Jorge Luis Morejon

Get Up and Dance

2011-10-16T13:52:00.000-04:00

LECTURE: Dr Jorge Morejon before he left the podium. —Photos: ANISTO ALVES

Get Up and Dance!

By Zahra Gordon
Story Created: Oct 15, 2011 at 9:34 PM ECT
(Story Updated: Oct 15, 2011 at 9:34 PM ECT )

Before he got participants to join him on stage for a lecture on the evolution of Caribbean dance, UWI Department of Creative & Festival Arts lecturer, Dr Jorge Morejon, explained that Caribbean people have embraced their coloniser's structure for learning, "You are sitting to receive information when dance is an experience of the body," he says, later describing the nature of the modern symposium as "counter-productive".

And so, Morejon invited all attendees to the stage at Queen's Hall, St Ann's where he was presenting the keynote address — "The Evolution of Dance: A Caribbean Perspective" — of the first Symposia of Decades of Dance Dance Festival on October 10.

The lecture focused on community dance based on research of the Areitos, a music and dance of the Tainos. Morejon taught the Areitos while expounding on Caribbean history, politics, community building and alternative teaching methods.

According to Morejon, the Areitos was not merely a dance but a lifestyle that spanned the economic, political and religious systems of this native Caribbean people. Due to time constraints, he was unable to give a more detailed presentation but still managed to get his main points across.

Participants had to form a circle, introduce themselves and get acquainted with the space they were occupying through undirected movement. The session ended with each participant saying the first positive word that came to mind. "This way brings consensus. You will get to know each other and no longer be an anonymous face in the audience. By learning each other's name's we create community"

Creating a circle shifts the attention from one person to all the people present and represents the universe. The Areitos is danced in a circle with arms entwined and was one aspect of Taino community building from which the group drew economic and politic force.

One movement of the Areitos includes a "two step," the second of which is a stomp. "The stomp they believed was when the energy of the earth would travel through their bodies imbibing a force that is beyond you and creating music," shared Morejon.

The Areitos model, says Morejon, can provide a base for uniting a region where problems such as colonialism and neo-liberalism still exist and that is socially and economically fragile. "It is the dance that ties us (the Caribbean nations) together. Imagine the Caribbean as one country. At one point we spoke the same language and were good navigators travelling from Trinidad to Cuba. This is a pattern for consideration for the empowerment of Caribbean people. We can use dance as a model for us to come together but this has to be done through an embodied system where we can embody culture, embody tradition and embody identity," says Morejon.

Morejon also feels this model should be implemented in schools and used whether or not the subject is dance. "If children have fun as they learn, they will want to come to school, especially if it is related to who they are and where they come from," says Morejon who noted that this teaching style can be replicated through similar dances of the African and Indian origin.

Much in the manner with which we refer to the Tainos – Morejon shared that "Taino" is a name of European creation – we also practise traditional dances. "We are creating the Areitos in the subjunctive mood; what could've been. It could've been like this or not but this method opens space for creativity – something within us."

Morejon is of Cuban origin and received his doctorate from the University of California, Davis. He has twenty years of experience in dance, performance art, theatre and opera, having participated in more than 40 productions and appearing at venues like the Montalvo Arts Center and the Sacramento Theatre Company.

The symposium included various panels relating to dance culture and history including a presentation on the theatre of dance, running a dance company, the tradition of dance in Trinidad and Tobago and the unity of the Caribbean dance fraternity. Speakers included Sat Balkaransingh, Sonja Dumas, Nancy Herrera, Dr Hollis Liverpool, Dr L'Antoinette Stines, Jennifer Sealy and LaShaun Prescott.

link: http://www.trinidadexpress.com/sunday-mix/Get_Up_and_Dance_-131928698.html.

Performance for Better Facilities

2011-10-16T13:42:00.001-04:00

Performance for Better Facilities. University of the West Inides, Saint Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago. October 5th, 2011. Photo Malaika Ryan

This is a picture I consider important for the records. It is a performance the students put together asking for better facilities and as a prelude for a possible demolition of our department's two historic buildings on Agostini Street, Saint Augustine Campus, to build a parking lot or a car park (as they are called in Trinidad). In the field of Performance Studies, this picture puts our department, the Creative and Festival Arts Center from the Faculty of Humanities and Education at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago, at the very top of the performance movement. Bravo!

My Hands/Tus Brazos

2011-05-12T00:01:00.000-04:00

My Hands/Tus Brazos

Linda Bair and Jorge Luis Morejon (Photographer Tommy Gleason), Linda Bair Dance Company

Grass Valley, California.

Once again, My Hands/Tus Brazos, the piece choreographed by Linda Bair and Jorge Luis Morejón, was successfully performed as part of an evening length show at the Center for the Arts in Grass Valley, California on Friday, February 4^th, 2011. The sold out venue hosted not only a great group of dancers, but an enthusiastic and receptive local audience.

Hinterland

2011-01-13T20:45:00.000-05:00

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Theater Review: UC Davis Theater & Dance
Dept.'s "Hinterland"

Is there such a thing as the soul? That’s the question at stake in Artist-in-Residence Lucy Gough’s duo of radio plays, a mostly ingenious presentation of a complex debate in a medium that is at once retro and modern.

Individually titled “Mapping the Soul” and “Hinterland” but combined into one two-part stage performance titled “Hinterland,” each play is about 50 minutes long. While the audience at Wright Hall’s Main Theatre watches, the actors stand onstage in front of microphones, speaking their dialogue in radio-show fashion. Off to the side of the stage, a team of Foley artists creates sound effects to accompany the supposed, but not literal, actions of the characters.

In the first play, “Mapping the Soul,” an anatomist and his assistant dissect a corpse in hopes of finding the exact place that the soul resides. Meanwhile, a scientist named Adam who believes there is no such thing as the soul is knocked out and, in his unconscious state, traverses an underworld which parallels the anatomist’s dissection. Both worlds are observed by the Soul, who perches above, unseen by the characters, and offers singsong insight into his true nature.

The second play, “Hinterland,” follows a similar structure. Scientist Adam and his partner, Eve, are banished to an underworld full of wolves, Sineaters and gravediggers who stalk them and attempt to steal Adam’s soul.

The structure of the performance – a radio show, but performed onstage – takes some getting used to. It’s disorienting at first to watch the actors speaking their lines but not performing any of the accompanying actions, especially because the subject matter is, by its very nature, mysterious and ill-defined. Major concentration is necessary to simply keep up with what the characters are saying and follow the plot. The fact that the play is meant to be almost purely auditory complicates our understanding even further.

Yet there is something delightfully old-fashioned about the whole production. It’s fun to watch the sound effects being created – for the dissection of the corpse, a Foley artist cuts up a head of cabbage, and for a boat paddling, fingers are splashed in a bowl of water. In a nice throwback to the golden days of radio drama, bright red “On Air” signs flash at the start of each play, reminding us that we are witnessing what is normally never seen; that is, the visuals of a radio show.

Modern touches are woven in seamlessly, for the most part. The wolfpackers and chorus in “Hinterland” wear all-black, street-punk getups and the stage is dramatically lit with spotlights and fog. Beat-boxing and rap, though entertaining, are a bit jarring and feel a little out of place.

Ultimately, the cast makes these two very difficult pieces come together. Jorge Morejόn, as the Soul in “Mapping the Soul,” makes a character that could have been lofty and self-righteous endearingly human and just a touch flamboyant (who else could rock those hot-red pumps?). Alongside Morejόn, Brendan Ward and Yana Zhovinsky as Adam and the Assistant deliver powerful yet grounded performances. Kevin Adamski and Alejandro Torres also have amusing rapport as two underlings in “Hinterland.” In a radio show, it’s all about the voice, and each actor brings a distinct flavor to his or her lines.

One wonders if it was really necessary to make radio plays into a stage show, since the actors fit so well into the radio-style writing and the stage is not utilized as it would be in a regular visual production. But perhaps to choose one or the other would have been too simple for such an ever-changing entity as the human soul.

Posted by Robin Migdol at 3:17 PM

Hinterland

2010-12-06T03:58:00.000-05:00

SIERRA NEVADA ARTS ALLIANCE

The UC Davis Department of Theatre & Dance presents Hinterland by Granada Artist-in-Residence Lucy Gough. Hinterland is a journey to the wild edge, the place where things change. Two poetic radio dramas take the listener into a dark surreal landscape sculpted in sound and voice. The two new plays concern imagination and transformation and are a fusion of savage earthiness and magic realism. Both dramas explore the search for the soul. The titles are Hinterland, which is pure radio drama, and Mapping the Soul, a hybrid between radio and theatre. Director Lucy Gough is an acclaimed British playwright. Her works are frequently broadcast on BBC World Service and BBC Radio. Hinterland opens on Wednesday, December 1, and continues through Saturday, December 4, at Main Theatre, Wright Hall, UC Davis. There will be a talkback with the audience after each performance. Tickets and more information: http://theatredance.ucdavis.edu.

What: Hinterland
Where: Main Theatre, Wright Hall, UC Davis
When: Weds– Sat, Dec. 1 – 4 8pm; Sat, Dec 4, 2pm
Tickets: General: $17/19 Students/Children/Seniors: $12/14
Purchase tickets: (530) 754-2787, or toll-free (866) 754-2787 or http://www.mondaviarts.org/

Special Youth Group Tickets: School and youth groups of 10 or more receive a special rate of $5 per ticket at the teacher or group leader’s request. Call the UC Davis Department of Theatre & Dance at (530) 752 -5863 to make arrangements for this discount.

More information: http://theatredance.ucdavis.edu

Tonight the Soviet Union Collapsed amid a coup by the UC Davis Theatre Department

2010-12-06T03:54:00.001-05:00

Show description for Thursday 12/2/2010 @ 8:00 PM - 10:00 PM

The UC Davis Department of Theatre & Dance presents Hinterland by Granada Artist-in-Residence Lucy Gough. Hinterland is a journey to the wild edge, the place where things change. Two poetic radio dramas take the listener into a dark surreal landscape sculpted in sound and voice. The two new plays concern imagination and transformation and are a fusion of savage earthiness and magic realism. Both dramas explore the search for the soul. The titles are Hinterland, which is pure radio drama, and Mapping the Soul, a hybrid between radio and theatre. Director Lucy Gough is an acclaimed British playwright. Her works are frequently broadcast on BBC World Service and BBC Radio. Hinterland opens on Wednesday, December 1, and continues through Saturday, December 4, at Main Theatre, Wright Hall, UC Davis. There will be a talkback with the audience after each performance. Tickets and more information: http://theatredance.ucdavis.edu/.

http://www.kdvs.org/show-info/1405?date=2010-12-02

ON STAGE: Hinterland, Gallathea and Body of Knowledge

2010-12-06T03:50:00.000-05:00

DATELINE
November 19, 2010

Artist-in-Residence Lucy Gough is bringing British radio drama to the UC Davis stage, in her new work Hinterland, a two-part play about the search for the soul, premiering Dec. 1-4 in Main Theatre.

Gough wrote Hinterland for stage and radio — and the campus’s KDVS 90.3 FM will take advantage of the latter format, by presenting a live audio cast of Hinterland as it is performed the night of Dec. 2. Talkback sessions are planned after every performance.

Hinterland comprises two poetic dramas, one titled Mapping the Soul, pure radio drama, and the other taking the same name as the overall title, Hinterland, a hybrid of radio and theatre. Each piece charts the same story — “a journey to the edge, the place where things change,” according to a news release from the Department of Theatre and Dance.

The news release describes the play as a fusion of wild, savage earthiness and magic realism, imagination and transformation — all revolving around one core question: What is the soul?

Employing familiar biblical figures and myths, Hinterland weaves a story in which the soul is explored from many different perspectives and with many different results.

Hinterland dances from an 18th-century brain dissection to conversations between a 21st-century scientist and his red stiletto-shoed soul.

“An anatomist literally tries to find the tangible soul within the human body, sin-eaters and other creatures search hungrily for the soul, and a man believes there is no soul,” the news release states.

Gough wrote the dramas separately, then reworked the material before devising this production.

“Having written the stage play, I was then asked to do a radio play, and it became necessary to go back to the drawing board,” she said. “Radio has the potential to be very much inside the head, so the radio play was a good opportunity to take the play into (a) new realm, explore the philosophy of it all a bit more.”

Professor Bella Merlin said she “met” the British playwright through her radio dramas, and found herself instantly compelled to listen to and read as much of her work as she could.

“She miraculously combines urban, gritty almost urbane prose with metaphorical, metaphysical strands which haunt the writing. Her imagination is truly original.

“Lucy’s dramatization of Wuthering Heights for BBC Radio, featured the actual house — Wuthering Heights — speaking as the narrator of the piece. This unusual choice caused national debate.”

Merlin said British radio dramas are among the most popular and revered genres. “The BBC prides itself on being one of the main outlets for new writing,” Merlin said. “Until recent years, there was a new radio play every afternoon of the week. It's not uncommon to hear voices such as Patrick Stewart, Judi Dench, Derek Jacobi, and indeed American actors such as F. Murray Abrahams on BBC radio dramas and serials.”

Gough said she is excited to bring the power and prestige of this format to UC Davis.

She said she hopes to move audiences, “to make them think, to take them to another place for a short time, to realize how powerful their own imaginations are, for them to realize they went to that place in their own head.”

Read the news release.

Reporting by Janice Bisgaard, publicity manager for the Department of Theatre and Dance.

AT A GLANCE

WHAT: Hinterland, two poetic dramas that take the audience into a dark surreal landscape sculpted in sound and voice, each presenting the same story — "the search for the soul on a journey to the edge, the place where things change"

WHEN:
•Wednesday-Saturday, Dec. 1-4 — 8 p.m.

•Saturday, Dec 4 — 2 p.m.

WHERE: Main Theatre

TICKETS: $17-19 general, $12-14 students, children and seniors. Available through the Mondavi Center box office: (530) 754-2787 or (866) 754-2787, or mondaviarts.org.

DISCOUNT: $5 tickets are available for school and youth groups of 10 or more, at the teacher or group leader’s request. To make arrangements, call the Department of Theatre and Dance, (530) 752 -5863.

Hinterland Combines Theater and Radio Play to Explore “What is the soul?”

2010-12-06T03:46:00.000-05:00

UCDAVIS HUMANITIES INSTITUTE

UC Davis Department of Theatre and Dance presents Hinterland, a two-part radio play, written and directed by Granada Artist-in-Residence Lucy Gough. Gough wrote Hinterland for stage and radio — and the campus’s KDVS 90.3 FM will take advantage of the latter format, by presenting a live audio cast of the play as it is performed the night of Dec. 2. Talkback sessions are planned after every performance. Two poetic dramas take the audience into a dark surreal landscape sculpted in sound and voice. Both explore the search for the soul on a journey to the edge, the place where things change. The subtitles are Mapping the Soul, which is pure radio drama, and (again) Hinterland, a hybrid between radio and theatre. Hinterland opens on Wednesday, Dec. 1, and continues through Saturday, Dec. 4, at Main Theatre, Wright Hall, UC Davis.

Hinterland is a fusion of wild savage earthiness and magic realism. It concerns imagination and transformation revolving around one core question: What is the soul? Employing familiar biblical figures and myths, Hinterland weaves a story in which the soul is explored from many different perspectives and with many different results. Hinterland dances from an 18th century brain dissection to conversations between a 21st century scientist and his red stiletto-shoed soul. An anatomist literally tries to find the tangible soul within the human body, sin-eaters and other creatures search hungrily for the soul, and a man believes there is no soul. The two-part play suggests and investigates very complex and diverging possibilities for the soul. It also poses interesting questions that are left unanswered.

Gough was commissioned to write each drama separately. Fascinated by the concept of the soul, she reworked the material before devising the current two-part production where each half charts the same story with important creative differences. “Having written the stage play, I was then asked to do a radio play and it became necessary to go back to the drawing board. Radio has the potential to be very much inside the head so the radio play was a good opportunity to take the play into [a] new realm, explore the philosophy of it all a bit more.”

Audiences will have an opportunity to experience Hinterland as both radio drama and theatrical production. Gough has devised the two-part play to be performed on the stage and simultaneously broadcast over the radio waves. UC Davis campus radio station KDVS 90.3FM will broadcast Hinterland on Thursday, Dec. 2, during the live performance.

Department of Theatre and Dance Professor Bella Merlin was instrumental in bringing Gough to UC Davis from the UK as Granada Artist-in-Residence. Merlin recounts that she “met [Gough] through the radio dramas and was instantly compelled to listen to and read as much of her work as I could. She miraculously combines urban, gritty almost urbane prose with metaphorical, metaphysical strands which haunt the writing… Her imagination is truly original. Lucy’s dramatization of Wuthering Heights for BBC Radio, featured the actual house – Wuthering Heights – speaking as the narrator of the piece. This unusual choice caused national debate.”

Merlin explains that in the UK radio dramas are among the most popular and revered genres. “The BBC prides itself on being one of the main outlets for new writing. Until recent years, there was a new radio play every afternoon of the week… It’s not uncommon to hear voices such as Patrick Stewart, Judi Dench, Derek Jacobi, and indeed American actors such as F. Murray Abrahams on BBC radio dramas and serials.” Gough is excited to bring the power and prestige of this format to UC Davis. She hopes to move audiences, “to make them think, to take them to another place for a short time, to realize how powerful their own imaginations are, for them to realize they went to that place in their own head.”

Audiences are guided towards those wild edges within their minds by the performances of both undergraduate and graduate student actors. Radio drama initially presented an obstacle, stripping the actors of the usual tools they rely on while crafting a performance. Undergraduate Michael Lutheran states it is a great challenge to leave an actor “with only their voice.” Playing the Anatomist in Mapping the Soul, he is compelled to make the audience see his dissections through sheer vocal performance. In Hinterland Lutheran plays the two characters of God and Skullcoat and notes that he “did not want to play the typical thunderous voice that comes from the clouds as God, but rather through the name of Skullcoat… give him a voice with a lot of texture that can give the audience a lot to play with.”

Such well-crafted cast performances combine with the bold sharpness of the script to create a wild, lyrical, and often humorous journey. Undergraduate Sarah Birdsall, who plays the role of Eve, ensures fun for the audience given that “my Eve’s a bit of a tramp, but she’s not stupid.” Subverting the traditional expectations of these biblical and religious icons and myths is only part of the passage through Hinterland. Ultimately the audience may search for the soul alongside the characters and reach their own conclusions, magical or otherwise.

Gough is aided in the production by UC Davis graduate students: Ph.D. Performance Studies candidate Jorge Morejon (actor), MFA candidates Brian Livingston (assistant director/actor), Barry Hubbard (actor), Maggie Chan (costume designer), Kourtney Lampedecchio (scenic designer), and Glenn Fox (lighting designer). Undergraduate Jenna Seid serves as stage manager.

There will be a talkback with the audience after every performance.

Lucy Gough is an acclaimed British playwright. Her works are frequently broadcast on BBC World Service and BBC Radio.

She was shortlisted for both the John Whiting Award and BBC Wales Writer of the Year Award (1994) with her play Crossing The Bar. Her Gryhead was shortlisted for best new writing 2004 at Theatre in Wales – the Welsh theatre and performance web site.

Her first BBC broadcast was in 1994 with Our Lady of Shadows (BBC Radio 3). Since then her plays have been featured on the BBC World Service including Prophetess as Play of the Week. She has had five plays on BBC Radio 4: Head, The Red Room, The Mermaids Tail and Judith Beheading Holofernes and The Raft. Her Radio dramatization of Wuthering Heights for BBC Radio 4 was broadcast as the classic serial in Woman’s Hour in July 2003. Mapping the Soul was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 2005. The White Hare was broadcast in 2009 on BBC Radio 7.

Gough is creative research fellow at Aberystwyth University, UK.

What: Hinterland: Two poetic radio dramas explore the search for the soul in a dark surreal landscape sculpted in sound and voice, each charting the same story.

Where: Main Theatre, Wright Hall, UC Davis

When: Wednesday – Saturday, Dec. 1 – 4, 8 p.m.; Saturday, Dec 4, 2 p.m.

Tickets: General: $17/19 Students/Children/Seniors: $12/14

Purchase tickets: (530) 754-2787, or toll-free (866) 754-2787 or www.mondaviarts.org

Special Youth Group Tickets: School and youth groups of 10 or more receive a special rate of $5 per ticket at the teacher or group leader’s request. Call the UC Davis Department of Theatre & Dance at (530) 752 -5863 to make arrangements for this discount.

More information: http://theatredance.ucdavis.edu

Story credit: Janice Bisgaard

Photo credit: UC Davis Department of Theatre and Dance

Hinterland

2010-12-06T03:35:00.000-05:00

LINCOLN ARTS & CULTURE FOUNDATION

The UC Davis Department of Theatre & Dance presents Hinterland by Granada Artist-in-Residence Lucy Gough. Hinterland is a journey to the wild edge, the place where things change. Two poetic radio dramas take the listener into a dark surreal landscape sculpted in sound and voice. The two new plays concern imagination and transformation and are a fusion of savage earthiness and magic realism. Both dramas explore the search for the soul. The titles are Hinterland, which is pure radio drama, and Mapping the Soul, a hybrid between radio and theatre. Director Lucy Gough is an acclaimed British playwright. Her works are frequently broadcast on BBC World Service and BBC Radio. Hinterland opens on Wednesday, December 1, and continues through Saturday, December 4, at Main Theatre, Wright Hall, UC Davis. There will be a talkback with the audience after each performance. Tickets and more information: http://theatredance.ucdavis.edu.

What: Hinterland

Where: Main Theatre, Wright Hall, UC Davis

When: Weds– Sat, Dec. 1 – 4 8pm; Sat, Dec 4, 2pm

Tickets: General: $17/19 Students/Children/Seniors: $12/14

Purchase tickets: (530) 754-2787, or toll-free (866) 754-2787 or www.mondaviarts.org

Special Youth Group Tickets: School and youth groups of 10 or more receive a special rate of $5 per ticket at the teacher or group leader’s request. Call the UC Davis Department of Theatre & Dance at (530) 752 -5863 to make arrangements for this discount.

More information: http://theatredance.ucdavis.edu

'Hinterland' plays with sound and soul'

2010-12-06T03:29:00.000-05:00

SACRAMENTO PRESS
by Ian Moore, published on December 3, 2010 at 4:59PM

Tucked away in the University of California, Davis, campus Wednesday night was the first of four days showing the play, “Hinterland.”

“Hinterland” is a two-part, two-hour play written, directed and adapted for the stage by artist-in-residence Lucy Gough.

A British playwright, Gough writes for the BBC drama “Doctors” as well as many other projects. Her artist-in-residence project, “Hinterland,” opened with the seats partly filled, largely with students.

“Hinterland” is a radio-theater drama melded from two separate pieces to explore one concept – the soul. Opening with the piece, “Mapping the Soul,” it ran for 50 minutes until intermission. “Mapping the soul” is a strange blend of surrealism and realism.

In the performance, Gough noted, “There are so many edges being blurred, and I love edges, hence the title ‘Hinterland.’ ”

In “Mapping the soul,” an atypical one-act, you see those lines blurred. She matches radio soundscapes and flamboyant dialogue with the simple stage sets of theater, as well as the song and dance of the soul.

“I thought it would be interesting to find a way to pull this radio play and stage play together and to create a new drama out of them,” Gough said.

“Mapping the soul” follows a 19th-century anatomist in search of the physicality of the soul by dissection of the brain and heart. He finds nothing.

It bounces back and forth with another plotline, juxtaposed, yet strangely perpendicular: The dialogue of a genome scientist lost in time and space, between life and death, declaring there is no soul, but eventually finding that the soul, element-less, exists as a sort of blind faith.

What is unique is not just the conception, but also the soundscape creation. The sound is live, as if on the air, to match the dialogue, creating the imagery that only storytelling radio can deliver.

“When the live audience witnesses the sound of the brain dissection being created by something like a cabbage being sawn up,” Gough said, “what does this do to their imaginations?”

Yes, sawn-up cabbages, water splashing in a bowl, ripped-apart pumpkins and more, the soundtrack is not automated or pre-recorded. It is as much a discourse, a script; as much vulnerable and alive as the actors. It’s very Beckett-esque, a tale exploring the soul and unknown, lacking in the absurd factor but fully delving into the sublime of the individual.

The second half continued with the namesake play, “Hinterland.” Its sound becomes more modern with dialogue sung hip-hop style backed by vocal break beats and an electric guitar. It’s a little more confusing, a little more lost as it plays with a scriptural and magic realism setting with poets, wolves and Adam and Eve.

After the performance, there was a brief discussion of the soul. There were varying perspectives between the cast and spectators speaking of its existence or its shape. In all, the play presented what was attempting to be clarified or understood afterward: The soul may be matter-less, existing in the dark on the edge of the unknown.

http://fwix.com/sac/share/1294e27841/hinterland_plays_with_sound_and_soul

Theater/dance department interprets the soul in radio/stage play Hinterland

2010-12-06T03:24:00.000-05:00

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE
Artist-in-residence Lucy Gough directs last production of the quarter
Written by Brittany Pearlman
Arts Writer

Published on Dec 2, 2010

When you hear the term "radio drama," your mind may stray to a 1940s block radio with old character voices streaming out of it. UC Davis has a much more visual and modern interpretation of that concept.

The UC Davis department of theater and dance presents Hinterland, a play in two parts, tonight through Saturday at 8 p.m. and additionally on Saturday at 2 p.m. in Wright Hall's Main Theater.

Artist-in-Residence Lucy Gough, who originally wrote the play in the United Kingdom and later adapted it into a radio drama, is directing the play. Gough will return to her native Wales when the quarter ends.

The plays Hinterland and Mapping the Soul, though separated into two distinct sub-plays, center around one main struggle - the search and definition of the human soul.

As if that were not complicated enough, Gough insisted that the most rewarding way for audiences to experience the play was to not just view it, but to hear it as well.

The play will be broadcast live on KDVS 90.3 FM during the performances. The actors will stand in front of a microphone throughout the whole play, using their voices and very little movement to communicate the story.

"It will be an interesting experience because it's not just a drama taking place but also a radio drama being created, so you see how the sound effects are created, and its not what they would expect," Gough said. "There are constantly two things, watching a drama and also seeing how that drama is created. On top of that, the whole debate of the soul going on as well; quite an exercising evening I hope."

Both plays feature a similar set of characters: Adam, his wife Eve, an 18th century scientist and his assistant, and a soul. Though played by completely different actors in each play, and supplemented by a gang of outrageous characters in the second, this familiarity helps glue the two together.

The characters featured in both plays adhere to essentially the same plot: Adam denies the existence of a soul and finds himself lost and searching for a soul, while the scientist tries to find the exact location of a soul within the brain.

The extensive plot added on top of this basic linear explanation delves into deep metaphysical questions, questions that took a lot of preparation to present in a comprehensive play.

"The long rehearsal process was something I am not used to. I'm used to four weeks or so of rehearsal, in and out," said Elizabeth Tremaine, who plays one of the assistants. "We spent almost the entire quarter putting this together, finding the pieces that worked, excluding the pieces that did not, and forming the final piece."

Because Hinterland was originally done on the stage, and Mapping the Soul was written specifically for radio, Gough and the actors have had to create a fluid hybrid between the two pieces, making them cohesive and effective.

"My plan was to combine them when I came here, but they are so tightly within themselves that it didn't work so I kept them separate, which is better, because it's so complex. It works better to hear it twice," Gough said.

Of course, one can see the potential challenges this mission created.

"The hardest part was the static nature of the blocking for a radio play that is going to be viewed by an audience," Jorge Morejon said, who plays the mysterious soul in Hinterland. "From where I am, I can't see anybody and yet I have to interject my lines without any visual or physical cues."

Beyond working out the performers' cues and the sound effects, the set design was entirely different hurdle to jump over.

Scenic designer Kourtney Lampedecchio, who's a first-year graduate student, said, "It was so important to take into consideration how the scenery sounded. Moving anything was a big deal."

Despite its challenges, the actors and actresses have gotten a lot out of this experience.

"I loved being involved in the artistic process of adapting a work from either a radio or stage play into a hybrid of the two. The rehearsals were an open environment, and I feel that we all contributed to the final product," Tremaine said.

Director Gough also got something unexpected out of the experience.

"Its been hugely rewarding working with the students and staff here, they're really hardworking. And to be able to study my work in such detail with everyone has been really enlightening from a director's point of view," Gough said.

For Gough, the enlightening aspect of the play is the most important feature of it. Through the adaptation process, Gough was able to express the controversial nature that the soul inspires in people.

"The play is a challenge for the audience. It's hard work, it demands attention and thought," Gough said. " [We are] trying to explore things that are very hard to discuss, and open those a bit."

The cast rose up to the challenge. Sarah Birdsall, a senior drama major who plays Eve in Mapping the Soul, researched biblical and historical texts in order to prepare for her role.

"The play touches on several subjects, there's religion, science and love, that you can see in my character," Birdsall said.

Because of the universal nature of the play's subject, the soul, Gough has instituted a talk back at the end of every performance, in which the audience as well as the cast will enter into a debate.

Tickets for this highly unusual and thoroughly stimulating performance are on sale now for $12 with student ID card.

BRITTANY PEARLMAN can be reached at arts@theaggie.org.

Hinterland

2010-11-30T16:36:00.001-05:00

The Davis Enterprise/Arts

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2010 A11

‘Hinterland’ radio

play opens Dec. 1

The UC Davis department

of theater and dance presents

“Hinterland,” a two-part

radio play, written and

directed by Lucy Gough.

Two poetic dramas take the

audience into a dark surreal

landscape sculpted in sound

and voice. Hinterland opens

Wednesday and continues

through Saturday, Dec. 4, at

the Main Theatre in Wright

Hall at UCD.

Audiences will have an

opportunity to experience

Hinterland as both radio

drama and theatrical production.

Gough has devised the

two-part play to be performed

on the stage and

simultaneously broadcast

over the radio waves.

UCD campus radio station

KDVS 90.3FM will broadcast

Hinterland on Dec. 2, during

the live performance.

Tickets are $17 to $19 for

general admission and $12 to

$14 for students, children

and seniors. Tickets may be

purchased by calling (530)

754-2787, toll-free (866)

754-2787 or by visiting

http://www.mondaviarts.org.

School and youth groups of

10 or more receive a special

rate of $5 per ticket at the

teacher or group leader’s

request. Call the UCD

department of theater and

dance at (530) 752-5863 to

make arrangements for this

discount.

Production Pictures: http://theatredance.ucdavis.edu/season/archives_detail.aspx?a=Hinterland

Works in the Works 2010

2010-11-24T15:37:00.001-05:00

My Hands/Tus Brazos

Linda Bair and Jorge Luis Morejon. Linda Bair Dance Company

Works in the Works 31 aniversary was presented by Choreographers' Performance Alliance and 8th Street Studio Berkeley on Saturday, Novemeber 20th. The event was hosted by Nina Haft. Project Director: April C. Taylor, Theatre Director: Jim Beatty, Stage Manager Bret Hitchcock and Videographer Sophia Alberts-Willis.

Review by Heather Desaulniers

Linda Bair Dance Company
Presented by Choreographers' Performance Alliance and 8th Street Studio, Berkeley, CA
November 20, 2010

In the past two years, I have really made an extra effort to see works-in-progress. Whether in a rehearsal setting, in a previewed excerpt or at an informal showing, I have come to realize that these opportunities are invaluable. Critics are with choreography for such a short duration - even if you see the same piece multiple times, the cast, staging or venue are likely to be different, thus, making the piece different too. Being present for the process of dancemaking is such a different experience; an intimate gift that provides unique insight that the finished product alone may not.

The "Works in the Works 2010" program offered the chance to see five dances at various stages of growth: "H₁" (Abigail McNally/A Mused Collective), "My Hands/Tus Brazos" (Linda Bair Dance Company), "Banksy's Children" (MeND Dance Theater Company), "What Is It About Memory?" (Jetta Martin), and an untitled work performed by the San Francisco State University Dancers, choreographed by Ray Tadio. The breadth, diversity and quality of the work is something that all the choreographers (and this long-running festival) should be proud of.

I did have favorites among the group, the first being Linda Bair's "My Hands/Tus Brazos", a modern piece that delved into the reality of a relationship, emphasizing the dramatic and less-happy interactions that we try so hard to hide. We saw Bair and partner Jorge Luis Morejon (both seasoned performers) running around each other, forcing affection, and controlling movements and reactions. Though the angst was predominant in the duet, there were also instances of tenderness, particularly a number of cantilevered, off-balance poses which could only be accomplished through communication and working together. My only critique of the work is that we were told prior to the dance what it was about and what the choreography was trying to say. This wasn't really necessary; give the audience the chance to reach its own conclusions. Another highlight (for me, at least)

Dance Commentary by Heather Desaulniers

http://www.heatherdance.com/

Olorum:Yemaya

2010-10-17T04:45:00.001-04:00

Leandro Soto as Yemaya and Jorge Luis Morejon as The Taino.

Straz Tower Hall Theatre, Milwaukee

2nd International Conference on Caribbean Studies,
Marquette University. Friday, October 8th, 2010

My Hands/Tus Brazos

2010-06-14T06:09:00.004-04:00

Jorge Luis Morejon and Linda Bair. Veteran's Theater. Davis, California. June 3, 2010

I did enjoy "My Hands, Tus Brazos" very much. (Jim Carnes)

My hands, tus Brazos

This is a collaborative piece between Linda Bair and Jorge Luis Morejón. The theme revolves around the desire to remain in a relationship despite the differences between the two partners. The piece elucidates the struggle inherent in any relationship. The dancers’ bodies oscillate between opposite poles: near and far, tenderness and abruptness, successful and incomplete resolutions. The dance itself is an invitation to think about the dynamics of a couple, a mirror extended to the audience for reflection on how to live and stay together in the face of conflict. The movement itself deliberately refrains from overly codified dance gestures. Instead, through her hands and his arms the dancers convey the complexities of sustaining a life in common.

--------------------------------------

The Sacramento Bee. sacbee.com Theater and Art

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Linda Bair's new dance project invites dialogue with audience

By Jim Carnes
jcarnes@sacbee.com

Published: Friday, May. 28, 2010 - 12:00 am
Page 5TICKET

Like director Robert Altman who said, when accepting an honorary Oscar for his body of work, "To me, I've just made one long film," Davis choreographer Linda Bair said, "I feel like I'm making this one long dance."

Also like Altman, Bair works cinematically. Her new program, which opens Thursday and continues through June 5, is called "Shorts/Feature" and includes five short dances and one feature-length narrative, "Some Strange Hotel Room.”

The only piece on the program that is not a premiere is Bair's signature piece, "One Mad Brunette," set to text and music by and about Jack Kerouac.

In a telephone interview Monday, Bair explained the format for the program and why she wanted to try it. "The first half is short pieces; they're like expressing myself in the form of a poem or a short story. The ideas come to me this way, in short pieces," she said. The longer piece "came in sections and then I sewed them together," she said. It's about finding one's direction in an uncertain environment.

"I think (the format) is interesting in terms of what it asks of the audience. To watch the show, it takes some concentration for the shorter pieces, then more attention in the second half. You have to wait for development."

Bair's other dances on the program include "Gone Too Soon," a dance inspired by the sudden death in May of the dancer's cousin, and set to music by Jeff Buckley; "Dust and Sky," a lyrical piece that will be part of a full-length dance to be premiered in the fall; and "My Hands, Tus Brazos (My hands, your arms)," a duet about finding common ground in a relationship, which was choreographed and will be danced by Bair and Jorge Luis Morejón.

Morejón, who is Cuban, is a doctorate candidate in performance studies at UC Davis; Morejón's research is in displaced cultures and how such communities resolve the anxieties of exile through art. It was his first choreographic effort and her first time working with a collaborator, she said. "We broke down (our) barriers and came together by creating this piece about a couple being together," she said.

Bair, who is married to UC Davis post-doctoral researcher Matthias Falk, said, "I've always been frustrated that I couldn't explore in my work this theme of romantic love that is so important in my life." (Her company rarely has a male dancer.) Working with Morejón, she said, "was probably my richest experience in making work."

The final short piece on the program will be performed by A Mused Collective, a new modern dance company established last year in the East Bay by Abby McNally, a former member of Bair's dance company. "When I started (my dance company), Ruth Rosenberg gave me a platform (in her 1999 "Other Visions" program), and I'm so happy to be able to do the same for a new company," Bair said.

Each performance will be followed by a discussion period. "It just seems natural in one sense to do that," Bair said. "Thousands of hours go into the performance, and then you do it and it's just over. It feels empty to me. I think there's a whole wealth of information to be shared.

"Opening up that dialogue benefits both the audience and the dancers. There's a lot to be gained from the perceptions of others."

SHORTS/FEATURE

WHAT: Linda Bair Dance Company performs a program of six dances, five "shorts" and one "feature"-length premiere

WHEN: 8 p.m. Thursday and June 4, and 2 and 7 p.m. June 5

WHERE: Veterans Memorial Center Theater, 203 E. 14th St., Davis

COST: $10-$14

INFORMATION: (530) 753-4514

© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved

Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/05/28/2779408/linda-bairs-new-dance-project.html#ixzz0pMbFiRVI

-------------------------------------------

The Davis Enterprise davisenterprise.com Arts

June 1st, 2010

Straight from the heart

Linda Bair Dance Company takes the stage in Davis

By Ann Murray Paige
Special to The Enterprise

If I ask you over for french toast in some strange hotel room, don't think poorly of me — I'm talking dance.

The Linda Bair Dance Company's yearly summer offering at the Veterans' Memorial Center will be presented this weekend. Among the fare for the aptly titled “Shorts/ Feature” performance are one feature-length piece and five short dances, including Bair's signature “Some Strange Hotel Room” and the premiere of company artist Abigail McNally's “French Toast.”

A question-and-answer period will follow each of the four performances.

“Shorts/Feature” includes a collaboration with dancer Jorge Luis Morejon, a Ph.D. candidate in performance studies at UC Davis, and performances by the Oakland-based company of dancers and musicians called A Mused Collective.

“I like the format of this show,” Bair says. “I like presenting a group of shorter pieces in the first half as if they're short stories, each exploring an idea or feeling. And then offering up one piece like a novella, which demands a different, more rigorous form of attention.”

Included in this production is one of Bair's most popular pieces titled, “One Mad Brunette,” set to text and music by and about legendary American novelist and poet Jack Kerouac. The rest of “Shorts/Feature” unveils freshly choreographed new modern dances inspired and created by Bair and her company, including guest artist Morejon.

Having received her bachelor of fine arts in dance at UC Santa Barbara, Bair spent 20 years honing her craft with a creative drive that seeks to turn everyday thoughts, words and moments into fluid modern dance movements. Bair's new show highlights her new work, “Gone Too Soon,” which leads the audience through a series of motions depicting the grief and sadness Bair recently experienced at the death of her dear friend and cousin. It is set to music by Jeff Buckley.

“The movement came out quickly and straight from my heart,” Bair explains. “It was my way of grieving. At her memorial service, they played a song she loved and it happened to be a song I loved. I didn't know we shared this. So I made the dance to this music.”

“French Toast,” on the other hand, is a lively, graceful and athletic expression that provokes emotion and expands the dimensions of relationships and community.

In her career, Bair has danced with the legendary Jose Limon Dance Company, Repertory West II, Bonnie Simoa Dance Company, Christopher Watson Dance Company and marTa Tanz Company, the latter while she was living and teaching in Germany.

Bair's dance company has appeared in Berkeley's Works in the Works, Sacramento State's Festival of the Arts and the Bay Area's National Dance Week.

Ten years ago, she created the Linda Bair Dance Company with one goal — to channel her artistic talent to capture the common struggles, joys and hopes present in everyday life. Last year, she was honored with the title artist-in-residence at the Davis Art Center.

Bair says she'll be honored again when she opens “Shorts/Feature” this weekend.

“Dance is precious because it is so fleeting,” she says. “The audience will be moved, inspired, delighted, provoked and stretched emotionally by this show. Davis is a wonderful community and this is the kind of show that enriches the artistic fabric so prevalent in our city.”

The company, now in its 11th season, includes dancers Cassie Gardner, Jean Larock, Shelly Gilbride, Andrea Masten and Jen Phipps.

“Shorts/Feature” will be presented at 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday and 2 and 7 p.m. Saturday.

Details

What: Linda Bair Dance Company presents “Shorts/Feature”

When: 8 p.m. Thursday and Friday, 2 and 7 p.m. Saturday

Where: Veterans' Memorial Theater, 203 E. 14th St., Davis

Tickets: $14/$10 at the door, or by calling (530) 753-4514

Info: https://sites.google.com/site/lindabairdancecompany

------------------------------

No review, but an email:

"Unfortunately because of deadlines and timing, we couldn't get a review in while anyone could still come to see a performance, so my editors decided to forego a review.

I did enjoy "My Hands, Tus Brazos" very much. The "feature" dance had some fine moments (and a kind of "Twilight Zone" strangeness to it, I thought). Amy Seiwert has a duet to the same version of "Hallelujah" as you used for "Gone too Soon," and it was interesting to see a very different dance done to the same music.

Thank you again for inviting us.

jimc

Nature's Theatre

2010-03-25T13:40:00.005-04:00

Jorge Luis Morejon. Animal Circle. Birdman Story.

Stebbins Cold Canyon, California, 2010. Photos: Angela Thang

Jorge Luis Morejón participated in the Nature’s Theatre Workshop with Jeff Falyn and Lyndsay Dawkins, founders of Nature’s Theater in 2004, on March 6th and 13th. The initiative grew out of their desire to offer kids a fulfilling and fun experience in the outdoors. Currently, there are over thirty stories with diverse themes and adventures in the Nature’s Theater repertoire. “Our mission is to connect kids, our next generation of sustainable caretakers for the earth, to the joys of being outside…” One Sunday afternoon per month, children of all ages with an accompanying adult, enjoy storytelling performances with an international content at a theatre venue, a park or a school.

Each storytelling event is open to the public. The methodology offered by Falyn and Dawkins is flexible and adaptable to any children population. It was a great gift that Jorge Luis Morejón will take with him back home to use as a resource for children to learn about nature while involved in a performance driven process.

Jorge Luis Morejon. Nature's Theatre Workshop.

Stebbins Cold Canyon, California, 2010. Photos: Angela Thang

Bodies Of Water

2010-03-25T13:27:00.007-04:00

Jorge Luis Morejon. Bodies of Water. Firehouse Studio/UC Davis. 2009. Photos: Daniel Jordan

http://jorgeluismorejon-bodiesofwater.blogspot.com/

Bodies of Water is a work in progress created primarily as a doctoral thesis piece for the Practice as Research emphasis of the Performance Studies Program at University of California, Davis. Please, click on the blog address shown above. As you move through the sections of the blog Bodies of Water, you will encounter three major narratives. The first is entitled Bodies of Water in the Performance Space, which describes how the physical environment contributes to the development of the performance process. Following this narrative is a series of pictures illustrating the process. The second narrative entitled Critical Evaluation describes the performance as a displacement ritual. This is also followed by a series of pictures illustrating the actual performance. The third narrative entitled Bodies of Water: Journal, describes in detail processes, outcomes, and feelings involved in this creative collaboration between performer JorgeLuis Morejon and director Nitza Tenenblatt.

Elephant's Graveyard

2009-10-27T21:31:00.015-04:00

Jorge Luis Morejon (Shaman). Spider Dance Rehearsal, Mondavi Studio, UC Davis, Californina

Jorge Luis Morejon (Shaman) and Bella Merlin (Eve).

Rehearsal, UClub, UC Davis, Fall 2009. Photo:Jade McCutcheon.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Truly unforgettable
New UCD drama deftly addresses the complex issues that concern aging

By Bev Sykes
Enterprise Drama Critic
.
.There's much to like about 'The Elephant's Graveyard,' written and directed by Jade McCutcheon, which continues through Sunday at the UC Davis Mondavi Center's Larry and Rosalie Vanderhoef Studio Theatre.
.The play boasts a simple yet elegantly sweeping set by renowned designer John Iacovelli; lighting by internationally recognized designer Thomas Munn; an on-stage orchestra, under the baton of Garrett Ian Shatzer, to perform the music composed by Laurie San Martin; costumes by Maggie Morgan; and choreography by Kerry Mehling.
.McCutcheon's sensitive script concerns an aging woman and her scientist daughter, who is trying to find a cure for death, yet can't take time to visit her dying mother.
.Each of the seven professional and nonprofessional actors is wonderful; they're joined by six older women from the Davis community, with no acting experience whatsoever, whose powerful contribution just about steals the show.
.
And delivered more than a few in tears during the opening night performance.
.Eve (Bella Merlin) is a career-driven scientist working for the Never Die Institute on synthetic alternatives to aging and death. She deals with inter-staff rivalry with her partner Steve (Matt Sullivan), who is involved with stem cell research. Eve is so immersed in her work - and excited about her discoveries - that she neglects her aging mother, Esme (Claudia Marie Maupin), whom she has placed in 'one of the more prestigious nursing homes.'
.Eve visits every few weeks, when her busy schedule allows.
.Esme is lonely and confused: more concerned about whether she's getting the right medication, and whether the staff has stolen one of her old sweaters, than about lengthening her life.
.
Emma (Anne Reeder) is the granddaughter Esme raised after the death of the girl's parents. She visits Esme regularly and tries to make Eve understand how precious her time is with her mother.
.Merlin does a fine job as a harried, driven, stress-filled woman who tries to do too much while neglecting the one thing that should be most important to her. Reeder gives a lovely, sensitive portrayal of a young woman who successfully balances career - she's an architect - with love and concern for her grandmother.
.But our attention is riveted on Esme, and Maupin gives her total heart and soul: We understand her bouts of depression, her moments of confusion and fear, and her delight over the time she spends with her daughter. Ultimately, we learn the most from Esme.
.
The voice of Esme's 'soul' is provided by the marvelous Australian singer Kim Deacon, who sings the words that reveal Esme's fears:
.'Is it must my imagination,
Or am I finding it hard to breathe?
It seems each step I take these days
There's a wobble in my knees...'
.Each of the other actors takes on several roles, from nursing home attendants and pedestrians to waiters. Each is excellent, but Jorge Morejón is head and shoulders above the rest: His principal character is a shaman who provides comfort to Eve at her most frenzied period, when he takes her pain from her and internalizes it.
.Morejón gives an intensity to his performance, and his dances are breathtaking: particularly the 'spider dance,' done on a ladder that is lowered from the ceiling while Esme's soul expresses her feelings about death:
.'The web might be a relief,
Just to give in and get caught.'
.As for the 'elders,' for a group of women in their later years who never before appeared on stage, we couldn't ask for better.
.
They quite realistically portray conditions in a nursing home, and their final scene brought several audience members to tears.
.This play needs to be seen by everyone with aging parents, and everyone who intends to grow old (which would be all of us). It deals sensitively but realistically with the experiences of aging in this country, and how our culture deals with it, and concludes with an uplifting message for everyone.
.
The production is everything that McCutcheon intended: 'a journey where it's a bit of magic, a bit of music, a bit of art, a bit of dance and the issues and a story that ties it together.'
Don't miss this one. You won't be disappointed.
.
LINK: http://criticontheloose.blogspot.com/2009/10/elephants-graveyard-review.html

Elephant's Graveyard (preview)

2009-10-27T21:25:00.000-04:00

THURSDAY OCTOBER 22, 2009 THE DAVIS ENTERPRISE

Age-old issue

Carefully developed play addresses quality-of-life issues for older people
By Bev Sykes
ENTERPRISE DRAMA CRITIC

Elephants are amazing animals.
.
They’re highly intelligent and live in wonderfully structured societies. They understand that it takes a village to raise a child. They support each other throughout their lives. They go into deep depressions, if isolated in zoos without companions.
.
And there’s a reverence about them, when it comes to the end of life.
Elephants know when they’re dying. They leave the herd and walk ceremoniously to the graveyard that contains all their ancestors, and they lie down in the bones of those who have gone before them.
.
When an elephant dies, the other members of the herd gather around it: They cover the elephant up, and they hang around it for days, just to be close.
.
This majestic creature’s respect for age and dying was the inspiration for a play called “The Elephant’s Graveyard,” written and directed by Jade McCutcheon, which opens Friday and continues through Nov. 1 at the Mondavi Center’s Larry and Rosalie Vanderhoef Studio Theatre.
.
The U.S. population age 65 and over is expected to double in size within the next 25 years. By 2030, almost one out of five Americans — some 72 million people — will be 65 years or older. The age group 85 and older is the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population.
.
It’s time to give some serious thought about the quality of life for older Americans.
.
McCutcheon actually has been working on this piece for a very long time. When I met with her in April, she had begun shaping the script and had started casting the show. The story concerns Eve, a scientist working for the “Never Die Institute,” who is developing technology designed to prolong life and ultimately allow us all to live forever. Eve’s mother, Esme, a woman in her 80s, is integral to this narrative: Eve has placed Esme in a nursing home and never finds the time to visit.
.
McCutcheon sought her Esme among the older women of the Davis community. She was looking for “someone who is able to move across the stage without feeling terrified.” She also needed “someone the audience could care about.”
.
When we parted company that day back in April, McCutcheon was about to meet with Donna Sachs, who leads a discussion group for senior citizens. McCutcheon hoped to find her Esme among the women in Sachs’ group.
.
Sachs, a career psychologist interested in personal development in the later years, started her group in 2003.
.
“I wanted to share some ideas and literature in a seminar,” she said, “so I invited people to come for a few times and just talk together in a group.”
.

After the first few sessions, several people were eager to continue, and the group now has continued for more than five years. It has 11 participants; when they heard the plans for McCutcheon’s play, eight women expressed interest.
.
McCutcheon ended up with more than she bargained for, when Claudia Marie became her Esme. Marie wasn’t terrified to walk across the stage. She also was willing to learn lines, although she had no stage experience, beyond having watched her parents do some theater work when she was a young child.
.
McCutcheon then cast five other members of the group — Nancy Jungerman, Lois Grau, Ruth Hall, Doris Beresford and Sachs herself — to be Esme’s friends in the nursing home. Each would have a line or two of dialogue, and all would participate in some of the dancing.
.
Stage manager Reed Martin was “really concerned” about working with older women who had no stage experience, but he was pleasantly surprised. “They’re really a great group of people,” he said. “And because of how involved they are, they’re very willing to do things for the show. They’re really enthusiastic about it.”
.
“It’s great having members of the community involved,” added Bella Merlin, an acting professor who plays the part of Eve. “It has been absolutely fantastic working with them. They’re delightful. Claudia is so open and accessible, and she’s so playful as an actress. They all have super energy.”
.
In September, I went to visit the “elders” at work with their choreographer, Kerry Mehling. I entered a room to find a group of women, sitting in a semi-circle, looking old, tired and depressed. Mehling was giving them movements to do with their hands, and each movement seemed to be almost too much of an effort.
.
But when the exercise concluded, their heads came up and the years melted away. They sparkled with delight while talking about their backgrounds, and their excitement at being involved with this play.
.
This vibrant group of women was the visual representation of all that McCutcheon wished to convey in her play: how the quality of life can be affected by our ability to remain intellectually challenged, lively and active, rather than stuck in a nursing home, at the mercy of the staff, hoping that someone will visit. Some day.
.
“I want this to be a journey where it’s a bit of magic, a bit of music, a bit of art, a bit of dance and the issues, and a story that ties it together,” McCutcheon said. “It’s just a platform. This is a voyage of discovery for Eve. Science might be able to create a bio-body, but what are we about life?
.
“We live and die; that’s a given. But love can make a difference. This busy, busy life about career, career, career, when you have to cut off that aspect of self...
.
“It’s worth asking everybody: Is that it?”
.
“This play throws up all sorts of issues,” Merlin said. “We’ll make people go away and think about lots of things. My character is a nanotechnologist, so she believes that we can live forever: that there’s enough science out there, and enough investigation happening, that it’s only a matter of years before we have the capacity to ensure that we never age. We’ll be able to put tiny robots in our systems, which will constantly regenerate the degenerating.”
.
AGE: The play’s composer has come from Australia

“It’s absolutely strange and exciting,” Merlin continued, “and Eve is up against the fact that her mom is dying, and she doesn’t want her mom to die.
.
Can she come up with this discovery before her mom dies?” But Eve misses the point: that her mother is at peace with the approaching end of her life, and is ready to die. Merlin warmed to the subject.
.
“She says lines to the effect of ‘What would I do for another 70 years in this body? Why would I want to?’ My character can’t understand that. Surely everybody wants to live forever. Then my character has an epiphany, and thinks maybe she’s got it all wrong. Maybe there’s a natural flow and order to things.”
.
Kim Deacon has flown in from Australia, to sing the role of Esme’s “soul.” “I worked with Jade about 18 years ago, in a play that we devised called ‘The Last Room,’ ” the singer explained. “It’s a very beautiful piece that combined some text from Tennessee Williams and the surrealist playwright Arabella; I also sang in that play. We enjoyed the process of working together very much.
.
“We always had in our minds to work together again, so I’ve kept up with her over the years.”
When McCutcheon was in Australia at Christmas, visiting family, she talked with Deacon about flying to the States to perform in “The Elephant’s Graveyard.” Deacon, who had been discussing the possibility of such a project with Mc-Cutcheon for a long time, was happy to comply.
.
Garrett Ian Shatzer, who composed the songs for the production, happened to be in Australia this summer, while McCutcheon was at home again to see her own aging mother. They met with Deacon at that time, to go over the music.
.
“When I heard Garrett’s music, I thought it was fantastic,” Deacon said. “Every song is beautiful.”
.
“Different things in this play will appeal to different people,” Merlin said. “Some will absolutely love the music, some will get involved in the science, and some will get very involved in the story about what to do when our parents get older.
.
“It has stirred up a lot of stuff for me, because my parents are in their 70s. They’re in the UK; I’m here in the USA. They’re fit at the moment. What happens when they’re not?”
.
As I watched the relationship between Esme and her daughter during the two rehearsals I attended, and listened to Deacon give voice to Esme’s soul, and watched the evolution in the lives of Esme’s friends in the nursing home, I drove home certain that people seeing this play will leave the theater with a lot of things to think about.
.
And, if they still have living parents, a lot of them will feel like calling Mom or Dad.

Elephant's Graveyard (preview)

2009-10-27T21:24:00.001-04:00

The California Aggie News.

Sideshow Physical Theatre presents Elephant's Graveyard

New play at the Vanderhoef Studio Theater adds perspective
Written by Vanna Lee
Staff Writer

Published on Oct 22, 2009

Growing old is often a daunting task that can leave anyone bewildered, perplexed and perhaps, at some point, abandoned in a depressingly isolated nursing home. And if you don't believe it, check out Sideshow Physical Theatre's latest play, Elephant's Graveyard.
.
The play, written and directed by Australian scholar Jade Rosina McCutcheon, delves deeply into the lives of two women - Esme (a lonely mother and grandmother) and Eve (her busy and career-obsessed daughter).
.
The play starts out in gloom as Esme desperately pleads Eve for the least bit of love and attention. Esme's raw stress of emotions and desire for love is carried out by the songs of her soul - yes, her soul - sung by Australian singer and actress Kim Deacon.
.
On the surface, the play may seem to reflect the issues of aging and abandonment, but it also directs the limelight onto real social issues that we rarely think about today.
.
"It's not so much the fear of old age," McCutcheon said, "But in 2030, we'll have more than 30 million people over 65 years of age, and we don't have the utility to handle that."
.
McCutcheon said at the same time, scientists are still working on solutions.
"Nursing homes may be the popular choice, but I don't think it's a very compassionate thing to do, and I don't think it's the way to go to be abandoned by your family," McCutcheon said.
.
By exposing the public to the issues presented in this play, she said that she hopes Elephant's Graveyard will be something for everybody to carefully consider, no matter what age.
.
The cast's intimate performance is earnest yet humorous at the same time, permitting us to question the realities of elderly life in a nursing home. Where will our children be when we die? What will happen to our souls? What is the importance of religion, or having our families nearby?
.
Because really, as cliché as it may sound, what exactly is the point of living life without love, knowing that the inevitable outcome of death is awaiting us?
Bella Merlin is an actress trained in the UK and Russia. She plays Eve in Elephant's Graveyard.
.
"We've all been children, and we've all had parents," Merlin said. "We know what's coming."
.
There are also many moments of ridiculousness in this poignant mother-and-daughter story that explore the complex emotions involved in one's passing of age.
In one scene, a deeply unsettling yet oddly entertaining dance depicts the darkness of life in a nursing home where a team of pharmacists and nurses are seen as villains in the eyes of the elders.
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"I think it's impossible for the play to not have [a] dark comedy effect," McCutcheon said. "Sometimes, we just have to laugh at these things because we feel so powerless."
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The play, which combines with artistic tapestry all the different styles of theatre - layering music, dance, realism and costume - is what Merlin describes as "epic."
The impressive creative team ranges from Emmy Award-winning lighting designer Thomas Munn to costume designer Maggie Morgan, who has worked with costumes on well-known sets such as Mona Lisa Smile and Men in Black.
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"The young people working on this are terrific, considerate and talented," said Dorris Beresford, who plays one of the many elders. "That being said, I'd be happy to turn the world over to them."
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Elephant's Graveyard, full of great artists and actors, will premiere its first show Saturday, Oct. 23 at the Mondavi Studio Theatre. Don't forget to take your friends, parents or elders - as they will be sure to laugh and cry.
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More information about the show can be found at theelephantsgraveyard.com.

VANNA LE can be reached at arts@theaggie.org.

The Winter's Tale

2009-02-19T20:54:00.022-05:00

Jorge Luis Morejon in The Winter's Tale Tech-rehearsal as Time.

Mondavi Studio, UC Davis. February 11, 2009

The Winter's Tale was a production of the the Theatre and Dance Department at the University of California, Davis and it took place at the Mondavi Studio from the 13th to the 22nd of February, 2009. Jorge Luis Morejon played Time, a character who only appears twice in this production but whose importance in the William Shakespeare's story is paramount. As expressed by Frank Kermode in his introduction to The Winter's Tale 's new revised edition, "the heroe of The Winter's Tale is Time, or as he suggests "its heroine is Nature" (xxiii) The character reflects Sakespeare's procupation with "Time as destroyer and renewer, that which ruins the work of men but is the father of truth." (xxvi) In Shakespeare's tale, "Time only seems to change things because it must renew their truth." (xxvii) Time is the agent that makes possible the passage from "the world in which happiness and prosperity are destroyed by storm of passion to the world where nature (...) re-establishes love and human continuance." (xxxi) When Time introduces Act IV, Bohemia, shakeapeare proves that "time is an agent of change and perpetuity." Perhaps this is why director Patricia Miller turned Time into one of the most importan and ever present characters of this production.

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Reviews

davisenterprise.com

Thursday, February 19, 2009
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Monarchs and Gypsies and bears ... oh my!

'The Winter's Tale,' continuing through Sunday at the Mondavi Center's Studio Theatre, is a less familiar Shakespeare work. But this production, under the deft hand of director Patricia Miller, makes one wonder why it isn't done more often.I hadn't seen the play before, and therefore had none of the expectations that might have accompanied another production of, say, 'Hamlet' or 'Macbeth.' This was, as a result, a delightful voyage of discovery. The journey starts with a visual bang and continues until the final beautifully lit, tender reunion of the king and his long dead wife.

Jorge Luis Morejon makes an immediate impact as 'Time,' aided greatly by Wenting Gao's striking costume, as this mystical character sets the scene for the story.

'The Winter's Tale' concerns King Leontes (Brett Duggan) of Sicilia, who becomes irrationally jealous of the innocent affection between his wife, Hermione (Allison Minick), and his best friend, Polixenes (Kevin Ganger), the king of Bohemia. We never quite figure out what has caused this seemingly sudden jealousy, but Leontes is convinced that the child Hermione carries was conceived by Polixenes.

Duggan gives a powerful, polished performance as a man who has tyrannical rages against his wife and her friend, Paulina (Amy Louise Cole), who attempts to reason with him. His anguish over Hermione's perceived betrayal is palpable; his tirades are frightening. His anguish - 16 years later, when he eventually realizes that no betrayal took place - is just as wrenching, as he finally comprehends how he has ruined his own life.

Minick gives a moving performance as Hermione, at first perplexed at her husband's accusations of infidelity, then pleading for reason from this man she so clearly loves. Her magical return - years later, in the form of a statue come to life - is strikingly beautiful.

When Hermione gives birth to a daughter, Perdita, her best friend Paulina brings the child to the king, certain that the sight of her will soften his heart.

Amy Cole gives an impassioned performance as Paulina, the catalyst for all the magic that happens throughout the play. Her scene with Leontes, as she tries to make him accept his daughter, is particularly moving.

Kris Ide is endearing as Antigonus, Paulina's husband, a conflicted lord who is unwaveringly loyal to his king, but also unable to stand up to his wife. Antigonus is dispatched by Leontes to 'dispose of' the child.

Christina Moore is wonderful as Mamillius, the young son of Leontes and Hermione. Moore is so convincing as a young boy that I had to check her bio, to verify she truly is an adult actress.

In a gender reversal, Steph Hankinson plays Camila - Camilo, a male role, in the original - who is sent by Leontes to murder Polixenes, but instead warns the king and flees the kingdom with him.

The action in Act 2 takes place 16 years later, in Bohemia, where the young princess Perdita (Gia Battista) has grown up, having been adopted by a shepherd (Heidi Kendrick) who found the abandoned infant. Perdita is in love with Florizel (Chris Jee), the son of Polixenes.

Kendrick does a credible job as the old shepherd, but never quite loses the appearance of a woman pretending to be a man. The shepherd and his son, Clown (Mark Curtis Ferrando), bring a bit of humor to the play, although some of their dialogue is difficult to understand.

Daniel A. Guttenberg is larger than life as the rogue Autolycus, who travels the country selling his wares and picking pockets. He, too, lightens the play's mood, and does it well.

Instead of choosing a more traditional Elizabethan sound for this production's music, Miller worked with composer Daryl Henline on original themes with a Balkan sound. The result could not be more perfect for the gypsy celebration.

Josh Steadman does a beautiful job with the scenic design, creating two entirely different worlds: a posh 1930s look for Leontes' court, and the more rustic Balkan community of Bohemia.

Gao's costumes are elegant for Act 1, and they beautifully depict the life of shepherds and gypsies in Act 2.

Jacob W. Nelson's lighting design creates the appropriate mood and is particularly good in the statue scene, where the 'statue' of Hermione seems to glow.

Posted by Bev Sykes at 1:48 PM 0
source: http://www.davisenterprise.com/
-------------------------------------------------

NEWSREVIEW.COM
ARTS AND CULTURE > THEATER

Good to be the king
The Winter’s Tale
By Jeff Hudson

The king went off his nut.
The Winter’s Tale, 1 p.m. Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday; Studio Theater at the Mondavi Center, UC Davis; $11-$16; (530) 754-2787 or toll-free (866) 754-2787; http://www.mondaviarts.org/. Through February 22.

What can (should?) the people do when their king goes off his nut?

In The Winter’s Tale, King Leontes cruelly shatters his own family while horrified courtiers look on. Seized by paranoia, Leontes accuses pregnant wife, Hermione, of infidelity and has her imprisoned—separating her from their son Mamillius, who promptly falls seriously ill.

After Hermione gives birth to a girl, Leontes orders the baby abandoned in “a desert place.” Bad deeds don’t go unpunished (at least not in Shakespeare), and the birds come home to roost: By intermission, The Winter’s Tale resembles the conclusion of a full-blown tragedy, with Leontes zapped by remorse.

But then, everything changes. The story fast-forwards 16 years. The abandoned baby—who was miraculously adopted by a passing Bohemian shepherd—is now a gorgeous young woman, in love. Nature and passing years slowly soften the harsh outcomes of earlier events. A character called Time (played by Jorge Luis Morejón) literally serves as narrator.

British director Patricia Miller takes liberties (and why not? Shakespeare often did). Time, given a single monologue in the script, delivers lines scattered throughout the performance. Leontes’ court, ostensibly Sicilian, looks like London circa 1936. Mamillius (who Miller inserts as a spirit following his death) sings the Gustav Holst carol “In the Bleak Midwinter.” And rural Bohemia looks Balkan, with Romani (“gypsy”) nomads living in tents.

Equity performer Amy Louise Cole (an MFA candidate, playing the feisty Paulina) stands up capably to Leontes (Brett Duggan, sweaty during his mad scene). Elsewhere there are gender switches—wise counselor Camillo becomes dutiful, cautious Camilla (well played by Steph Hankinson).

Miller also works in surprises, like the fertility dance involving shepherds Jazz Trice, Mark Curtis Ferrando and Nathan Lessa (flashing taut young torsos to die for).
Not everything works. The play’s finale, while beautifully arranged, doesn’t quite embody the profound mystery and fulfillment that can make this a tear-inducing scene. And there are occasional moments when certain undergraduates in this UC Davis production perform like, well, undergraduates (that’s OK).

But overall, this is a thoughtfully planned, well-designed, effective production. Kudos to director, cast and crew.

source:

http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/Content?oid=914302

----------------------------------------------------

enterprise

Februry 12, 2009

'Exit, pursued by a bear.' Redemption drives UC Davis production of Shakespeare's rarely performed 'Winter's Tale.'

by Bev Sykes

Link: Pursued by a Bear

'To me, the theme of the play is time, and learning lessons from time,' said director Patricia Miller, of her upcoming production of Shakespeare's 'The Winter's Tale.'

The play opens Friday and continues through Feb. 22 at the UC Davis Mondavi Center's Studio Theatre. Tickets...

This rarely performed Shakespeare work explores two parallel worlds: the elegance of a café society destroyed by a paranoid king's jealousy, and the fertile chaos of a Balkan Romani gypsy community. 'The Winter's Tale' has the emotional depth of 'King Lear' - often considered its inspiration - and the raw comedy of the rude mechanicals in 'A Midsummer Night's Dream.' It weaves a magical transformation from death to life.'

There's a redemption of family at the end,' Miller added, 'and a way that time heals things that's very mature.'

Time is not only at the core of this work, but also an integral aspect of the people involved in the production.

Miller is juggling several balls herself. She's a master of fine arts student, taking doctorate classes, teaching acting classes and directing a five-act play ... all at the same time. She's also a single parent with a 7-year-old daughter, which necessitates her commuting to and from San Francisco as often as possible.

Cuban-American actor Jorge Luis Morejon, who plays the role of 'Time' in this production, is a doctoral candidate in his second year at UC Davis.'

I have to find a balance between the demands of my program,' he said, 'which is lots of reading and writing, and being involved in stage work, which is what I love. Patricia was kind enough to let me do the role of Time, which is small enough for me to maintain my work as a Ph.D. student, but still allows me to be on stage, which is important for me.'

Brett Duggan, tackling the role of King Leontes, is a professional actor and stand-up comedian who has played all the big comedy clubs in New York, Boston and San Francisco. He's a master of fine arts student who came to UC Davis because he'd be able to study and teach ... but all this also requires considerable juggling of time.'

I lived in Sacramento for a few years, and originally thought I would commute,' Duggan said, 'but just decided it was too intense, having had the experience of rehearsing until 11 p.m. I teach a class here at 8 a.m., so that wasn't going to work. I completely changed my life: I moved two blocks from campus.'

I got rid of my car and ride around on a bike.'

*******

'The kids work so hard,' Miller said. 'They work much harder than regular actors. The two MFAs are up teaching at 8 a.m., and the others are taking classes. Sometimes a full complement all day long, and they come in to me at 6 p.m.'

But (Polish director Jerzy) Grotowski used to make people run around for days without sleep, before they were allowed to work, so grad school is like a similar program. We're just doing Grotowski. That's what I keep telling myself.''

But we love this,' Morejon added. 'This is the time to do it, if you think about it. We have energy, and we're full of dreams, enthusiasm, optimism and love.'

This is an ideal cast for Miller, who directed last season's 'Nights at the Circus.' All the actors from that play - those who didn't graduate last year - auditioned for 'The Winter's Tale.''

It's been a dream to have one consistent ensemble of people to work with,' Miller said, 'because they sort of understand my methods ... which are a little unusual.'

Queried about that choice of words, she explained that she's interested in physical theater, as much as text.'

I have long roots, and training in Britain in text-based theater, where you just start with the text and then work out some psychological reason behind that. You have to get involved in the language. My second level of experience was to work in physical theater modes; I try to incorporate a lot of gesture work, and a lot of energetic work with the actors.'

At the same time, we have to maintain the fact that there is this great text, and the audience expects to understand the story through the text.'

Amy Cole, playing Paulina, understands Miller's methods quite well. They met in San Francisco several years ago, at a Marie Overlie workshop. Overlie developed 'The Viewpoint System,' which teaches an awareness of space and how best to utilize it in performance.

Cole enjoys this opportunity to perform The Bard. Although she directs scaled-down productions of Shakespeare for children in the summer, and has utilized Shakespearean scenes for her own auditions, this is her first full Shakespeare production in more than 10 years.

And Paulina is a plum role.'

She's a catalyst for all the miracles and magic that happen at the end of the play, and throughout the play; the part is amazing. I love exploring Paulina, and I love the magic that happens in this particular Shakespeare play.'

It's a whole new world for Mark Curtis Ferrando, who plays 'Clown.''

I haven't done Shakespeare before, so it's a totally new experience. Since Shakespeare is new to me, taking it line by line - punctuation mark by punctuation mark - is different.'

But it's a good experience.'

*******

Miller is excited to be directing 'The Winter's Tale,' because she expects audiences to arrive at the theater with no preconceived expectations, as they might with 'Hamlet,' 'Macbeth' or other better-known works. 'The Winter's Tale' was one of Shakespeare's later plays, and - as with other late plays such as 'The Tempest' and 'Pericles' - this one also involves a father's loss of a daughter, and trying to regain that relationship.'

The play really parallels Shakespeare's own experience,' Miller said, 'because he lost a child; he returned for his older daughter's wedding. He was very alienated from the family, because he was down in London working at the Globe and other places. Some theories, picked up from the English department, suggest that it's really him working out redemption, rebirth and reconnection with family.'

Miller borrows liberally from her own life experiences. She was born in Philadelphia and raised in England, where she received her training; she also spent a lot of time in the former Yugoslavia. She has had teachers in Poland and Croatia, along with American Stanislavski technique teachers.

She spent a lot of time with Balkan musicians and worked with the Voice of Roma, a Sebastopol organization devoted to increasing knowledge of gypsy culture.'

I'm very involved in the lineage of the teachers who have taught me. You bring them all into the room with you.'

Her diverse experience leaves her eminently qualified to create the two worlds that she envisions for this production: the court of Leontes, modeled after the British monarchy in the 1930s, around the time of the abdication of Edward; and 1950s Bohemia, in a Balkan gypsy community that is quite colorful and musical.

Miller was very specific about the music she wanted.'

Often, with music in a Shakespearean production, people just go to the Elizabethan, which is beautiful. I love Elizabethan music, but the audience just has a quiet little sleep, because people expect to see Morris dancers.'

She therefore went in a completely different direction: San Francisco musician Daryl Henline is composing the original music for this play.'

He's the only 'outsider' being dropped into this production,' Miller said.

A Balkan gypsy celebration demands music with a lot of polyrhythm, but the instrumentation will be fairly minimal; the people in the cast who are musicians are more in the genre of classical pianists, and things like that.'

We're trying to incorporate people learning the accordion. We're obviously using percussion from the set, so it might be a clicking of sticks, as opposed to an actual instrument. And a skin drum, of course; you must have a skin drum. And a lot of polyphonic singing, some of which is indicated in the text, and some of which I've added for the community celebration.'

*******

Miller's cast obviously likes working with her.

'She's fun. She's a hoot,' Ferrando laughed. 'She can be a little crazy sometimes, but in a good way, usually, for the actors.' He finds himself doing a lot of research for arcane references. 'They're references she grew up with, but I never noticed. I never was attuned to Laurel and Hardy, for example. I'm too young for that, so I have to go back and look at those videos.'

'She has tons of ideas,' Duggan said. 'It's exciting; it's a lot of fun; it's challenging. Yes, there will be a point where it'll feel like 'Oh my God, what's going on!' ... but the final product always is really strong.'

As I watched Miller direct her cast in an intense scene between Paulina and Leontes, it was almost like observing a conductor working with an orchestra. She approaches the text almost as if it were a musical number, tapping out the beat on a table as the actors speak.

I asked Cole about that.

'There's a lot about the timing in Shakespeare,' she said, 'because it's verse, and how the lines connect up. That scene, in particular, has a lot of lines in iambic pentameter: I'll finish, and Leontes completes the rest of my line, and I'll do the same for him. So it really is important; it's written that way. I cut him off as soon as he speaks, which adds tension.'

It's a constant churning, so you don't want to let it drop. That's the case in most plays, but especially in Shakespeare, because of how he wrote the verse. This is one of his later plays, so the verse is very complicated. He's deliberate with everything.'

While Miller is conscious of the Shakespeare fans, she's more interested in winning over the 'green' audience: playing to the guy in the third row, who is busy texting his girlfriend.

'It's actually this huge gift, as a director, to read reviews from the unspoiled fresh eyes of a 19-year-old undergraduate, who's forced to do it because he thought it would be the easy option ... because he didn't get in the English class, and doesn't like writing. I love winning over the scientists; it keeps me on my toes.'

It's all about this audience.

source: source: http://www.davisenterprise.com/

****************************************************

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UPDATED

Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale (Flipped!) Opens at UC Davis Mondavi Studio Theatre01-30-2009

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UC Davis Department of Theatre & Dance presents The Winter’s Tale written by William Shakespeare and directed by graduating MFA candidate Patricia Miller.

This unconventional physical theatre production with original live music weaves a magical transformation from broken hearts to redemption and death to life. Themes of grief and the healing power of time are expressed in this story of a privileged family torn apart by a patriarch’s possessive rage. The Winter’s Tale opens on Friday, February 13, and plays through Sunday, February 15. It continues Thursday, February 19, through Sunday, February 22, in the Studio Theatre at Mondavi Center.

This rarely performed Shakespeare work features the emotional depth of King Lear (often considered its inspiration) and the raw comedy and rude mechanicals of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. “Shakespeare’s emotional range is wide and immediate running the gamut from mourning to hilarity with his most famous stage direction, 'Exit, pursued by a bear!'” notes Director Patricia Miller.

Miller’s direction explores two parallel worlds: the 1930’s elegance of a café society destroyed by a paranoid king’s jealousy, and the fertile chaos of a contemporary Bohemian Roma community. Miller was drawn to The Winter’s Tale for her MFA thesis because of the exciting clash of these worlds and her personal connection to the subject matter. “I have spent a long time in the Balkans and maintain a love of that music and culture. I am happy to find in Winter’s Tale, a project that embraces that joie de vivre as I am to explore the emotional formality of my upbringing in England. Also, the play’s themes deeply reflect my own experiences of loss and the joys of parenting.”

Miller directs in the contemporary European “physical theatre” style making Shakespeare’s poetry vital, passionate, and direct. “This is Shakespeare flipped!” she quips, “not your grandmother’s Shakespeare – there is no pretension.” According to Miller, physical theatre technique teaches actors what dancers have known for years. She has directed her UC Davis cast to embody Shakespeare’s words.

“I love Patricia's physical theatre direction,” says undergraduate Mark Curtis Ferrando who plays Clown. “It has presented me with new challenges. When you are sad you tend not to want to move around much, and when excited, you usually bring your voice up in pitch and speed. I had to find a balance between firm, energetic movements and the melancholy emotional core.”

Assistant Director Julie Friedrichsen observes how Miller’s physical theatre direction grips the audience, "Patricia approaches every scene as if it were a work of art, a series of extraordinary paintings moving and blending into each other. This blurs the lines between actor and audience, art and reality, movement and stillness, order and chaos. She streamlines each moment so that a single gesture of hand or slight turn of the head creates tremendous emotional anticipation. There are times when - as a collective body - the audience moves to the edge of their seat, holding their breath until the gesture is complete and they collectively exhale in relief. Working with Miller has been a rewarding and enlightening experience for which I am grateful as I know I am seated at the feet of a master."

Physical theatre performances are finely tuned by experienced cast members. Amy Louise Cole, who portrays Paulina, has performed professionally for over a decade. She is a member of Actors Equity Association and Executive Director of El Gato Theatre in San Francisco. Jorge Luis Morejon, who plays Time, brings twenty years of theatre, opera, dance and performance art experience to The Winter’s Tale while pursuing his PhD in Performance Studies.

Miller’s aesthetic, stamped in the English punk era, emerges in an energy that resonates through every aspect of the production including original Balkan music composed by Daryl Henline and performed by the company. Henline’s music beats with the current popular rhythms of gypsy punk rock band Gogol Bordello.

Scenic Designer Josh Steadman appreciates the richness of Miller’s Bohemian setting. His scenic design reflects the director’s interest in spiritual ritual, “I used research on the living spaces of nomadic people in Eastern Europe’s Balkan region to create scenic elements including huts that represent pivotal characters. The hut as symbol represents re-birth or the mother’s womb.”

Rounding out the concept artist team are Lighting Designer Jacob W. Nelson, Costume Designer Wenting Gao, Sound Designer Christian Savage, Properties Designer Daniel Jordan, and Stage Managers Jenny Estremera and Samantha Whitehouse.

The Winter’s Tale offers a feast of human experience with intense emotion and imagery, clowns, live music and plenty of bears.

Patricia Miller Bio

Raised and trained in the UK, Patricia Miller brings a diversity of experience to theatre directing, teaching and acting. Last season at UC Davis she directed the U.S. premiere of Nights at the Circus based on Angela Carter's novel and adapted for stage by Emma Rice and Tom Morris. Other U.S. directing credits include The Magic Theatre, UC Riverside and San Francisco venues. U.K. directing credits include Mountview Theatre School; National Youth Theatre of Great Britain; New Playwrights Festival, London; Riverside Studios, London and the Edinburgh Festival. Bay Area acting credits include Family Butchers (Peg) for the Magic Theatre; Magic Theatre festivals of Irish Women Writers and the Playwrights in Danger; Romeo and Juliet (Lady Capulet) and Dolly West's Kitchen (Rima, understudy) for TheatreWorks; Beautiful Thing (Sandra) and Cloud Nine (Maud/Lin) for NCTC; Bold Girls (Marie) for Viaduct; Women of Lockerbie (Chorus) for BAPF. Miller's teaching and directing credits include UC Riverside, UC Davis, Berkeley City College, San Francisco City College, California Shakespeare Festival and Aurora Theatre Education. As Casting Director she has worked for Aurora Theatre Company, Magic Theatre, NCTC and the Playwrights Foundation and for such notable directors as Kent Nicolson, Joy Carlin, Tom Ross and Chris Smith.

This production contains some adult language and sexual innuendo. What: The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare, Directed by Patricia Miller.

Where: Studio Theatre, Mondavi Center

When: Fri 2/13 ~ Sat 2/14, 8pm Sun 2/15, 7pm Thu 2/19, 1pm Fri 2/20 ~ Sat 2/21, 8pm Sun 2/22, 2pm Tickets: $16/18 General; $11/13 Student & Child Purchase tickets: (530) 754-2787, or toll-free (866) 754-2787 or www.mondaviarts.org Special School Group Tickets: School and youth groups of 10 or more receive a special rate of $5 per ticket at the teacher or group leader’s request. Call the UC Davis Department of Theatre & Dance at (530) 752 -5863 to make arrangements for this discount. More information: http://theatredance.ucdavis.edu

LINK: http://theatredance.ucdavis.edu/season/pressroom_detail.aspx?p=83

USAforeigner

2008-11-20T05:30:00.001-05:00

Jorge Luis Morejon during his performance of USAforeigner.

November 23, 2008. University of California, Davis.

Jorge Luis Morejon created and performed the Performance-piece USAforeigner from November 20th to December 4th, 2008. The piece responded to a comment made in his presence during his Modern Performance weekly seminar where he was referred by a student in the class as "the foreigner." The piece consisted in wearing the sign foreigner on his forehead with an American passport hanging from his neck while attending his classes and meetings on campus. He also created a blog by the same name where those who inquired about the performance would be invited to share similar stories by writing them on the USAforeigner blog.

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LINK: http://usaforeigner.blogspot.com/

The Ten PM Dream

2008-09-28T03:26:00.007-04:00

The Ten PM Dream's opening scene.
Performers: Jorge Luis Morejon and Kerry Mehlin

Operatic Jam, music by Richard Marriott. (From left to right), Singers:

Mantra Plonsey, Sarah Kliban and Jorge Luis Morejon. Dancers: Shannon Preto and Travis Rowland

The Wonderful Musician
(From left to right), Rebecca Johnson, Shannon Preto (The Wonderful Musician)and Jorge Luis Morejon (Storyteller).

The Wonderful Musician. Rebecca Jhonson, Sahnnon Preto and Jorge Luis Morejon(Storyteller)

Iron Hans
(From left to right) Mantra Plonsey, Jorge Luis Morejon and Sarah Kliban (Storytellers),
(Center) Travis Rowland ( Iron Hans)

Rapunzel
From left to right, Sarah Kliban, Mantra Plonsey and Jorge Luis Morejon (Storytellers)

The Dancing Princeses
JorgeLuis Morejon and Mantra Plonsey (Storytellers)

Sleeping Beauty
Jorge Luis Morejon and Kerry Mehling

Link to The Ten PM Dream's previews, reviews, program and photo album: http://thetenpmdream.blogspot.com/

Divide Light: A New Opera

2008-08-15T16:40:00.019-04:00

Jorge Luis Morejon. Divide Light. Thrill Skirt.

DIVIDE LIGHT MOVIE,
NEW YORK PREMIERE, MARCH 29 2009, at 7:30
ANTHOLOGY FILM ARCHIVES, 32 Second Ave (at 2nd St.) NYC

Seating is limited. Reservations required. RSVP to: info@georgeadamsgallery.com
or call (212) 564-8480

A film by ED ROBBINS

Jorge Luis Morejon. Reheasal of Divide Light. Thrill Skirt.
Montalvo Arts Center. Saratoga, Ca. August, 7th, 2008

Jorge Luis Morejon. Reheasal of Divide Light. Apron: To be Alive is Power.
Montalvo Arts Center. Saratoga, Ca. August, 7th, 2008

Jorge Luis Morejon. Reheasal of Divide Light. Apron: To be Alive is Power.
Montalvo Arts Center. Saratoga, Ca. August, 7th, 2008

Jorge Luis Morejon. Reheasal of Divide Light. Apron: To be Alive is Power.

Montalvo Arts Center. Saratoga, Ca. August, 7th, 2008

Jorge Luis Morejon was recently invited by choreographer, theatre and stage director Della Davidson, to perform in Divide Light: A New Opera. Based on Emily Dickinson’s poems, created by Lesley Dill, with music by Richard Marriott, and conducted by Daniel Hughes, the world premier took place at the Montalvo Arts Center, Saratoga, California, on Wednesday, August 13. 2008. Jorge had the opportunity to share the stage with soprano Jennifer Goltz, mezzo soprano Kathleen Moss, baritone Andrew Eisenmann, the Del Sol String Quartet, The Choral Project, and performers Christina DeYoung, Sarah Gifford, Angelina and Isabella Marriott.

In a message sent to Jorge through facebook, Kathleen Kuebelbeck, a member of The Choral Project remarked:

“I love watching you on stage- your intensity is captivating.
This whole production is captivating and provocative.
I've been singing in choirs and musical theater for about 30 years
and I've never experienced anything like this.

Resources:

Divide Light. August 15, 2008. <http://dividelight.com/about/>

Metro Active. August 16, 2008. <http://www.metroactive.com/metro/08.06.08/arts-dividelight-0832.html>

Planetary Dance 2008: Making Peace with the Planet

2008-07-21T18:08:00.002-04:00

Jorge Luis Morejon during the Earth Run.

28th Annual Planetary Dance - Santos Meadows, Mount Tamalpais.

California. Sunday, June 29th, 2008

Movement Ritual Practices are in tune with Jorge Luis Morejon's doctoral research focus, which is to investigate how the practice of Art Rituals can help violently displaced communities, without return, to integrate culturally with a new and unfamiliar environment.

As expressed by Jorge, "experiential learning is not readily available. One has to go out in the world and search for those rare opportunities where one can find it. Finding the Planetary Dance has given me the privilege of intenalizing the practice of an art ritual. The Planetary Dance was scored by teacher, choreographer, and community leader Anna Halprin. During the dance I was able to witness its healing and artistic potential.

“The Planetary Dance is an annual all-day ritual of healing and community renewal. It brings people of all ages and abilities together in a beautiful setting to “dance for a purpose.” As Anna Halprin has said: “it's going to take the willing commitment of enough people to say, we will heal this earth. Every step is a prayer, and we must pray together for the healing of the earth... The circle is an act of unity, and the four directions give it stability. It's the squared circle which is the archetypal mandala of harmony.”

"I say, concludes Jorge, that it is through the community’s practice of art rituals that displaced peoples would begin to heal their sense of otherness in order to reintegrate with the larger community. In the same way that “the Planetary Dance Community invites people all over the world to join in a dance for peace in their own communities, I think it would be wonderful if displaced communities join efforts in the practice of all inclussive Art Rituals in order to recover a new sense of belonging."

Resources:

-Planetary Dance. Wednesday, July 16th, 2008. <http://www.planetarydance.org/index.html>

Empowering Creativity Through Dance

2008-07-21T18:07:00.006-04:00

Jorge Luis Morejon and fellow participants dancing during the Empowering Creativity through Dance Workshop. Closing Ceremony. Tamalpa Institute, Mountain Studio, Kentfield, California. June 26th, 2008

At age 87, Anna Halprin( center) still enjoys teaching and dancing. Empowering Creativity through Dance Workshop.
Closing Ceremony. Tamalpa Institute, Mountain Studio, Kentfield, California. June 26th, 2008

Jorge Luis Morejon and teacher, choreographer, director and community leader Anna Halprin during the
Empowering Creativity through Dance Workshop. Tamalpa Institute, Mountain Studio, Kentfield, California. June 25th, 2008

Jorge Luis Morejon and fellow participants dancing during the Empowering Creativity through Dance Workshop.

Closing Ceremony. Tamalpa Institute, Mountain Studio, Kentfield, California. June 26th, 2008

"For me ritual means dancing for a purpose"

Anna Halprin

"The Empowering Creativity Through Dance Workshop with Anna Halprin reassured me of the importance of finding home in the arts. Through community-building opportunities, like this workshop, I manage to find a sense of grounding hardly experienced otherwise. During the process, I realized that movement needs to be objectified in order to be understood in its full capacity. The work allows for one to experience how physical activity is connected with one’s own expressive mind. The study of pelvic and sacrum movements, the place where emotions are stored, are the foundation for all sorts of polarities and connections. "

Jorge Luis Morejon

Mirrored Spaces

2008-07-21T18:00:00.006-04:00

Jorge Luis Morejon and Anna Griffith in Mirrored Spaces

Jorge Luis Morejon. Solo RehearsalAcademy of Spherical Arts, La belle epoque.
Monday, April 7. Toronto, 2008.

Ana Griffith, Jorge Luis Morejon, Silvia Diaz Brown.

Adam Sherkin in the background. Rehearsal

Academy of Spherical Arts, La belle epoque.
Monday, April 7. Toronto, 2008.

Jorge Luis Morejon, Ana Griffith,

Adam Sherkin and Silvia Diaz-Brown in Mirrored Spaces. (publicity picture)

Mirrored Spaces was a collaborative performance work that expressed the way in which chance manifests in relationships. The characteristics of the lounge setting defined the performance idea. Manipulated by the dance of Chance, a duet between Passionate Man and Femme Fatale was expressed through the music of Per NØrgård, Wolfgang Rihm, Barbara Pentland, Avro Pärt and Luciano Berio.

The resultant work invited the audience to reflect upon the complexity of romantic relationships. It developed from the artistic interaction of pianist Adam Sherkin, cellist Angharad Parkes, costume and make-up designer Andrea Romero E. and dancer/choreographers Silvia Diaz-Brown, Ana Griffith and Jorge Luis Morejón. The piece derived its richness from melding the differing creative techniques, professional backgrounds and cultural influences of the collaborating artists.

The Acheli Chronicles/ Fall 2007

2008-07-21T17:59:00.000-04:00

Jorge Luis Morejon. The Ashley Plays. Self-Performance.

July 24, 2007. 1 Webster Ave. Toronto. Ontario. Canada

Avatar. The Acheli Chronicles.

Photogrphy/ Judith Rudakoff. Fall 2007

Jorge Luis Morejon collaborated with The Ashley Chronicles under the artistic direction and dramaturgy of Dr. Judith Rudakoff. The project consisted of a cycle of short-devised, site-specific performances. Each cycle began with the participants collaboratively delineating a profile of a non-gender specific character named Ashley. In the new The Acheli Chronicles, Ashley was trasformed in its phonetic Spanish equivalent, Acheli. She was still the focus of the work, but she appeared in the name of "Mercedes Bravo," a pseudonym for Acheli, who represented the voices of several Cuban women. On the Common Plants website, the audience moved through a virtual cycle of work and sites enacted through slide show images, text and audio clips. Jorge Luis Morejon gives voice to Mercedes Bravo and her meomories of a distant Cuba. There was no linear narrative, but rather a common theme: Home. " Jorge Luis Morejon invites you to share with him and other colleagues the Common Plants' cyber plays.

link: http://www.yorku.ca/gardens/html/

Origins

2008-07-21T17:14:00.003-04:00

Jorge Luis Morejon. Origins Project's rehearsal.

York University. Toronto, 2007
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Jorge Luis Morejon was one of the actors who participated in the September 11th, 2007, Origins Project at York University’s Joseph G. Green Studio, where they had the opportunity to create together a memorable night of ritual and magic. Origins aimed at reconnecting theatre with theatre’s ancient roots. The creative process involved getting together and sharing myths and stories of creation from different ancient cultures. In turn, these stories became the fabric of the performance that emerged as a result of the project’s workshop.

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"The content, though important, was not the most valuable thing that night. What was truly important for us, I feel, was that the essential purpose of theatre and performance was once again revealed. Before our eyes, we saw the wonders of community building, the importance of creating meaning, the different degrees of bonding, and a reviving atmosphere of solidarity, humanity and concern."

Jorge Luis Morejon

.Resources

Livejournal. Artlander. Escambray Country. July 2, 2008. http://jorgemorejon.livejournal.com/

Community Work, Toronto

2008-07-21T17:13:00.001-04:00

Jorge Luis Morejon was invited by Christina Akrong, director of TheatrePeace of Toronto, a peace promoting theatre for children group, to be part of the Higher 5 Program at York University. Jorge Luis Morejon was responsible for introducing the visiting Elementary School children to the Performing Arts throuhg his drama/movement workshop. Bellow, there is a thank you letter from Jackie Robinson, the Westview Partnership Coordinator in the Faculty of Education at York University.

Higher 5:

http://www.yorku.ca/foe/Research/Projects/Westview/index.html

TheatrePeace: http://www.theatrepeace.ca/

_______________________________________________

16 July 2007

Jorge Morejon
Theatre Studies
Faculty of Fine Arts

Dear Jorge

Thank you very much for your drama workshop on for the Higher 5 Program, part of the Westview Partnership. The mandate of the Partnership is to increase access to post secondary education and training for students living in the Jane-Finch community, many of whom experience systemic barriers to continuing in school.

Thirteen grade 5 classes from local elementary schools each participated in a full day of activities related to Ministry of Education curriculum expectations. Seventeen faculties and departments offered the teachers a choice from thirty five different lectures, tours and workshops, and every student received a tangible reminder of their visit -a lunch bag, piggy bank, pen, pencil, carabiner or lanyard donated by various faculties and departments.

Feedback from students, teachers and principals has been overwhelmingly positive. Many students wrote that they knew little or nothing about university before the Higher 5 visit and most were not aware they could study theatre. However, the post visit questionnaires have indicated a great deal of learning about post-secondary:

"I learned you can become many things in college and university."
"I got to learn what you do in university."
"I liked everything about [the visit] because it was interesting and fun... and it is a great place to learn."

Most students said the presentations they attended were interesting and that the only improvement to the experience would be to make it longer so they could see everything! The program appears to have increased both the students' knowledge of post secondary pursuits and, in the short term, their motivation to continue their education.

If you have comments or suggestions for improving Higher 5, please give me a telephone call or send me a note. Thank you again for participating this year and I look forward to working with you next spring. Building on what we have learned it should be possible to begin earlier and include even more children.

Sincerely

Jackie Robinson
Westview Partnership Coordinator
Faculty of Education
(416) 736-2100 x70323

La Pocha Nostra: Group Jamming Session

2008-07-21T17:04:00.002-04:00

Jorge Luis Morejon. Stage Center. Group Jamming Session
Tucson, Arizona. La Pocha Nostra Workshop and Performance
Day 10: Saturday, August 11, 2007

Space, Time and Motion
By Perry Vasquez

Our final performance for the public will take place in two separate sites, inthe MOCA itself and also across the street where the administrative offices share space with a cluster of artists' studios in an industrial warehouse. Most of us organized into groups of two, three and four performance squads. But most of us also have solo performances to do after our collaborative ones are done.

We held our final Zapatista-style break out session today. All during the workshop, these sessions have given us a way to unload our minds with the many issues, ideas and contradictions that pile up by the end of our days. What’s worked really well is the way of converting the group’s feedback into a piece of collaborative writing that's read back to everyone. It’s one more way of doing a little mass creativity La Pocha style. The results have been polemic, poetic and sometimes incomprehensible.

After our Zapatista sessions we start getting ready for the show. This means practicing our moves, rehearsing transitions, doing the equipment checks and putting the final touches on our costumes and makeup or for some, getting a little sleep. The characteristics of the main performance site are rough and industrial. The walls are made out of brick, and the studio walls go about 7 feet high in a building with 15’ high ceilings. It feels very open. Exposed lights and conduits hang from the wood beamed ceiling. Cockroaches occasionally scuttle across the floor. There are theatrical lights were installed to illuminate the performance spaces as the sunlight fades.

As people have sought out locations in the building, performance universes have popped up all over the space. I have a good idea of what a few of those universes will contain, but mostly I am clueless about what the others are doing. Basically, our performance spaces break up into two different categories: primary and liminal. The primary spaces are large and centrally located. The liminal spaces tend to be smaller in scale and at the margins and edges of adjoining spaces. Therefore, our performance universes get determined to a large degree by the spatial restrictions we encounter or choose to deal with.

Time and mood will also be organized in a specific way. The first hour will have slow, religious music playing. The second hour will have music with a slightly quicker tempo. And the final hour will have high-energy dance music. The timing of the music applies to our movements as well. In the beginning, the idea is to add gravity to our movements by slowing them down dramatically. As the performance progresses to the last hour we’ll have a group jamming session at full speed.

Dirty Indian

2008-07-21T17:03:00.002-04:00

Jorge Luis Morejon's Dirty Indian.

MOCA /La Pocha Nostra. Tucson Arizona. August 11,2007

Dirty Indian was the result of a work in progress. During the performance for MOCA in Tucson, I decided to work with the Taino character from my previous Wet Feet/Dry Feet piece and create a dialogue between the image I presented to the audience, (a sort of hollywoodian savage), the historical stereotype of the “Indian” as dirty and stinky, and the invasive transformation of the hollywoodian Indian into a dirty and stinky one, through covering my skin with layers of mayonnaise, peanut butter, ketchup, mustard, fruit jams, chocolate butter, etc. The performance was durational. It lasted the full three hours, during which I kept on applying layers and layers of these very industrialized eatable products. The result was not at all glamorizing or sensual, even though I played with those problematic elements, on the contrary the hollywoodian Indian became gradually the historically stereotypically undesirable one. I presented the repulsive and disgusting site of a Taino erased by food brands, consumerism, artificial flavors, odors and colors, once again defeated not by weapons, but by a culture of comodification.

The Aeschylus Project

2008-07-21T17:02:00.007-04:00

Women's Rehearsal of the Greek Chorus. Burton Auditorium. June 28Th, 2007

Jorge Luis Morejon. Entrance of one of the Eteocleans

Jorge Luis Morejon. Excerpt of one of Eteocles' monologues

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Seven Against Thebes: A Rehearsal in Evolution

"Jorge’s participation in this project has been invaluable and he has made his own progress and gained his self-assertion, especially on stage. His work has power and dignity. "

Regina Kapetanakis

The Aeschylus Project was a series of lectures and practical series of workshops involving movement and rehearsals of scenes from Seven Against Thebes, a play written by Aeschylus. The workshop focused on an examination of the ancient Greek chorus as envisaged by Aeschylus, the first major Greek tragedian, and as interpreted by the National Theatre of Greece and its foremost choreographer, Regina Kapetanakis. Two open rehearsals were presented at the conclusion of the five week workshop. Actors, dancers and musicians received the applause and recognition of the audience and the faculty present at the event.

"To the pioneer students of the Aeschylus project (...). I leave them all with fondest memories and with the gift of Thelxis (infatuation) of the theatre experience."
Regina Kapetanakis

"Where theatre is put into practice (...), our vision in action."
Don Rubin

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Regina Kapetanakis, in reference to the pictures, kindly wrote to Jorge:

"The one I like best is your Eteocles solo one, it is quite dramatic. I remember what an impact you made on the audience in general, especially your closing exit with the song."

The Ashley Plays/ July 16 to 22

2008-07-21T17:00:00.001-04:00

Jorge Luis Morejon. Ashley Plays. Self Performance.

1 Webster Ave. Yorkville. Toronto. 2007

Jorge Luis Morejon was a collaborator of the project The Ashley Plays under the artistic direction of Dr. Judith Rudakoff. "The Ashley Plays is a cycle of short, devised site specific performances. Each cycle begins with the participants collaboratively delineating a profile of a non gender specific character named Ashley. Ashley must be the focus of the work, but need not be a character who appears. Each "play" is created at an assigned or chosen site. The plays in live performance are viewed in random order by roving pods of spectators. On the Common Plants website, the audience moves through a virtual cycle of work and sites enacted through short video, slideshow images, text and audio clips. Each Ashley cycle of work shares a date/year, and participants must research and be true to local, regional, national and global current events. The germination, evolution and performance of the cycles can take place in a twelve hour period or over months of development. There is no linear narrative, but rather a common theme: Home. " Jorge Luis Morejon invites you to share with him and other colleagues these cyber plays.

link: http://www.yorku.ca/gardens/html/

Common Plants: Blogarden

2008-07-21T16:58:00.000-04:00

Jorge Luis Morejon's Blogarden avatar. Untitled (Self Performance )
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Jorge Luis Morejon writes for Common Plants, a project which connects distant and displaced communites from different parts of the world through artistic cyber work. Under the supervision of Doctor Judith Rudakoff at York University, this "Cross Pollinations in Hybrid Reality will cultivate the following principles: creative resources reside within the self; we must exercise our own voices, within our own context; to affect change, we must identify and articulate who we are, where we are and how we relate to our landscape; we must engage with and speak to those outside of our context for our message to be heard; listening is as important as speaking. This project lives in a garden, where cross-pollination is vital to survival: art is the last line of defence in the war against cultural obliteration." Jorge Luis Morejon invites you to share with him thoughts and ideas resulting from his own pollinations of hybrid realities.

link: http://jorgemorejon.livejournal.com/

Wet Feet/Dry Feet

2008-07-21T16:52:00.001-04:00

Jorge Luis Morejon. Wet Feet / Dry Feet.

The Lab Sessions 1 .0. “Nodes & Naughty Codes.” Saturday, May 5th, 2007
http://www.labspacestudio.com/gallery/labSessions/index.php

Performance Artist: Jorge Luis Morejon Toronto.
York University. Accolade West. Room 009. Performance Art: Politics and Aesthetics. March 29, 2007
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Wet Feet / Dry Feet: Artistic Statement

Wet Foot/Dry Foot, a solo performance piece has three main parts, audiovisual, body and ritual. The role of video technology in this piece is to bring the urban scene into the performance space and ritual. The exploration of emotion is present in the ritual-like narrative piece. The images projected on the screen and the artist’s body moving in space, expressed through paper dolls, music, movement, soil and water convey a history of displacement and separation. The performance piece re-enacts the metaphorical past by constructing abstract images of displacement.

The man in the video represents the urban need for grounding. In contrast, the loin clothed Taino embodies the emotion that results from his immediate immersion in the elements of earth and water. Both characters, the urban man and the Taino are intended to give the impression of being spiritually displaced. The idea of shared displacement allows the artist to explore the forging of a ritualized intimacy with the audience as he evokes the absence and ruptures of time and space through performance art.

Final Chapter

2008-07-21T16:51:00.000-04:00

Team members in the making: from left to right, Vanessa Burns, Doug Chapman,

Peter Reynolds, Mona Waserman, Jorge Luis Morejon, and Nick Vitacco (center)

Jorge Luis Morejon was a member of Final Chapter, a short film which was submitted to the 24 HR Toronto Film Challenge, the Spring of 2007. The 24 HR Toronto Film Challenge takes place once a year, and it invites filmmakers to write, produce and direct a film in twenty four hours. For the filmmakers who participate, the challenge implies overcoming technical obstacles and writing a good story to tell as they integrate the challenge pack shooting guerrilla style. In producer Chantal Leblanc-Everett's own words, "this is by far one of the most industrious festivals in existence." The challenge package for year 2007 was Do It Yourself as the theme, Doc/Mock as a genre, a coloured paint swatch for a prop and "Famous last words" for a line. Fingers Crossed Productions, the team that produced Final Chapter for the festival described their film as a "short-subject documentary , investigating the do-it-yourself alternative to commercial funeral homes and the controversy surrounding author Linda Lewis." The Fingers Crossed team was integrated by director Peter Reynolds, producer and actress Mona Waserman as Linda, actors Vanessa Burns and Doug Chapman as the couple, actor Jorge Luis Morejon as the funeral director, and Nick Vitacco as the corpse. The team was satisfied to witness that, out of 27 films, Final Chapter's humor was welcomed with continuos waves of laughter by the sympathetic festival audience.

Rebambaramba

2008-07-21T16:50:00.004-04:00

Rebambaramba and Other Readings

This was Jorge Luis Morejon's second participation in La “Rebambaramba.” This time the event was the stage where Jorge Luis Morejon said goodbye to Miami by participating with a creative emsemble of dancers and actors in a dance piece. He shared the stage with his colleagues Kelly Hamilton, Rosanna Morronne and Nick Perez. La "Rebambaramba" invited also local poets and artists who got together to present their works created for the occasion and inspired by Fahrenheit 451 . The guests artists were, among others, Daína Chaviano, Germán Guerra, Nelly Torres, Jorge Luis Morejón, and Pedro Portal. Date and time - 13 May at 7:30 Following the tradition of the yearly event of The Center for Literary Arts, Miami Dade College at 7:30p.m. Place: Books & Books, Coral Gables. 2006.

Clytemnestra

2008-07-21T16:49:00.003-04:00

Actress Rosanna Morrone in her solo Clytemnestra. Camera Obscura

Adapted and directed by Jorge Luis Morejon.

Superbly performed by actress Rosanna Morrone, Clytemnestra was a solo performance adapted and directed by Jorge Luis Morejon for the Festival de Monologos produced by Havanafama Co., where Ms. Morrone received standing ovations. For its quality and power, Clytemnestra was also selected to be performed at the "Teatro a una Voz: Monologues and More" production of Havanafama. Commissioned by Armando Alfano, Clytemnestra was last performed in Italian at Soya & Pomodoro Restaurant's performance space for an all Italian audience in Miami, Florida, in 2006. Awarded with the audience's bravos, it was last performed the 12 of April, 2008, at Teatro Estudio Havana Fama, as part of the VII Festival Latinoamericano del Monologo, Miami, Florida.

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Critique: Theatre In One Voice Of Four Voices in Camera Obscura of Miami (translated excerpt)

Carlos Pittella TeatroMundial.com, Miami

"The spectacle “Teatro a una voz” had a variety of styles and forms which made it entertaining, but most of all attractive. There were presented four monologues with dignity and within the frame the space tries to offer. The first one was “Clytemnestra”, a segment of the Greek tragedy “Electra”, by Sophocles, interpreted by the Italian Rossana Morrone. The scene is the entrance of Clytemnestra, the widow of Agamemnon, who comes to confront Electra, her daughter. The knot of the monologue relies on the uncertainty of the mother due the torturous and horrific dream caused by the murder of her own husband. Electra manifests that it must be a very special sacrifice, and her answer is what fills up the monologue.

The actress' work is magnificent, and I clarify, it was in Italian. Yes, magnificent, giving a demonstration of what can be done with the body on stage, deserving of admiration. No doubt, it is noticeable the directorial work to which Morrone put herself through, because Jorge Luis Morejón, an accomplished modern dancer, influenced tremendously the aesthetic development of the spectacle through the actress whom definitely exhibited the totality of the montage. Her body expression is the main element that accompanies what we call a good voice, a blessing given to a “prima donna” as well as a dramatic actress, hence, to a person with the talent to command the sounds and know that with them she will communicate with force the smallest details, modulations and tones. That bundle of aesthetic manifestations, in this case, was called Rosanna Morrone. And a peculiar detail, the divisions in the textual units, those marking the differences in intention are signaled with a transition, and it is here (work and idea of Morejón, I suppose) that it was coupled by the use of a veil, which indicated and enforced the inner expression directed at the expectator. In summary, Rossana Morrone showed dignity and efficacy in her work, a pride of her director because according to my own reading of what I saw , it is indeed what Sophocles wanted to manifest in his "Electra, and if the after world exists, the great Greek man should have felt happy with this presentation of his play."

http://www.teatroenmiami.net/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=4240

Rabinal Achi

2008-07-21T16:47:00.003-04:00

Rabinal Achi, adapted and directed by Jorge Luis Morejon. Publicity picture.

Actors: Rosanna Morrone, Daniel Lugo, Nick Perez, Martin Mayen

Rabinal Achí, Precolombian Theater
by Luis de la Paz, Diario de Las Américas (translation)

The only space for alternative theater in the city, Camera Obscura, is going into ancient forms of expression, through a fresh look, and full of cultural nuances to Rabinal Achí, a pre-Colombian drama, which goes back to the Mayans, more specifically towards those established on the territory of Guatemala.

Jorge Luis Morejon and Thelos Theater Group took the text that has come to our days, to offer a comprehensive show, which includes extensive dialogues through monologues, dance rituals, the use of masks, costumes in accordance with the time represented, in addition to the a successful musical arrangement of Alexandro Danko Sieth, which integrates the elements specific to the region, such as flutes and drums. The unification of these components, has resulted in a successful proposal.

The drama of Rabinal Achí is comparable, from the point of view of its significance, to the Popol-Vuh and the Chilam-Balam, which are part of the pre-Hispanic customs transmitted through word of mouth, until after colonization when early versions were made in writing. The tour started with Bartolo Sis' literary text in 1850 and then to abate Charles Etienne Brasseur of Bourbourg, collecting directly from the tragedy of Quiche, Rabinal Achí was published in Paris in 1862, a later versions in Spanish arrived.

The story notes that the warrior Cavek Queche spied for 260 days and 260 nights on the strength of Rabinal, to kidnap and bring in the Lord of Rabinal. Subsequently, the warrior Rabinal Achí rescued his lord and captured the enemy warrior. At this point begins the work proposed by Morejon, when Rabinal Achí comes with the prisoner and begins to establish an angry dialogue where the two contenders hurl allegations at each other, highlighting the fights and adventures of each, until the final outcome, when the the prisoner is executed.

Using arena theatre as a resource and without any sets, as props a cane, and a mesh mask, Jorge Luis Morejon put into operation a successful dramatic structure that is smooth and precise, despite being a repetitive text with little scenic movement.

The interpretive work of Martin Mayen and Nick Perez as warriors is well accomplished. The first is very expressive, with a strong voice and fury to the surface. In the other hand, Perez has to perform, nearly all his participation, crawling on the floor covered by a mesh. Still, he reaches height in his interpretation. The play is an act of an hour and a half long without a break. During the "intermediate" part of it, it is almost incidental when the actors move from Spanish language (the language it starts with at the beginning), to English. Although the transition flows naturally, I do not see the reasons for the play to be bilingual, meaning that one par is in one language and then the other.

The other two characters Chief Five Rain, interpreted by Daniel Lugo and Lady (Rossanna Morrone), work side by side, blending in the making, which has a high moment when all four players moving slowly, almost ceremonially, complemented each other by producing an increasing lamenting sound, which marks the end of the work.

Rabinal Achí is an integral and necessary work in our multi-ethnic city. It is a wise move to offer the public this truly unique work, which hardly will return to the stage.

Rabinal Achí , Cultural Space Camera Obscura, 1165 SW 6 Street.. Rabinal Achí, Espacio Cultural Camera Obscura, 1165 SW 6 Street. Friday and Saturday 8:30 pm and Sunday2:00 pm. Suggested Donation:$ 20.00

Go Tour

2008-07-21T16:39:00.001-04:00

Advertisement card for the GoTour show in New York, 2004,

where Thelos Theatre Group Participated with Three Greek Women.

Thelos of Miami will perform in NY with its spectacle 'Three Greek Women'(translation)
By Ernesto Hernadez
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"What do yo expect from this festival in New York?
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The festival has been created to give support to the independent artists community in the United States, from there it derives that, in artistic terms, the festival will serve as a platform to expose our work to the New York audience. Practically, it will put us on the map the festival is trying to create and that includes independent arts communities from all over the country. I also expect precisely all that the festival offers, that it will help us to to take control of our vision through sharing information with other participants and organize our own tours. The information includes the places, presenters and resources to which potentially we will have access to through our work in this festival. I hope that Thelos will bring high the name of our city. Yuya Dola, our direction assistant, will be in charge of the group during the festival. I hope for them to have a good time, to have fun, and for Three Greek Women to have the same success that it has had in Miami."
http://www.teatroenmiami.net/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2684

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Thelos in the Big Apple

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Thelos went to New York with Three Greek Women. This was Thelos’ first production and its first invitation to perform outside of Miami and outside of Camera Obscura. "T2K, nyc notebook" announced Three Greek Women, among other pieces, in the “Road Show," the Field's Gotour mini-fest at ps 122, July 5, 2005.
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Three Greek Women (excerpt) Thelos Theater Group (THEATER - Miami, FL):
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"Three Greek Women works from the classic Greek texts of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, intertwining the stories of Clytemnestra, Antigone and Medea to create a new story."
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On its front page T2K explains how the “selection of the 14 acts representing GoTour's first anniversary celebration was equally democratic: "they selected one another. In January, GoTour invited members to define on a personal level -- in 500 words or less -- what it means to be an independent artist.”
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T2K quotes Jorge Luis Morejon:
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"For some of us," writes Thelos' Jorge Luis Morejon, "the format of independent work is a real necessity and the only way possible to be genuine, real and artistically uncompromising."

http://www.theater2k.com/Notebook070505_Roadshow.htm

Readings Without Censorship

2008-07-21T16:38:00.001-04:00

“Lecturas sin Censura,”(Readings Without Censorship) was a lecture given by founder of the Biliotecas Independientes de Cuba, Ramón Colás with presentations by Berta Mexidor, Jorge Luís Morejón, and Roberto Lozano hosted by the Cuban and Cuban-American Studies Center at the University of Miami, the Human Rights Foundation in Cuba, and Las Bibliotecas Independientes de Cuba, (Independent Libraries of Cuba) at Casa Bacardí, Coral Gables, Florida, Wednesday, April 28th, 2004.

Three Greek Women

2008-07-21T16:25:00.002-04:00

Actresses Elisa Reig, Aymara Melo and Rosanna Morrone

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The Multicultural Space Camera Obscura marked an important chapter in the artistic development of Jorge Luis Morejon. He directed the performance space, located in the heart of Little Havana, Miami, Florida, from 2003 to 2005. The small black box allowed him and the actors he collaborated with to experiment, feel and live theatre in a different and unique way. Thelos Theatre was created simultaneously with Camera Obscura, a space that became the group’s home and the home of other groups with whom the space was shared. As a result of this fusion, the first play ever directed and produced by Jorge Luis Morejon in Camera Obscura was born, Three Greek Women, with the participation of actresses Rosanna Morrone, Elisa Reig and Aymara Melo. The following articles, critical reviews, interviews and letters are a reaction to the approximately 20 performances of the play in Miami and New York.

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A Good Proposal (translation)

By Jesús Hernández /Diario Las Américas

Like in ancient times, very ancient, in the V century BC, when the Greeks sang odes to the God Dionysus, a group of classic theatre admirers have gathered efforts in the name Thelos Group to represent what others would consider a failure in Miami; a play of the Greek tragic theatre. A piece that is titled "Three Greek Women," and that it is presented in a small cultural space, opened recently, named Camera Obscura, on 6 street, south west, 12th Avenue.

The three women are three known heroines of Hellenic mythology; Medea, Antigone and Clytemnestra, whom without being characters of the same text or author, carrie misfortune and pain as common peculiarities.

The concept is Jorge Luis Morejón's, an actor and e instructor of performing arts (who currently teaches at Prometeo school), that beginning with Esquilo's, Sófocles' y Euripides' classic texts, places the mystic characters in trial before Zeus, to expose their cases, defend them, and obtain the desired divine absolution to rest in piece.

Three guilty souls wander in the infinite. They do not know tranquility because of the evils committed: Medea killed her children to hurt her husband who abandoned her for another woman, Antigone suffers her death, the suicide out disobedience of the king's decreet after having buried her brother, and Clytemnestra killed her husband Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, in revenge for the death of her daughter Iphigenia.

The development of the plot equally manifests mankind's disilusion, the evolution of submission to a superior destiny, even to divine will, and the challenging of the dictates of the gods. Jorge Luis takes into account the eternal fate which characterizes the characters, but brakes the myth when he gives them an end which even though in accordance with the ancient dialogues, it reflects the redemption of women in times to come.

Even more important that the final message, it is the effect this piece could cause on the spectator. If peculiar is the presentation of a classic Greek theatre passage in Miami, it is admirable the affinity of the actresses with the characters. Elisa Reig and Rossana Morrone practically debut in the great theatre with this piece and already show a moving connection. Aymara Melo comes from the Escuela Cubana Superior de Actuacion, where she was also successful.

Jorge Luis succeeds in guiding the three actresses through the path of body movement and the impact of dramatization, which substantiated by the interpretation, the text and the momentum of choral expression, succeeds in differentiating one character from the other, in that way producing a useful communication with the audience without any other ambientation than the allegoric Greek music, the costumes, the darkness and an appropriate use of the light. It is a beneficial theatrical event that should be well received.

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Three Greek Women, Fridays and Saturdays, 8.00 pm, Camera Obscura Space, 1165 S.W. 6 Street, Miami, phone 305 324 4000, tickets $15 or $10 for students.

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Critical Review

Thursday, April 14, 2005

Three Greek Women: A Masterpiece in Originality and Talent
By: Maggie Ortiz

The lights dim as the three women enter the stage; the audience is transfixed. There is no traditional script to hide behind, the script is written in the actresses’ movements and unforgettable facial expressions. Prior to the performance, Jorge Luis Morejon, Three Greek Women’s producer, director and choreographer, and the backbone of the Camera Obscura Cultural Space theater, tells the audience how over time, we have become far removed from the classics, and particularly from Greek literature and thought.

Morejon’s introductory remarks are quite accurate; classical Greek themes are rarely a part of contemporary literature and theatrical productions.Throughout the Greek classics, archetypal images emerge. Within the tragedies and comedies are depicted our own human weaknesses and strengths. I recall an interview several years ago, where Bill Moyers asked the late great mythologist Joseph Campbell why the myths should matter to us, to which Campbell responded, “the myths are the literature of the spirit,” and indeed they are. According to Joseph Campbell: These bits of information from ancient times, which have to do with themes that have supported human life, built civilizations, and informed religions over the millennia, have to do with deep inner problems, inner mysteries, inner thresholds of passage, and if you don’t know what the guide-signs are along the way, you have to work it out yourself. But once the subject catches you, there is such a feeling, from one or another of these traditions, of information of a deep, rich, life-vivifying sort that you don’t want to give it up.[1][1]

In Three Greek Women, beyond the power inherent within the Greek tragedies, is the powerful talent of the three superb actresses, Elisa Reig, Rosanna Morrone, and Aymara Melo. This multi-cultural ensemble, which includes a Spaniard, an Italian, and a Cuban, comprise what is perhaps some of the best talent I have yet to witness. They captivate everyone present with the sheer strength and energy they bring to their characters, leaving the audience spellbound, and eliciting a standing ovation.

Jorge Luis Morejon’s outstanding direction is a true homage to the arts. The originality and vision of his work is reflected in each detail throughout the play. After the performance, I find myself making a mental list of everyone I would tell about the play, except it is Three Greek Women’s last night. Nonetheless, I am delighted to have found Camera Obscura, a place where talent abounds, and which I am certain I will visit again soon.

1 Campbell, Joseph, The Power of Myth, Doubleday, New York, NY, 1988.

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Critique
By Christine Dolen/the Miami Herald

“Inside the black-box space called Camera Obscura, fresh dreams and ancient tragedies are being played out.The space once known as Little Havana's P.S. 742 has been rechristened and reopened, and it's now home to the maiden effort of the Thelos, Camera Obscura's resident theater company. Director Jorge Luis Morejon has created a piece titled Three Greek Women, merging music, movement and text drawn from the work of Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus, with Elisa Reig portraying Antigone, Rosanna Morrone as Clytemnestra and Aymara Melo as Medea.

Morejon's experimental concept is that the three women -- Antigone, who defiantly buried her brother and then committed suicide; Clytemnestra, who murdered the adulterous Agamemnon; Medea, who repaid Jason's abandonment by murdering their children -- are on trial, with the gods as their judges. The actors play both the ''defendants'' and sorceresses relaying the gods' pronouncements.Reig, Morrone and Melo bring intense physicality into the barren space. They move in a tight knot then separate, pound their bodies, react to invisible torments. Because they're in beige costumes that blend with their skin tones, their expressive faces -- agonized, mournful, horrified -- seize and command attention.”

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The Miami Herald
4L Sunday, January 23, 2005

OPINION

Culturally Myopic

Re Herald theater critic Christine Dolen's ethnically intensive comment about the actresses' heavy accents in her Jan 17 review of Three Greek Women at Camera Obscura:

Is Dolen unaware that we all, she included, speak English with some sort of accent (Southern, Midwestern, Spanish)? Which should she have us believe is the correct accent for this work - a Greek one? In a nation in which the population grows more multiethnic, led in this change by places like Miami, comments like this are culturally myopic.

Richard Iacino, Miami
==============================================
Letters

Letter (e-mail) from actor and friend Horacio Lazo after having seen the last performance of Three Greek Women.

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Wed, 23 Mar 2005

Dear friends,

After attending your final performance of "Three Greek Women," the least I can do is to congratulate you. Not only for having presented a work of outmost quality, but for having dared to go against the current, for having given us that gift, for having started a path which, though perceived as long and arduous, I am sure it will make feel very proud. Not only of the work itself, but of what you have started.

At the beginning of the year, a journalist complained about theater in Miami always following the easy way of comedy, without daring to touch other audience's fibers needed to awaken in order to initiate that path. I am proud to be able to say that the initiators are my friends.

A hug,

Horacio

PS. I don't have the e-mails of the other members of this work. Please extend to them my congratulations.
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Thelos in the Big Apple

Thelos went to New York with Three Greek Women. This was Thelos’ first production and its first invitation to perform outside of Miami and outside of Camera Obscura. "T2K, nyc notebook" announced Three Greek Women, among other pieces, in the “Road Show," the Field's Gotour mini-fest at ps 122, July 5, 2005.

Three Greek Women (excerpt) Thelos Theater Group (THEATER - Miami, FL):

"Three Greek Women works from the classic Greek texts of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, intertwining the stories of Clytemnestra, Antigone and Medea to create a new story."

On its front page T2K explains how the “selection of the 14 acts representing GoTour's first anniversary celebration was equally democratic: "they selected one another. In January, GoTour invited members to define on a personal level -- in 500 words or less -- what it means to be an independent artist.”

T2K quotes Jorge Luis Morejon:

"For some of us," writes Thelos' Jorge Luis Morejon, "the format of independent work is a real necessity and the only way possible to be genuine, real and artistically uncompromising."

http://www.theater2k.com/Notebook070505_Roadshow.htm

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Community Work

St. Sophia Cathedral Bulletin - January 30, 2005

Today 'Three Greek Women' a variation of the theatrical production donated by the Thelos Theater Group will be presented in the Hall after church Services.

"Three Greek Women" is the result of a theatrical research project conceptualized, adapted and directed by Jorge Luis Morejon. Thelos Theatre, a new theater group that resides at Camera Obscura Cultural Space in Little Havana, has developed the work for performance.

The piece compiles classic Greek texts of Aeschylus, Sophocles, as well as The Eumenides, The Libation Bearers, and Prometheus Bound. The play is an example of the Morejon's Exposition Style, which includes music, text, and movement, all combined in a way which allows for the stories of Clytemnestra( wife of Agamemnon, killed her adulterous husband to avenge the death of her daughter Iphigenia), Antigone (disobeying the king's edict buried her brother and then killed herself), and Medea 9after being abandoned by her husband for another woman, out of revenge, kills her children, his sons) to weave into a new story.

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Teatromundial.com

Excerpt of Jorge Luis Morejon's interview by Teatromundial

Thelos of Miami will perform in NY with its spectacle 'Three Greek Women'(translation)

By Ernesto Hernadez

"What do yo expect from this festival in New York?

The festival has been created to give support to the independent artists community in the United States, from there it derives that, in artistic terms, the festival will serve as a platform to expose our work to the New York audience. Practically, it will put us on the map the festival is trying to create and that includes independent arts communities from all over the country. I also expect precisely all that the festival offers, that it will help us to to take control of our vision through sharing information with other participants and organize our own tours. The information includes the places, presenters and resources to which potentially we will have access to through our work in this festival. I hope that Thelos will bring high the name of our city. Yuya Dola, our direction assistant, will be in charge of the group during the festival. I hope for them to have a good time, to have fun, and for Three Greek Women to have the same success that it has had in Miami."

http://www.teatroenmiami.net/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2684

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Camera Obscura

2008-07-21T16:24:00.000-04:00

Camera Obscura pone luz sobre Miami
GERMAN GUERRA El Nuevo Herald

Han tenido que pasar años y años de silencio, de trabajo, sudor y duro aprendizaje, para que las más recientes generaciones de creadores y artistas nacidos o establecidos en Miami, a golpe de talento y empeño, hayan logrado poner en las oscuras gavetas del olvido el tan repetido concepto de ''Miami como de-sierto cultural''. Hoy abrirá sus puertas en la Pequeña Habana, en la esquina de la 6 calle y la 12 avenida, un nuevo espacio cultural que se encargará de arrebatar otro pedazo al desierto y al silencio, poniendo en la ciudad otra fuente donde todos podamos ir a beber los mejores partos de nuestros artistas en su paso cotidiano por estas calles.En esa esquina que ya se va estableciendo como un nuevo epicentro de las artes, que ya marca una tradición y donde comienzan a proliferar las galerías, los estudios de artistas plásticos, las escuelas de danza y ballet, los teatros, los rincones bohemios y un largo etcétera, abre sus puertas el proyecto multicultural Camera Obscura.Este nuevo espacio es el resultado de la iniciativa de un grupo de amigos y artistas que, encabezados por el bailarín y director teatral Jorge Luis Morejón, decidieron ofrecer a la comunidad otra alternativa donde poder disfrutar del arte. Camera Obscura acogerá en su recinto las más variadas manifestaciones del arte, y en un espacio único se podrán degustar y coexistirán las artes plásticas y las escénicas, el performance y la danza, la fotografía y el cine, la música y la literatura, y cuanto proyecto de verdadero valor artístico merezca estar expuesto entre esas cuatro paredes negras sin las conocidas limitaciones que ya vienen imponiendo los nuevos circuitos comerciales.Camera Obscura, con su demarcado estilo y conceptualizando una enorme caja negra, alberga tanto a la galería de arte como a la sala de teatro y se ofrece como un espacio de máxima flexibilidad para exponer cualquier muestra artística, desde las formas convencionales del arte institucionalizado hasta el último grito de la vanguardia.El pasado mes de diciembre el público pudo ver en el nuevo espacio la muestra fotográfica Off-Off Basel, organizada y patrocinada por el fotógrafo Julián Navarro. Esta noche a las 8:00 se inaugurará de forma oficial el proyecto multicultural y los patrocinadores del empeño invitan a la comunidad artística de Miami y a todos los amantes del arte, propiciando un primer encuentro donde se dará a conocer el programa de actividades de los próximos meses y donde se invitará a los presentes a que también sean partícipes del proyecto. El maestro pianista Roberto Lozano y la cantante Sonia Corp regalarán su música para los oídos y el pecho de todos los que regalen su presencia, mientras se degusten de los mejores vinos del pueblo.Como anticipo al programa de actividades, Camera Obscura ofrecerá su primera muestra de artes escénicas el próximo viernes 14. Se presentará en la sala el grupo de teatro residente Thelos, el cual pondrá en escena el estreno mundial de Tres mujeres griegas, proyecto conceptualizado, adaptado y dirigido por el propio Jorge Luis Morejón, y que cuenta con las actuaciones de Elisa Reig, Aymara Melo y Rosanna Morrone.La obra de teatro bebe en los textos clásicos griegos, y compila y combina fragmentos de Antígona, de Sófocles, y Medea, de Eurípides, con parlamentos de Clitemnestra pertenecientes a La Orestiada, de Esquilo, fusionando música, textos, canto y movimiento, para entregarnos una pieza que explora el teatro de exposición múltiple. Los tres personajes de la obra se desdoblan para convertirse, alternando con las heroínas, en un coro de hechiceras que traen consigo tanto el juicio como el veredicto de los dioses. Ellas, las mujeres, no ganan el juicio pero si el altercado que establecen con los dioses, cuando reclaman su derecho de ser libres.Tres mujeres griegas trae a la arena teatral de Miami una nueva fusión creativa en el planteamiento de esta propuesta. El trabajo ha dado a los que han participado en él la posibilidad de experimentar el arte del teatro bajo la luz de la creatividad absoluta. La meta ha sido trascender todos los espacios para conectar al público de hoy con los orígenes del teatro griego y comenzar una búsqueda filosófica, artística y espiritual.La pieza se pondrá en escena los viernes y sábados a las 8:00 de la noche. Las funciones serán en inglés las primeras cuatro semanas y en español las cuatro últimas. Que Dios, la luz y el público los acompañen siempre, y que se mantengan limpios los caminos para que el proyecto multicultural de Camera Obscura perdure bajo el paso y el peso del tiempo.

BOSSA

2008-07-21T16:23:00.004-04:00

Jorge Luis Morejon Dances Bossa

What it is very interesting about this video is that Jorge Luis Morejon, after performing Bossa's duet at the Amaturo Theatre in Fort Lauderdale, the Manuel Artime Theatre in Miami, and the Jackcy Gleason Theatre in Miami Beach, as part of the Miami International Ballet Festival, finishes the season with Brazarte's Gala at Manuel Artime Theatre. As he walked on stage left, he broke his middle toe on his left foot. The clip of his duet with his fellow dancer Marie, which includes a lift, was danced with his broken toe, without any body noticing, not even Marie, who did not find out until the end of the performance. The fracture resulted in a surgery that required months of recuperation before he was able to dance again.

link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pT75qGiOg0

The Unbearable Lightness

2008-07-21T16:22:00.000-04:00

The Miami New Times. Arts and Etertainment. Levity

Dancing through turmoil
Published: March 11, 2004
FRI 3/12

By Juan Carlos Rodriguez

A labyrinth of love and passion. The choice between exile and conformity. In the end it's the human spirit that takes flight in Milan Kundera's novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Cuban expat Marianela Boan premieres The Unbearable Lightness, her latest dance work based on Kundera's classic. Boan infuses the story of love and politics with her signature "contaminated dance" and her perspective as a recently arrived Cuban. Performers Elaine Wright and Jorge Luis Morejon dance and sing through the bleakness and ultimately lift the piece to great heights. The performance is at 8:00 tonight and Saturday, March 13, at FIU University Park's Wertheim Theater, 11200 SW 8th St. (Room VH-100). Tickets cost $12. <http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2004-03-11/calendar/levity/>

Hope

2008-07-21T16:05:00.000-04:00

Thankyou card. Bliss . Miami. Florida. 2003

Jorge Luis Morejon's Dance Ensemble.

Guzman Center, Univeristy of Miami. Miami, Florida,2003

Invited by the Brahma Kumaris Meditation Center of Miami, Jorge Luis Morejon choreographed and danced Hope, a piece specially created for the opening of the US tour of Bliss. The powerful sound of the group Bliss, from Oxford, England, and the invitation of lead singer Lucinda Drayton, once more lead the dancers to the stage where Jorge Luis Morejon and his ensemble closed the night at the Guzman Hall, University of Miami, Miami, Florida. The Concert of Hope marked Bliss' Miami debut in their first US tour. Bliss performed in nine east coast cities, and the entire tour served as a contribution to the observance of the International Day of Peace.

Matias y el Aviador

2008-07-21T16:04:00.003-04:00

Program's Cover. Adrian Ruiz (Matias)

Jorge Almeida (the King) and Adrian Ruiz

Aymara Melo (the Snake) and Adrian Ruiz

Wings of Desire
Matias y el Aviador is soaringly good theater
By Mia Leonin Published: June 26, 2003

A regular feature of the International Hispanic Theatre Festival, which is now in its eighteenth year, Miami-Dade Community College's Prometeo continues to show its aptitude for children's theater. This year's original Spanish-language production of Matias y el Aviador, written by Cuban playwright Felix Lizarraga, even surpasses last year's version of Puss-n-Boots (also penned by Lizarraga) in its subtlety and depth. Inspired by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince and the famous Cuban adventurer Matias Perez, who one day disappeared over the Caribbean horizon in a hot-air balloon, Matias y el Aviador (Matias and the Aviator) is truly an innovative piece of children's theater. Like The Little Prince, Matias is laced with philosophy and poetic metaphors. As the young Matias (Adrian Ruz) travels the universe from planet to planet in search of his Rosa (Cristina Garcia), he learns valuable lessons about friendship. Lizarraga, who is also a novelist and translator, uses his linguistic dexterity to create not only a wonderful children's play in Spanish, but also a celebration of Cubanidad and a tribute to a fascinating Cuban historical figure.

One of the most inventive aspects of Matias y el Aviador is the use of Cuban son as a narrative device. Director and actor Jorge Luis Morejon and guitarist Gabriel Lizarraga stand far stage left dressed in white pants and guayaberas. The show begins with them playing the clave and guitar respectively. Morejon sings a traditional son and Cesar Santos sits at their feet in a navy jumpsuit beating out a rhythm on the bongos. Santos alternates from being one of the musicians to jumping into his character as the Aviator, creating a magical connection between the action of the play and its music. Combining rhythms from familiar songs such as Guantanamera and Lizarraga's own lyrics, the play manages to revive the role of the traditional troubadour, which serves as an innovative form of storytelling. Besides his wonderfully resonant singing voice, Morejon, as the director, manages to make the transitions from son to stage virtually seamless.

Santos is charismatic as the wild-haired, dreamy aviator and young Adrian Ruiz gives an energetic and captivating performance as Matias, the young boy in search of his Rosa. Portraying the eclectic series of planets that Matias encounters in his adventures, this considerably large cast is consistently humorous and in character. From the merchant to the lush to the geographer, each character contributes to the allegorical nature of the story, but is also quirky enough to give the play a healthy dose of the absurd, making it entertaining for children and adults alike. Matias y el Aviador is not just a well-told story; it's a celebration of Cuban culture and history that extends the genre of children's theater to new geographies, audiences, and communities.
.
Where:
Prometeo, Miami-Dade Community College Wolfson Campus, 300 NE 2nd Ave, Miami, FL
Details:
Directed by Jorge Luis Morejon, written by Felix Lizarraga, with Cesar Santos and Adrian Ruz. Evening performances Fridays and Saturdays at 8:30 through July 19; call 305-237-3262 .
Subject(s): Matias y el Aviador

Miami New Times Archives:

http://search.miaminewtimes.com/search/results.php?page=15&column=245069&section%5B%5D=233579&

_________________________________________________________________

Matías and the Aviator, A Cuban Little Prince

by José Antonio Evora
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The story of the Little Prince, Saint-Exupery's character that sees with the heart's eyes, is now revived by Prometeo in a version by Felix Lizaraga tittled Matias y el Aviador, which will be presented in the Miami Dade Community College, tonight and tomorrow in the Teatrino of the Wolfson campus, downtown Miami, as part of the XVIII International Hispanic Theatre Festival. ''What I did was to put it through the grinder of cubanidad'', explains Lizárraga. ``I put in a few guantanameras to spin the thread the scenes and there were many character changes; the result will be my adaptation plus the contributions that have been made by Prometeo''.

Teresa María Rojas, the director of the group, assigned this production to body expression professor and yoga Jorge Luis Morejón. Matias' character is played by 12 year old child Adrián Ruiz, who has been a student of the Children's Scenic Arts course given by Prometeo children during the last three years. ''I think that since Adrian started talking had a liking for theatre," said his mother Samantha Díaz. ``When we came from Venezuela to live in Miami, he was seven years old, and a little later we found the classes for Los Prometeítos. He has earned what he is doing now. He has worked very hard for this play, three hours every day, including Saturdays and Sundays''. The protagonist of Matías and the Aviator says that it was seiing a play what what made him do the same in front of his mother and his grandmother since he was six years of age, but he does not remember the title."Until one day I told her: Mom, I want to be an actor," says Adrian. "I love to be in front of people." At twelve he has got it, by acting in a real play with all its true characteristics.

Adrián studies in South Miami Middle School, an acting magnet school. ''I had never done so big of a play," "With The Prometeítos I did the King when=en I was given the opportunity in El Principito, in class. Now, I have been able work the adults, get to know lots of people that are good actors and actresses." Morejón and Lizarraga have only of words of recognition for Adrian. ''He came to the project when we had already rehearsed for four months, when the actress that was playing Matias left, he joined the project," explains the director," and the eight rehearsal he already knew the whole play." Fortunately, says Morejón, there was already a rapport between him and the child, since he would teach him every Saturday. The other protagonist will be César Santos, who plays the Aviador and he is, like the 13 other members of the cast, inmigrant or sons and daughters of Cuban, Argentinian, Colombian, Dominican inmigrants--, all students from Prometeo. It has been interesting, because Adrian started with all the characteristics of of a child and he has been transforming into a teenager'', indicates Morejón. "His way of expressing begins to change, but when we have alerted him about that, so that he keeps candor of the character, he has been very receptive and disciplined. ''.

Matías y el Aviador, Félix Lizárraga's version about Saint-Exupery's The Little Prince, is a production of Prometeo-Miami-Dade Community College presented as part of the XVIII International Hispanic Theatre Festival. Tonight and tomorrow at 8:30 p.m., in the Teatrino Wolfson campus, MDCC, 300 NE 2nd Ave, downtown Miami. Information and tickets: (305) 237 3262.

El Nuevo Herald, 15 de junio, 2003

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XVIII International Hispanic Theatre Festival

by Luis González Cruz

Prometeo presented Matías y el aviador, by Félix Lizárraga (Miami-Dade College; direction by Jorge Luis Morejón). This student's production, under the supervision of Teresa Maria Rojas, exhibited the professionalism characteristic of her. El scenery (three circular platforms) was animated with a smart use of the lights ( by Javier Siut) and the creative costumes (of Anilú Oms). The character of Matías was interpreted gracefully by Adrián Ruiz, a 12 year old child: a happy mix of a good direction and artistic talent. Other important performances were those of César Santos (the Aviator), Aymará Ávalos (the Snake) erpiente), Beatriz Montañés (the Cat) and Gustavo Dapiaggi (the vanidoso). Jorge Luis Morejón also participated as the cantor (singer), singing with beautiful voice, to the rhythm of the Guantanamera, original verses of the author, who has made a dedicated adaptation the classic story of Le Petit Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, always faithful to the narration, but adding texts of his own that enriched the dialogue.

La Habana Elegante. Miami, June 6-22, 2003

================================

Exiles In Culture: Each Cuban crisis sends a new wave of artistic talent to South Florida's shores
By Fabiola Santiago.

"Matías el aviador, was an adaptation of the classic The Little Prince. In Lizárraga's version, a guitarist sings verses to the tune of a mournful Guantanamera as the prince, named Matías, travels from planet to planet. The Matías-prince character is a reference to the legendary Cuban aviator Matías Pérez, who left the island on a hot-air balloon and disappeared, never to be heard from again.
It was a story full of the wisdom of the original Little Prince tale -- but with a touching Cuban flair. The packed theater was moved to tears, laughter and applause. And in the actor-audience exchange following the performances, it became clear that there were more than just Cubans in the crowd.
''I thought the flaw was that the work was too weighty on Cuban references -- the Prince loses his roots as happens with all of us who leave Cuba or who remain in Cuba but in an internal exile -- but the piece turned out to have universal appeal,'' Lizárraga says."

Cubanet. http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y03/ago03/18e3.htm. Sun, Aug. 17, 2003

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Link: Cuban/Latino Theater Archive

http://scholar.library.miami.edu/archivoteatral/review/performances.php?IDplayPerformance=783

La Rebambaramba

2008-07-21T16:03:00.001-04:00

Jorge Luis Morejon performing Huella.

Books and Books. Coral Gables, Florida. Photographer, Pedro Portal

.
Palabras en el Fuego: Creadores de Miami Dicen.
Book Cover design Maria "Pasita" Andino
.

Words in the Fire: Creators of Miami Say
(Palabras en el fuego: creadores de Miami dicen )

This is a book that documents Jorge Luis Morejon’s first participation in La Rebambaramba, an event that takes place once a year in Books and Books. “This book compiles the ways of doing and saying of a group of Cuban creators who reside in Miami, who got together to give homage to poetry.” Palabras en el fuego compiles poems by: Angel Cuadra, Germán Guerra, Amelia del Castillo, Teresa María Rojas, Orlando González Esteva y Félix Lizárraga, and texts by Ramón Alejandro (artist), Marisela Verena (composer, singer) Rosie Inguanzo (writer, actress, theatre director), Jorge Luis Morejón (singer, dancer, actor and theatre director ), Nereida García Ferraz (artist, producer of documentary: Fuego de tierra (Earth’s Fire) about Ana Mendieta and Gretel Trujillo (actress). <http://www.habanaelegante.com/Fall2004/Ecos.html> Miami. 2004

Tentempie

2008-07-21T15:51:00.000-04:00

Poster. Prometeo Theater Group. Tentempie. Tower Theatre. Little Havana
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Jorge Luis Morejon sang in Tentempie with Prometeo Theatre Group at the Tower Theatre in Little Havana. Tentempie was directed by Teresa Maria Rojas.

Matusalem Ball

2008-07-21T15:50:00.000-04:00

Jorge Luis Morejon. Miami Monthly. Vol XXIII, No 1.

Design District. Miami, Florida. 2003

.
Jorge Luis Morejon was the lead dancer of Matusalem & Co.'s, makers of Matusalem Rum new comercial . He also collaborated with the massive choreographic movement and dance coaching of the Matusalem Rum commercial which took place in the Design District, Miami, Florida.

The Man Who Could Not Dance

2008-07-21T15:35:00.000-04:00

Jorge Luis Morejon directed The Man Who Could Not Dance, presented at the City Theatre's Summer Shorts, an annual one-act short play festival held at the University of Miami. The Man Who could not Dance was performed by Elisa Reig and Horacio Lazo at the University of Miami's Black Box, Coral Gables, Florida, 2003. No pictures are available.

Lullaby

2008-07-21T15:31:00.000-04:00

Jorge Luis Morejon's Lullaby was a processed based dance-theatre piece which was born at the Teatro dela Radicci International Summer Workshop in Lugano, Switzerland under the supervision of Cristina Castrillo. Then, It was further explored and presented at the European Graduate School in Saas Fee, Switzerland under the supervision of Daria Halprin. Lullaby was first performed at the University Center for the Performing Arts in Hollywood, Florida, invited by artistic director Gilda Pianelli. It was choregraphed and performed by Jorge Luis Morejon along with actress Elisa Reig. For its characteristics, Lullaby was selected by Looking at Dance, an event which is part of the Florida Dance Festival based on Liz Lerman's critical response format. The Looking at Dance session took place at the New World School of the Arts, Miami, Florida, 2003. No pictures are available in Jorge Luis Morejon private archive.

La Feria de los Inventos

2008-07-21T15:30:00.002-04:00

La Feria de los Inventos. XVII International Theater Festival Miami,

Teatro Avante. Actress Lourde Simon (La Luna). Miami, 2002

At the request of director Lilian Vega, Jorge Luis Morejon choreographed a dance segment for La Feria de los Inventos, written by Raquel Carrio and Lilian Vega for Teatro Avante, the host of the Festival Hispano de Teatro en Miami.

Resources
Lourdes Simon. July 21, 2008. http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://hometown.aol.com/lsimon2961/images

New World School of the Arts/Theatre

2008-07-21T15:17:00.000-04:00

From left to right, professor Andrew Noble, Heather Gallagher, Jorge Luis Morejon, Laif Gilbertson, Daniel Rincones, Annemarie Rajala, Tate ( a very close supporter and friend of the group ) Jonathan Lolley, Carmen Torraca, Heather Eisenhart, David Fink and Diana Batista.

Jorge Luis Morejon was an adjunct professor at New World School of the Arts. He taught expressive movement for the theatre department under the leadership of Dean Jorge Guerra and later under Dean Patrice Bailey. These are the students of his 2002 class during a meeting at Bayside, Downtown Miami. They all graduated of a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theater on May 2, 2002.

"This was my very first experience teaching at New World. I have never again shared the very little I know about movement and theatre with a group of young actors with such a commitment, integrity, respect and passion for theatre and the arts. They were also great human beings and very loyal friends. They were talented and inspiring. I missed them when they left. Wherever they are, I wish they are happy and successful men and women."

Jorge Luis Morejon

Jorge Luis Morejon in Concert

2008-07-21T14:37:00.005-04:00

Jorge Luis Morejon in Concert. Miami. 2002

Jorge Luis Morejon's concert was given in Miami. He sang Napolitan songs such as Torna a Surrriento and O Sole Mio, arias such as Nessun Dorma, Spanish songs such as Granada, and sacred songs such as Schubert's Ave Maria. The concert ended with the populoar balad My Way in its spanish version A Mi Manera. He was accompanied by maestro Gil Magno.

Colaborations

2008-07-21T14:37:00.004-04:00

La Farsa Maravillosa del Gato con Botas. Teatrino. Prometeo Theatre.

MDC Wolfson. Miami, 2002

In ten years of uninterrupted theatrical work with Prometeo Theater, from 1994 to 2004, Jorge Luis Morejon collaborated with former director Teresa Maria Rojas in the work process of several plays such as Suandende by Lidia Cabrera, A Park in Our House by Nilo Cruz and La Farsa Maravillosa del Gato con Botas by Felix Lizarraga. Other performance pieces were presented during the Miami Book Fair International, including Orlando Gonzalez Esteva's Poems in 1999, and Canciones en la Terraza, acompanied by Rene Barrios.

Resources

Teatro en Miami. July 21, 2008

http://www.teatroenmiami.net/2002/festival/gato-botas-oo.htm

Silent Dance

2008-07-21T14:36:00.000-04:00

Jorge Luis Morejon. Silent Dance.

Peace Village Learning & Retreat Center. Hanes Falls. New York. 2001

Jorge Luis was invited to Peace Village, a place where he enjoyed silence and solitude, and where he found peace of mind. He was interested in integrating a spiritual dimension into his life through the arts. As a result of it, invited to go on stage and dance, he did an improvisational dance piece titled Silent Dance. To the amazement of those present, he danced without music, using what he calls the music of the soul, silence. Through his dance he experienced a spiritual awareness, a different kind of body meditation, which led him to a form of practical artistic application of spirituality.

West African Dance

2008-07-20T03:04:00.001-04:00

Jorge Luis Morejon started dancing West African with Nia Mani Tua at Florida International University. Later he became part of the Delou Africa Dance Ensemble under the artistic leadership and choreographic direction of Njeri Plato-Dioubate. Through his work with Njeri, Jorge Luis was motivated and inspired by African dance and culture, specifically the dance styles and techniques of Senegal and Gambia. His first West-African dance performance took place at Florida International University, VH-100, with the Dance ensemble directed and choreographed by Nia Mani Tua. Then, he danced with Delou Africa Dance Ensemble at the Children's Alley, Miami International Book Fair. No pictures are available of this event in Jorge Luis Morejon's private archive.

link: http://www.delouafrica.com/aboutus.htm

Neither Here Nor There

2008-07-20T02:59:00.001-04:00

Jorge Luis Morejon in Neither Here Nor There (Performance Piece).

EGS. Saas Fee. Switzerland, 2000

Neither Here Nor There is a performance piece born out of Jorge Luis Morejon’s exile experience. The piece reflects the cultural legacies of a character that carries with him vestiges of indigenous influences: Taino, African, Asian, Jewish, Spanish, all of which are too strongly Cuban to let go of and simply adapt to a new culture. The piece constitutes a showcase of multiple songs and dances which tell the story of a character in despair. Politically, through strong images, the character reflects the ambiguity of the Cuban exile individual, who physically rolls from one side of the stage to the other, from one side of the straight to the other, as he becomes a victim of the political games of Washington and Havana. It was Jorge Luis Morejon’s first performance piece which received a very warm reception by the European Graduate School (EGS) Summer audience.

Installation Piece

2008-07-20T02:33:00.000-04:00

Installation. Unititled.

Jorge Luis Morejon and Susy Cheng. EGS. Saas Fee. Switzerland.2000

Prior to completion of his degree from FIU, Jorge Luis Morejon was offered a teaching position within the Miami-Dade School system to teach children with emotional disabilities. Then he moved to a setting with children who were severely emotional disturbed. As he became more familiar with the characteristics of children with special needs, he developed an interest in the therapeutic aspect of the arts. Based on this growing interest, he decided to study Expressive Arts Therapy. The rationale for this approach was to combine his already acquired pedagogical skills with the expressive arts approach. The European Graduate School in Saas Fee, Switzerland allowed Jorge Luis Morejon to developed new and more effective techniques that he could immediately test with not only his special students, but also with the adults and children from the theater program at MDC.

Sears Show/Calle 8 Festival

2008-07-20T01:58:00.001-04:00

Jorge Luis Morejon. Sears Fashion Show's Opening. Calle Ocho Festival.

Beacon Bulevard and 8 Street. Sears Platform. Miami, Little Havana.

Jorge Luis Morejon was Alicia Faccio's and Sears Calle Ocho Festival's exclusive model for a number of consecutive years. He was also the lead dancer in the dance part of the show. In this picture he is introducing the Calle Ocho Sears Fashion Show directed and Produced by Alicia Faccio.

Alquimia

2008-07-20T00:50:00.002-04:00

Jorge Luis Morejon played the principal dance role in Alquimia's promotional video Besitos de Coco – Caramelo, next to dance partner Tahi Delgado and Alquimia's lead singers Carolina Ovalle, Jorge and Sady Ramírez. The video clip recorded in Miami, started the publicity of Alquimia Orchestra with Caimán Records in United States and Puerto Rico. The video was recorded at Miami’s Fishing Village in 1999. Alquimia, the successful Colombian orchestra is known for its revivals of well known musical hits made popular by legendary Cuban orchestra La Sonora Matancera.

http://www.plazaboricua.com/anil/archivo/tiempolibre2/mas_son/artistas1_1/alquimia_020199.htm

Lorca en el Divan

2008-07-20T00:49:00.001-04:00

Jorge Luis Morejon, (far right) with Prometeo Theatre during Lorca en el Divan.

Breeze Ways Room. MDC Wolfson. Miami,1998

Jorge Luis Morejon (far right) performed with Prometeo Theatre, a selection of Lorca's poems. The the Miami International Book Fair, 1998 hosted the event which took place at the Breeze Ways room of the MDC Wolfson campus. Jorge Luis sang one of the verses in Cante Hondo style, accompanied by maestro Roberto Lozano and interpreted the poem Son de Negros en Cuba under the direction of Prometeo's former director Teresa Maria Rojas.

Federico García Lorca (1898 - 1936)
SON OF BlACKS IN CUBA
.

When it's full moon

I will go to Santiago de Cuba,

In a car of balck water.

I will go to Santiago.

Palm roofs will sing.

I will go to Santiago.

When Palmtree wants to be a stork,

I will go to Santiago.

And when the banana wants to be jellyfish

I will go to Santiago.

With Fonseca's blond head.

I will go to Santiago.

And with the pink of Romeo and Juliet

I will go to Santiago.

Sea of paper and silver of coins

I will go to Santiago.

¡Oh Cuba! Oh Cuba!

Oh pace of dry seeds!

I will go to Santiago.

Oh hot waist and wooden drop!

I will go to Santiago.

Harp of alive logs, alligator, tobacco flower!

I will go to Santiago.

I always said that I would go to Santiago

in a black water car.

I will go to Santiago.

Breeze and alcohol on the wheels,

I will go to Santiago.

My reefs in the darkness,

I will go to Santiago.

The sea drowned in the sand,

I will go to Santiago,

White heat, dead fruit

I will go to Santiago.

Oh cattle cool of cañavera!

¡Oh Cuba! Oh Cuba!

Oh curve of sigh and mud!

I will go to Santiago.

Quinceañera

2008-07-20T00:25:00.002-04:00

Quinceanera Waltz. Choreography by Jorge Luis Morejon.

Biltmore Ballroom. Biltmore Hotel. Coral Gables. Florida
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Jorge Luis Morejon choreographed the sweet fifteenth of a quinceañera. The dance was designed to resemble a tradition that originated in the Cuban upper class but that has permeated all social levels in Cuba as well as in the exile community. The traditional celebration introduces the young girl to society through the Fiesta de Quince. The event was the result of a series of rehearsals, where fifteen teenage couples learned not only how to dance the waltz, a tradition of the Cuban quinces, but also how to observe the rules of etiquette during this type of society's much celebrated gathering. Being born in Puerto Rico of Cuban descend, la quinceanera, a student from Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart, started dancing with her father a Puerto Rican Danza followed by a Cuban Danzon. The fifteen couples joined them when the waltz started to play.

¿Por que?, (Why?)

2008-07-19T20:01:00.005-04:00

Jorge Luis Morejon (center) on location during the filming of ¿Por que?

Director Luis A. Saumel (right). Virginia Key. Miami. Florida, 1994

Jorge Luis Morejon played one of four leading characters in ¿Por que? (Why?), a film short about the Cuban People's struggle for freedom and winner of the Charleston International Film festival Silver Award. The film recreated short vignettes of the lives of four young Cuban men who, suffer political emprionement or death, who fight against the Cuban regime during Bay of Pigs, who are in a refugee camp in Guantanamo Bay and who finally escape Cuba’s current dictatorial regime on a raft but never make it to the other side of the straits of Florida. The film, directed by Luis Saumell, makes great use of visual metaphors and combines them with dramatic, poetic, political and historical statements. It was Jorge Luis Morejon’s first experience with film. There is only this newspaper cutting available in his personal archive.

LINKS:

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gphqyaBmbjI

article: http://www.thedailytimes.com/article/20080811/NEWS/187061660

Cuban Dance Review with Ife Ile

2008-07-19T19:32:00.003-04:00

In 1996, Jorge Luis Morejon became a temporary member of the Ife Ile Ensemble where he explored Cuban rhythms such as Cha-Cha-Cha, Rumba, Mambo, Zapateo, Son and Danzon, performing a Cuban Dance Review at the Flagler Museum in Palm Beach, Florida. No pictures are available of this event in Jorge Luis Morejon's private archive.

Jorge Luis Morejon's Notes

Jorge Luis Morejon's first encounter with Afro-Cuban dance was through Juanita Baro, who taught him his first Afro-Cuban dance lessons at Miami Dade College. Then, his participation in Maria Antonia, a Cuban play with a marked Afro-Cuban theme, exposed him to theatricalized rituals and dances of the Yoruban culture. Singer Margarita de la O and dancer Mario Dixon, who shared the stage with Jorge Luis, influenced his appreciation and love for the music and the dances of the Afro-Cuban pantheon. He was briefly exposed to the style of Afro-Cuban Dancer Elena Garcia. Later, at Florida International University, he learned Afro-Cuban dance with Nery Torres. In 2006, in Toronto he was exposed to the Afro-Cuban dance style of Cuban dancer and instructor Sarita Reyes.

Classic Cuba. La Contradanza Cubana

2008-07-19T19:31:00.003-04:00

Sheet of Music for La Matilde, composed by Manuel Sumell in 1817

Jorge Luis Morejon choreographed and performed a night of contradanzas for Classic Cuba, a spectacle which took place at Florida International University's Student Union's Ball Room. This work involved the exploration of Cuban Classic Danza and the Contradanza, a 19th-century Cuban salon, popular dance and music genre. In this ocassion, Jorge Luis Morejon danced to the Danzas composed by Manuel Saumell with an emsemble of young Cuban-American and Latin-American dancers such as Cathy Horta-Hayden, Stella and Lisbeth, among others. No pictures are available of this event in Jorge Luis Morejon's personal archive.

Jorge Luis Morejon's Notes

Contradanza is a Spanish line dance popular in the 18th and early 19th centuries thought to come from an older English "country dance" (thus the Spanish corruption of the name). However, some researchers reveal that it was the Franco-Haitian slaves seeking refuge in the Oriente province in the 1790s, and not the Spanish, who introduced the genre to the island of Cuba, in the form of the French contredanse. Although rhythmically tame by contemporary Afro-Cuban standards, the contradanza was scandalously syncopated for its time because it represented one of the earliest obvious entrances of African rhythm into Cuban music salons which had until then been a venue for strictly European forms like waltzes, quadrilles and schottisches. Previously, European instruments, melodies and harmonies had worked their way into the musical practices of Cuban slaves, but no such reversal of musical influence had been so strong until the appearance of the contradanza. While the Cuban contradanza was well-established by the turn of the 19th centurty, the earliest surviving example is "San Pascual Bailón," which dates fron 1803.

Florida International University

2008-07-19T19:30:00.001-04:00

While a student in the Dance Department at Florida International University in 1996, Jorge Luis Morejon participated in several performances which due to their diversity in origin, style and technical complexity, added a great deal of experience to his performance career. With professor and choreographer Lee Brook he danced Polka. He danced Cuban Rumba for the Hispanic Month at the University Atrium. He performed in the West-African Dance Ensemble with choreographer and instructor Niamani Tua, hosted at VH-100. He danced Afro-Cuban with instructor and choreographer Nery Torres. (There are no pictures available.)

Homage to Jose Marti

2008-07-19T18:10:00.000-04:00

Jorge Luis Morejon participated in the homage to Cuban patriot Jose Marti in the Koubek Center, University of Miami. The event was organized by Dr. Ofelia Tabares-Fernadez and directed by Teresa Maria Rojas. He shared the stage with Teresa Maria Rojas, Mike Porcel and Isnaya Santos, who was then one of his students in the MDC Wolfson Campus Children's Program. He interpreted Marti's poem La bailarina espanola ( The Spanish Dancer), while Mike Porcel accompanied Isnaya Santos' flamenco. No pictures of the event are available .

Classes and Workshops for Adults

2008-07-19T03:12:00.001-04:00

Prometeo Theatre Group. Expressive Movement Workshop.

Maiami Dade College, Wolfson Campus. 485 NE 2nd Avenue, Black Box. Building 6.

Jorge Luis Morejon was invited by Prometeo’s former director, Teresa Maria Rojas to teach in her theatre program hosted by MDC Wolfson Campus, downtown Miami, Florida. She heard of his success with the comparsa dance and asked him to teach it for Prometeo’s students. He started teaching Cuban dance, and then began to teach movement for theatre. The Community Education Program, of which Prometeo Theatre was part of, had an open door policy that allowed into the program anybody who was interested in theatre. The student body was mainly Hispanic and very diverse.

Jorge Luis Morejon’s movement class increased its numbers. The class turned into a lab, and the lab into a workshop. Ten years of pedagogic experimentation in the field of movement went by allowing Jorge Luis Morejon the opportunity to develop his own methodology and teaching philosophy. Consequently, he opened his own space, Camera Obscura, and created his own theatre group Thelos, where he could continue teaching and applying his always evolving theories of movement as well as his own theatre productions
.

Thank You e-mails

..................................

Actress Rosanna Morrone greets Jorge Luis Morejon and thanks him.

Sat, 12 Jan 2008

"Veii el tuo blog, fantastico!!! Bravo!! quantas cosas que hiciste?!? y tambien veii Artlander e leii i tuoi articoli, sono meravigliosi!! eres un alma libre y linda...Siempre agradesco el dia que te conocii, grazie para creer en mi y desarrollar mis capacidades, me dijste mucha fuerza en creer en mi misma, grazie....."
Rosanna Morrone

===================================
Fri, 3 Jun 2005

An e-mail from student and colleague Vivian Rice in referencc to Jorge Luis Morejon's movement classes:

Thank you! Thank you much! Jorge Luis, for last night's spectacular class, and I congratulate you and the whole Thelos group, for the place, which it looked superb, I felt at home, full of positive energy and projects which I am sure will turn into a succesful reality, I hope to grow, learn with you all and be a part of that artistic world that I love so much.

Thank you again,

Vivian Rice

Los Prometeitos

2008-07-19T02:40:00.002-04:00

Production of El Cangrejito Volador. Choreography Jorge Luis Morejon. Los Prometeitos Children Theatre Program.

Prometeo Theatre. MDC Wolfson Campus Auditorium.

Jorge Luis Morejon along with Marilyn Romero was co-founder of Miami Dade College, Wolfson's Bilingual Theatre Program for Children, Los Prometeitos. The Program functioned as a branch of its larger partner Prometeo Theatre Group. Envisioned and supervised by its former director Teresa Maria Rojas, Los Prometeitos was created in 1994. Jorge Luis Morejon worked in the program as a movement instructor for ten years next to Lilian Vega, acting instructor and Jorge Hernadez, voice instructor. During this period, a number of children's plays such as El Cangrejito Volador (The Flying little Crab) , La Feria de los Inventos (The Fair of Inventions), Alicia en el Pais de las Maravillas (Alice in Wonderland), and Pinocho (Pinocchio).
.

Classes and Workshops for Children

2008-07-19T02:39:00.001-04:00

Los Prometeitos. La Feria de los Inventos.

Miami Dade College Auditorium. Wolfson Campus

.
Jorge Luis Morejon along with Marilyn Romero was co-founder of Miami Dade College, Wolfson's Bilingual Theatre Program for Children, Los Prometeitos. The Program functioned as a branch of its larger partner Prometeo Theatre Group. Envisioned and supervised by its former director Teresa Maria Rojas, Los Prometeitos was created in 1994. Jorge Luis Morejon worked in the program as a movement instructor for ten years next to Lilian Vega, acting instructor and Jorge Hernadez, voice instructor. During this period, a number of children's plays such as El Cangrejito Volador (The Flying little Crab) , La Feria de los Inventos (The Fair of Inventions), Alicia en el Pais de las Maravillas (Alice in Wonderland), and Pinocho (Pinocchio).

Jorge Luis Morejon was also a theatre instructor in the YWCA's After School Program of South Point Elementary from 1997 to 1998. At the request of MDC Interamerican campus professor Manolo Garcia, Jorge Luis volunteered to teach an Afro-Cuban dance workshop and storytelling to disadvantaged pre-school children in the NW Miami area. He also volunteered to teach a movement workshop to elementary school children in the University of Miami Summer Campus, Coral Gables. He taught his movement workshop in the Hispanic Ballet Summer School Program in Miami Beach and to high schoolers in the Little Haiti and Coral Gables areas.

All these teaching experiences with very diverse children populations, his studies in Expressive Arts Therapy, along with his degree in Special Education, helped him to sharpen his teaching skills and his pedagogical understanding of the art of teaching movement, dance and theatre.

Miami's Calle 8 Festival

2008-07-19T01:50:00.002-04:00

Jorge Luis Morejon (center) with dancers Tahi Delgado (left),

Gloria Singali(right)and Maria del Carmen (front).

The comparsa class at Miami Dade College, Interamerican Campus, was fruitful. It performed in the Calle Ocho Festival, 1994, and it was followed by many people asking how they could get involved and dance. It was successful in mixing three age groups, the elderly, the young and the children, Cuban and non-Cuban equally immersed in the revival of a tradition. The support of the Kiwanis of Little Havana, Dr. Mercedes Sandoval and the Miami Dade College Interamerican Campus, then just a center of MDC Wolfson Campus, was very important. The collaboration of professionals such a Tahi Delgado and Gloria Singali gave the event the status of a spectacle. The Calle Ocho Festival, in many ways an attempt to recreate the Cuban Carnival in Miami, became more authentic that year as the comparsa traveled through Eight Street all the way to the main platform where the orchestra was playing the conga. But, most importantly, in the end, the comparsa became a real community of all sorts of people who simply loved to dance for fun.