y Jesus Contreras, he participated in the Municipal and Provincial Children's Festivals celebrated at Camajuani Theatre and La Caridad Theatre respectively. At the Municipal Festival the chorus sang La Mona and Bandera Roja. At the Provincial Festival they sang El Arroyo que Murmura (The Creek that Murmurs) and De Cara al Sol (Facing the Son)

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In 1975, at the age of twelve he became a chorus member at boarding school (ESVOC) Roberto Rodriguez in Tres Atejes, Punta Diamante, Cabaiguan, Sancti-Spiritus province, Cuba. The marching chorus, acompanied by the school band, performed and sang Himno del 26 de Julio (Himn of July 26), at Santa Clara's Central Park Leoncio Vidal. In 1985, at the age of twenty, after leaving Cuba and relocating in the Dominican Republic, he started his formal voice training with maestro Rafael Sanchez-Cestero at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Santo Domingo. His favorite aria to sing during this period was O del mio Dolce Ardor by Alessandro Stradella, although now recent research shows that it was Christoph Willibald Gluck who composed it (1714–1787).  Curiously, it was arranged for voice with small orchestra by Tchaikovsky in October, 1870.

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Newly arrived in Miami, he took modeling lessons at Barbizon Modeling School in 1986, where he started acquiring a sense of stage presence and confidence. He started his theatre journey in 1986 with Teresa Maria Rojas and Prometeo Theatre at Miami Dade College with the Cuban play Electra Garrigo where he played one of two Corifeos. There, he sang verses from the play in Guantanamera, Salsa, and balad styles. The music arragements were done by singer and composer Pilar Gato Casero who was also the music director.

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Immediately after Electra Garrigo, he played the role of Raul Machado in Angelica Mi Vida under the direction of Grazio D'Angelo and Albert Carn. This came to be the first American soap-opera with an all Hispanic-American cast in the U.S. He had the great oportunity to work closely with renowned Cuban and Cuban-American actors such as Margarita Martinez Casado, Jorge Villanueva, German Barrios, and Laura Fabian. The international cast included Alicia Montoya and Tomas Goros, (Mexico), Kenia (US), Ilka Tania Payan (Santo Domingo), Teresa Yenke (Peru), Chevy Betancourt, Jerry Segarra and Bertila Damas (Puerto Rico). The soap opera, sponsored by Procter & Gamble, aired through Telemundo, coast to coast, in the US and Puerto Rico. For his participation in Angelica Mi Vida, he was awarded ACCA's Young Talent Award in 1988.

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Simultaneous with his acting, since 1989, he also trained and danced with Creation Ballet Company under the instruction of Pedro P. Pena. He played important roles in dance and dance–theatre pieces such as Life in Gasping in Oblivion, Oloddumare in Afrequete, and The Poet in Lorca’s Sleepless City, which was chosen to be performed at the Florida Dance Festival celebrated in Tampa and for which he received ACCA’s (Association of Commentators and Critics of Art) Special Award in 1991.

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His professional theatre debut took place at Teatro the Bellas Artes with theatre director Dume and the play Maria Antonia in 1989. Maria Antonia, written by Cuban playwright Eugenio Hernandez Espinosa opened a window to the fascinating cultural magic of Afro-Cuban religious symbology. He played the role of Carlos in Maria Antonia. His second professional success was witht the Creation Ballet Artt Center in The Maids. For his role as Solange in Jean Genet's The Maids, directed also by Dume, he was awarded with ACCA’s (Association of Commentators and Critics of Art) Best Dramatic Actor of the Year Award in 1992.

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He became a member of the Greater Miami Opera Chorus for three consecutive seasons where he sang witht the chorus in Turandot, Pagliacci, Caballeria Rusticana, Motzar's Requiem and Christopher Collombus. He also played memorable silent characters such as the Prince of Persia in Turandot. Since 1993, with the Miami Dade College Interamerican Center and Miami Dade College Wolfson's Prometeo Theatre , he was co-founder of a comparsa and an expressive movement workshop for children and adults which were part of the Community Education Department of the Miami Dade College. Here he taught, directed and choreographed dance and theatre pieces for ten years. During this time, he was also an adjunct instructor of movement and Yoga at New World School of the Arts, Theatre Department.

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Academically, in 1994 he graduated from Miami Dade College with an Associate in Arts degree. In 1998, he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Special Education from Florida International University and a Masters degree in Liberal Studies from University of Miami in 2006. He has dedicated part of his training to the study of Expressive Arts Therapy in the European Graduate School, Switzerland, under the supervision of Daria Halprin and Ellen Levine,where he explored various modalities of artistic expression. He trained with Cristina Castrillo and Teatro della Radicci in Switzerland and visited Odin Theatre in Denmark during their Summer Intensive.

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In 2003, he danced for recognized chorographers such as Maria Elena Boan and Roberto Dias. Choreographed by Boan, he danced with Elaine Wright in The Unbereable Lightness. For the International Ballet Festival and TAM's Special GAla, he danced in Roberto Dias' Bossa and The Heron. Acting on his commitment to broaden the culture environment with serious and innovative theater, he founded, in 2004, the Thelos Theatre Group and Multicultural Space Camera Obscura where he directed and produced, among other works, the plays Three Greek Women in 2004 and and Rabinal Achi in 2005.

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From 2006 to 2008, he did doctoral course work at York University in Toronto, where he produced the solo performance-piece WetFeet/DryFeet. He also participated in the Common Plants’ cyber-performance The Ashley Plays and The Acheli Chronicles. Under the direction of Regina Kapetanakis, he played one of the Etheocleans in Aeschylus' play Seven Against Thebes. Before leaving Toronto, he was part of the collaborative work Mirrored Spaces along with Adam Sherkin, Ana Griffith and Silvia Diaz-Brown.

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He finished his PhD degree at University of California, Davis in 2011. The focus of his scholarly study was on the development of a theoretical approach for displaced populations and the potential role of performance, particularly ritual, as a means to assist cultural integration among them. In California, he took an Empowerment Through Creativity Workshop with Anna Halprin in the Tamalpa Institute and participated in the Planetary Dance 2008, scored and directed by Halprin herself. Soon after, on Wednesday, August 13th, he performed in the world premiere of the new opera Divide Light at the Montalvo Arst Center in Saratoga, California. Then, he worked with choreographer and theatre director Della Davidson in The Ten PM Dream performed at the Sacramento Theatre Co. in California from September 10th to the 21st, 2008. A performance- piece, Foreigner, occupied two weeks of his time on campus from November 23 to December 3rd, 2008. He played Time in the Theatre and Dance Department's , UC Davis' production The Winter's Tale under the direction of Patricia Miller.

With Linda Bair, he choreographed and danced the piece My Hands/Tus Brazos. He also played to role of Shaman in The Elephant's Graveyard directed by Jade McCutcheon and The Soul in Hinterland directed by Lucy Gough. He performed the Indian in Olorun/Yemaya for Cafe 2011 at Marquette University. Dr. Morejon became a lecturer and the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago in 2011. In Trinidad, he has co-directed the production "REAWAKENING THE CARIBBEAN SPIRIT at Scherzando Panyard and directed the play MARIA ANTONIA. He also performed in CARPENTIER IN BARBADOS, Barbados. There he created the Solodos Dance Project with Linda Bair. He has recently danced in INTERLOOP, Miami, and created the performance piece THE POWER OF EXPRESSION performed in Florida, New York, Trinidad and Barbados. be became Dance Coordinator of the Dance Unit in the Department of Creative and Festival Arts in 2014. He choreographed the Areito Dance for the Arandara Ponahara Band performed for Old Yard at UWI and Youvay Ayiti in Port of Spain, Trinidad's Carnival, 2015. He exhibited his first art series Espresso Raft Prayer at Cafe 2015, Barbados. He is presently involved in the Santa Rosa Dance Restoration Project. Currently, he works towards obtaining his certification in Dance/Movement Therapy at the Harkness Dance Center, New York City.