TWO FREE COMMUNITY WORKSHOPS

ABOUT THE ARTISTS:

Dora Arreola (DIRECTOR) has more than twenty years of professional experience as a theater and dance artist. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Theater at the University of South Florida, School of Theater & Dance. She was a participant at Grotowski's Workcenter in Italy (1987-89), and went on to pursue Suzuki training, contemporary dance and Butoh. She holds a MFA in Directing from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. In 1999, Dora founded the experimental dance-theatre company Mujeres en Ritual, and has worked as a performer, teacher, director and movement specialist in Mexico, the United States, Nicaragua, Canada, Poland and India. With her company, she created a repertory of seven full-length productions, featured in diverse international festivals, such as Perfecto Luna at the 2001 Vancouver Fringe Festival, and El Sueño de Sor Juana at the 2003 NY International Fringe Festival.  Fronteras Desviadas/Deviant Borders toured in Mexico, in the U.S. at New WORLD Theater and Alternate ROOTS (2005), in Nicaragua at the 2006 Festival Internacional de Teatro, and in Montreal, Canada at Concordia University’s 2007 Symposium on Interdisciplinary.  Arreola premiered her latest solo work, I, Rumores Silencio, at the 2009 Meetings with Remarkable Women Festival in Brzezinka, Poland. Also in 2009, she choreographed and performed Versalii Icones at Judson Church in NYC. In addition, Arreola has directed more than 30  productions, including Cherrie Moraga’s The Hungry Woman and Moliere’s The Imaginary Invalid at UMass-Amherst, and Ananya Dance Theater’s Daak at the Southern Theater in Minneapolis (2008). Arreola has received grants from the Ford Foundation, Cultural Contact (US-Mexico Funds for Culture), and Fideicomiso para la Cultura de Mexico y Estados Unidos.  She was a key collaborator on a bi-national theater project supported by the Animating Democracy Initiative (2000-03).  She also received a commission from the National Performance Network (NPN/DTW) Suitcase Fund.

Andrea Assaf (CO-WRITER/PERFORMER) is a writer, performer, director, and cultural organizer. Her performance work ranges from poetry & spoken word, to interdisciplinary theater, to community-based arts. Founder and Artistic Director of Art2Action Inc., she was Artist-in-Residence at Pangea World Theater for the 2010-11 season, through a Princess Grace Award-Theater Fellowship. Andrea has a Masters degree in Performance Studies and a BFA in Acting from NYU. She’s the former Artistic Director of New WORLD Theater (2004-09), and Program Associate for Animating Democracy (2001-04). She has taught Acting technique, Voice and Creative Movement in New York, Boston, the Washington DC area, and Florida. Andrea has created and directed original works at NWT, the NY International Fringe Festival, the National Asian American Theater Festival, and more. She has toured internationally to Mexico, Poland, Nicaragua and Canada with Mujeres en Ritual Danza-Teatro. She’s also a recipient of a 2010 Creation Fund commission through the National Performance Network (NPN); a 2007 Hedgebrook residency for “women authoring change;” and a 2004 Cultural Contact grant as an artist-in-residence with Mujeres en Ritual, in Mexico. She’s a member of Alternate ROOTS, RAWI (Radius of Arab American Writers), and serves on the Board of CAATA (Consortium of Asian American Theaters & Artists).

Samuel Valdez (CO-WRITER/PERFORMER) graduated from San Diego State University in 1991 with a B.A. degree in theater arts, emphasis in directing. He has directed a large number of Latino plays such as Roosters by Milcha Sanchez Scott, The Conduct of Life by Maria Irene Fornes, and The Guitarron. With 6 plays under his shoulder, Samuel characterizes himself as a playwright. He has directed and produced several of his individual works to include Soy Yo/It's Me, P13-Vive, and Ambos/Both (co-directed with Dora Arreola). He is currently co-writing a new play, Outside the Circle (with Andrea Assaf), which will premiere in Spring 2012 and tour nationally. His community involvement has been one of great effort and has helped him to create and direct his works. He is full of energy and ready to take the bull by the horns, to tackle theater creation once more. Samuel greatly enjoys his work as a playwright, director and performer because, as he puts it, "Theater is my life!" Samuel is a recipient of a 2011 NALAC (National Association of Latino Arts & Culture) grant, and has received travel support from Alternate ROOTS and the National Performance Network (NPN). He currently serves on the board of Centro Cultural de la Raza in San Diego, CA. He is also creating a new teen theater troupe at the Centro.

Maria Vale (PERFORMER) graduated with two degrees from the University of Baja California (UABC), one in Theatre and the other in Communications. She also holds multiple certificates: Theatre Theory & Criticism, and Radio Drama from UABC; and Acting from the Center of the Arts of Northwest of Mexico (CAEN) at the Centro Cultural Tijuana (CECUT). From 1998 to 2000, she was member of the Taller Universitario de Teatro of UABC in Tecate. From 2001 to the present, Maria has been a member of the company Mujeres en Ritual, under the Artistic Direction of Dora Arreola. With Mujeres en Ritual, she has toured in Mexico, the U.S. and Nicaragua. She is a founder and member of several groups, including the Colectivo de Teatro en Espiral, Mama Dance & Theater Company, and San Barullo Ja. Maria has taught at the Cultural Institute of Baja California, House of Culture (Tecate), the School of the Arts at UABC, among others. She has performed in theatre and dance-theater productions including El velorio de los mangos by Ángel Norzagaray (directed by Dora Arreola), La guerra de las gordas by Salvador Novo, Macbeth, El señorito mimado by Tomás Iriarte, Fronteras Desviadas/Deviant Borders (by Andrea Assaf, directed by Dora Arreola), and more. She has participated in many Theatre and Dance Festivals, such as Cuerpos en Tránsito (Tijuana, multiple years), the New York International Fringe Festival (2003), the Summer Playlab at New World Theater (2005), XII Festival Internacional de Teatro monólogos, diálogos y más… (Managua, Nicaragua, 2006), and FITLA (Los Angeles, 2008).

G.B. Stephens (LIGHTING DESIGNER) is an Associate Professor of Design at the University of South Florida School of Theatre and Dance in Tampa Florida. He has designed scenery and lighting for more than 130 productions in the Tampa Bay community since 1982. Recent USF projects have include set designs for the Theatre department productions of Euripides’ Ion, An Evening of Cabaret, Boy’s Life, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, The Making of Gone With the Wind A Buffoon’s Tale and Experiment With An Air Pump, Honk the Ugly Duckling; Lighting Designer for Theatre USF’s Cabaret, The Life and Death of Marilyn Monroe, Trojan Women, Tale of Tsuru, Of Mice and Men, For Colored Girls, The Golden Ass, Lysistrate’ Crumbs from the Table of Joy, Moon on a Rainbow Shawl, Rashomon and the USF Britt program premiere production of Bobby and the Chimps and Body Stories. He has had exhibitions of Digital photography which included works from his Digital Dance collection. He is a frequent visitor of Oaxaca, Mexico where he has had 2 exhibitions of photography featuring the creative graffiti of Oaxaca taken between 2004 and 2008 called Artefacto Cultural.