"Chabuca, Susana, Mami & Me" and a glorious weekend with Chicanas, Cholas, y Chisme Play Festival

Early this year, when I was high on 2020; I had a play on stage. Ah, theater.  My heart is with you.

Tonight, I will write about January. Alongside many chingonas from Chicanas, Cholas, y Chisme Play Festival, I was in the midst of casting and preparing for the big production WOMXN IN HERSTORY. The festival celebrated historical figures who have made an impact in this world and in our lives. One weekend after we opened, we got hit with the pandemic, and my short play - Chabuca, Susana, Mami & Me - alongside many other wonderful pieces was suspended for the safety of our community. 

Esmeralda Vasquez, Rosa Frausto, Roberta Martinez rocking tech rehearsal.

Directed by Elvia Susana Rubalcava, featuring the talented Roberta Martinez, Esmeralda Vasquez, and Rosa Frausto - the piece was another iteration of a dance theater exploration I have been holding in my body since 2013. It's also a true story about the womxn in my family, and the things we hold onto. Not only metaphorically, but the hard ancestral stuff. What are we holding onto in our mind, body, and spirit? In both my dance and short play, I touch upon blood memory, magical realism, and borders. Actor Esmeralda Vasquez embodied my early 20's self - Lis - rosy lensed and light hearted, but full of curiosity and hope for the future. My grandmother, played by Roberta Martinez, has seen a lot in her life but keeps much to herself. My mother, played by Rosa Frausto, is in the background - considered "the USA" - able to communicate with her mother (Roberta), but not able to touch her due to her undocumented status. 

Some audience members approached me after the opening night to tell me how the piece resonated with them. In the 80's, before we had all this wild technology at our fingerprints, most immigrant communities relied on long distance phone cards, and exterior companies to connect with our loved ones. My family even used to send cassette tapes to my grandmother in the early 90's, so she could hear our voices more clearly than on the phone. Elvia Susana Rubalcava directed the piece so powerfully. The womxn onstage embodied the womxn in my heart with so much honesty and love. I was blown away; one of my actors, Esmeralda Vasquez, even learned to  play the guitar in one month to honor the story. This was Latinx magic all the way. 

For the last years of my grandmother's life, before Chabuca, Sunana, Mami & Me, I observed her and took her daily movements and rituals as motifs for my dance, Pieces of Her. Displaying her incredible resilience on stage has been a wonderful refuge for moments of frustration bound to my body and voice. When the opportunity came to make this dance piece into a play I went all in -- using Peruvian musicians Chabuca Granda and Susana Baca as entryways into a difficult conversation about my father and mother. Family secrets are revealed in the process, and in this piece I allow my grandmother to speak out loud all the advice she gave me through subtle and indirect messages in real life. In this play she breaks the fourth wall to...in a way, cut the bullshit. Things that most families, like mine, don't like to talk about. Physical and verbal abuse, and the expectations of motherhood; furthermore, using gender bias and religion as tools to silence womxn over the years. I'm still learning to undo these things to this day, and have unfortunately allowed many to speak over my voice. 

This is a play for mothers and daughters, for immigrants, musicians and writers. A private family and intergenerational moment between granddaughter and grandmother looking for liberation in the spaces in between the waiting. Waiting for papers, for answers, and for us to tap into our womxn power, unapologetically. 

Dancers: Jocelyn Sanchez, Rosa Navarrete

The Muckenthaler Cultural Center

PC: Dan Griego, Artist | March 1, 2020

One of the motifs I repeat in Pieces of Her is mopping the floor in big circles and arching my back into a suspended position, which I can only describe as a reverse fetal position. I did this motif recently at The Muckenthaler Cultural Center with the beautiful dancer, Jocelyn Sanchez, who also contributed to the piece with her own cultural exploration. Another favorite motif is drawing my name in space with my finger; a representation of the secrets quietly painting the air, words never spoken out loud. In the 2015, I did this drawing in space motif when I returned to my alma mater - Pasadena City College - and was allowed to do an alumni dance piece with current students. We danced to Lindsey Haley's poetry - Chingasos Make a Good Poet- and   Nina Simone's  I Want A Little Sugar. It was a full circle moment for me, as every year I get another layer of information about my family's history. Years before, on that same stage, I danced to Feeling Good by Nina Simone, not knowing at that time, that she too struggled with physical and verbal abuse with her first marriage. 

Pieces of Her, The Mopping Motif

Dancers: Alicia Moseley, Victoria Kabwe, Jonathan Hernandez,

Aaron Wilson, Rosa Navarrete

2015 was also the year I became an active community member and artist at Casa 0101 Theater. It was actually there, as a playwriting student, where I heard Linsey Haley read her poem Chingasos Make a Good Poet at a Chicanas, Cholas, y Chisme one woman show. There's nothing like seeing yourself reflected in someone else's art. Thank you, Lindsey. 

I wish we could remount Chabuca, Susana, Mami & Me again. I shared the play with some students from Acto Latino de CSUSB, an international Latinx theater collective. That was a pretty awesome experience to talk about the piece, hear feedback, and re-learn how the immigrant experience has touched all of us.

There is more to this story. Something that will live forever in my heart.

My mother and younger sister got to see the play on opening night at Casa 0101 Theater. We sat three rows up and when the piece began, I could hear my mother hold her breath as she saw a younger version of herself unable to visit her mother in person. It brought back memories. The three of us were a mess by the end of the piece; we held each other and cried together. What had not occurred to me until that night was my mother's reaction. There she was, just a few feet away -- Mami Luisa -- or the actor portraying my grandmother, her mother. May she rest in peace. The first thing my mother said after the show was, "Thank you for making me young and beautiful again," to which we laughed, shout out to Rosa Frausto who played her. The second thing she said was, "Can you introduce me to Roberta?" I took her to meet Roberta Martinez. No one was prepared for what happened next. My mother went to congratulate Roberta, but then holding back tears, she nervously asked, "May I hug you?" Roberta smiled at me and said "Of course!" Maybe it didn't sink in for Robeta just yet, this beloved artist in our community, but in that moment she was able to give my mother what borders and laws had denied her. An embrace with her mother, or at least her mother's spirit through the actor who embodied her. My mother was so grateful to the talent for their work. My sister too was touched and moved by the experience. 

My adorable mother, Rosa. PC: Jackie Navarrete

(L-R) Esmeralda Vasquez, Rosa Frausto, Roberta Martinez, 

My mom Rosa, and me.

Out of all the plays I have written in my life, this was the most vulnerable and honest. I often hide behind humor, I often write wacky characters, and I have never written something so directly connected to my personal experience. As the oldest and first generation in my family, I am usually the sturdy fun one who - as a young immigrant child - navigated the blows of "assimilated life" (like a human filter) for my family. So that my sister and parent's wouldn't have to feel so much pain. Whether it was translating a teacher-parent conference, or warning my sister of a bully in Junior High - the job was never done. However, this night, I let my guard down and cried beside the womxn I love, remembering our Matriarch.

Well, it's now September - more than halfway past this year and I still remember the impact of Chabuca, Susana, Mami and Me like it was yesterday. I send so much appreciation to the actors - Esme, Roberta and Rosa, my director - Elvia Sunsana Rubalcava, and Casa 0101 Theater for giving Chicanas, Cholas, y Chisme the space to tell womxn stories year after year. My last words will be for you, Reader. Don't forget to tell your family and friends how much you love them in this life. With all the current border and immigration news, we have to stay strong and work together to help each other. No human being is illegal. Don't allow our communities to be dehumanized. Speak up. Raise funds. Fight back. 

Stay safe in this changing world.