Cara Mia Theatre has grown into the fifth largest Latinx troupe in the country, with an annual budget of $1.25 million. More important, the Latino Cultural Center resident company is using its influence to program some of the most challenging, adventurous productions in the city, including leveraging its position to partner with other U.S. groups on similar missions.
Its latest “Latinidades: A Festival of Latinx Theatre,” running over three weekends, is the most recent example. Cara Mia is bringing 41 performers and production staff to town for shows distinguished by multidisciplinary, multimedia strategies and political content, according to executive artistic director David Lozano.
Closer to performance art than conventional theater with their use of dance, live music, projections, puppets and masked actors, the pieces take radical approaches to issues of the day, setting out to thrill as much as inform. Two of the three works fall into the realm of science fiction, but all have the surreal quality often found in the Latin American theater.
“People can look at the postcard of the art from the three plays and probably ask themselves, ‘What planet is this coming from?’ Well, it’s the Chicano planet,” Lozano says. “It’s the Chicano universe, Chicano aesthetics, coming to the LCC. It’s out of this world.”
The festival opens with a historical piece about the 1943 Zoot Suit riots, during which white servicemen, off-duty cops and civilians violently attacked Mexican Americans in Los Angeles who were defining their culture in baggy-suited style.
Pachuquísmo, created by Vanessa Sanchez and her San Francisco-based group La Mezcla, tells the story from the often forgotten female perspective with an all-woman cast of nine performers decked out in zoot suits. The piece is dance- and live-music-based, employing a mix of the Mexican tap style zapateado, jazz, Afro-Caribbean rhythms, the regional music genre son jarocho from Veracruz, video and narration.
“The horrific racism — I mean, it’s primitive,” says Lozano, who learned about La Mezcla and Pachuquísmo from the group’s Instagram page, noting the percussive nature of the piece and the fashion that defined the Zoot Suit era.
“The performance really takes you on an unexpected ride through dance, music and picture storytelling within the context of the struggle against discrimination that has bled into the following generations... It was a rebellion against being intimidated into conforming, taking pride in what was attempted to be taken away from them. The creator calls it a dance of resistance.”
Next weekend brings another politically charged show to the festival, the first full workshop production of On the Eve of Abolition from San Juan’s Papel Machete, co-commissioned by Cara Mia and two other arts organizations.
Set in 2047 in liberated territories of what used to be the U.S. and Mexico, Abolition envisions the end of the “prison-industrial complex,” a cause that the Papel Machete collective works for both onstage and off.
Based on letters from incarcerated people and content from prison radio shows, the piece meshes stop-motion video, puppets and masked actors and is partially funded by the National Performance Network, a coalition of theaters working to advance racial and cultural justice through the arts. Dallas performers and local community organizers have been incorporated into the cast.
One of the other co-commissioners, the Bronx’s Pregones/PRTT, presented a solo piece at the first Latinidades in 2019. “We really like to invest in the development of new work,” Lozano says. “It’s part of our mission to become a national destination for Latinx theater.”
The last work in the festival, a satire called ¡Estar Guars!, comes from Austin’s Latino Comedy Project, a group familiar to Dallas audiences, having been presented in the past by both Cara Mia and Teatro Dallas, the other resident company at the Latino Cultural Center. Among the characters are migrant moisture farmers, fearless princesses and mystical abuelas.
“They’re using Star Wars to satirize contemporary culture and politics” through sketches covering a variety of subject matters, Lozano says. “There’s an evil empire determined to make the galaxy great again.”
He’s aware that keeping Cara Mia’s shows accessible is crucial while also remaining dedicated to using the company’s growth to present a wider array of artists, including the experimental.
“I think we’re at a point artistically where we have the resources and a vision to experiment a bit more without risking audiences. What’s important is that that audiences understand why we’re doing this, and I think there are clear threads,” Lozano says. “Whether it’s considered accessible, or whether it’s considered experimental, it’s always centered on identity and the multiple experiences of Latinos. We’re drawn to people who are demonstrating experimentation but also a level of mastery. When that happens, it can be a powerful experience.... Who else is producing this kind of work in our region?”
Details
Pachuquísmo runs Sept. 23-24, On the Eve of Abolition on Sept. 30-Oct. 2 and ¡Estar Guars! on Oct. 7-9 at the Latino Cultural Center, 2600 Live Oak St. $10-$25 or $50 for a pass. caramiatheatre.org.
