2018 Annual Report
OVERVIEW
What a good year 2018 has been!
ID Studio Theater is excited to report a year of strong organizational and artistic growth and productivity. Highlights include the production of two award-winning plays in Spanish—Pedro Infante: Cien Años Pienso en Ti and El Cielo y El Dolor, a bilingual summer arts camp for South Bronx youth “Fábrica de Sueños,” through which neighborhood children created public art and a multidisciplinary performance piece and the launch of our Community Building Theater Program, a weekly community theater workshop with a mission to build community and form audiences through innovative and cultural theater workshops.
In addition to drawing diverse audiences from the South Bronx/NYC Latinx community; Pedro Infante toured in Mexico and in the Hudson Valley near Kingston and Rhinebeck, drawing in the Latino immigrant community from that area. Nelson Celis also presented El Cielo y El Dolor in Colombia in the Fall, and will bring it to Spain and Poland in the spring.
With NEA support, our bilingual summer arts camp “Fábrica de Sueños,” South Bronx neighborhood children created public art and a multidisciplinary performance piece at a local community park. Some of the children from the summer arts camp have gone on to act in an adapted version of our annual Christmas pageant El Pesebre, supported by a grant from the Children’s Theatre Foundation of America.
Through the Bronx Yankee Fund, our Community Building Theater Program, a weekly theater workshop for intergenerational community members culminating in the production of an original play Two-Boro Bridge, with workshops to continue into 2019 with support from NYSCA’s Special Arts Services.
Meanwhile through NYC’s SU CASA initiative we ran “Cumbia for All” music, dance and theater workshops at a Bronx Senior Center, while also hosting music and dance workshops and intensives for youth at ID Studio. Lastly, we continued and expanded our commitment to hosting monthly Viernes de Poésia y Bronx poetry readings and Friday Film Fiesta screenings, and to inviting neighborhood arts and social service groups to use ID Studio as an incubator for their projects, including the talented slam poetry team Project X and the body consciousness group Live Big Girls. We also benefited from the advice of three consultants under a grant from the Hispanic Federation.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
MISSION STATEMENT
THEATER
“Pedro Infante: Cien Años Pienso en Tí” by Toby Campion
“Bone White” (Blanco Hueso) by Sebastián Illera (Colombian)
“El Cielo y el Dolor” (Paradise and Pain) by Alejandro Gómez (Colombian)
“El Pesebre” (Anuncio a los Pastores) by Jorge Pala Saray (Colombian)
SUMMER ARTS CAMP
“Fábrica de Sueños” with NEA-supported guest artist
Luis Guillermo Vallejo Vargas
WORKSHOPS
Community Building Theater (CBT) Workshops: “Two-Boro Bridge”
Cumbia for All at BronxWorks Neighborhood Heights Senior Center
Encuentro and Music Workshops with Folklore Urbano
Dance Classes and Intensive Youth Workshops with Daniel Fetecua
COLLABORATIONS, POETRY & FILM
“Viernes de Poésia y Bronx”
Friday Film Fiesta
ORGANIZATIONAL GROWTH & DEVELOPMENT
Consultations and Trainings
BOARD AND SUPPORT
MISSION
ID Studio Theater Performance and Research Center, is committed to the artistic and social empowerment of disadvantaged immigrant communities through innovative work
in the performing arts.
A non-profit arts organization based in the South Bronx with an active company of professional artists and performers, and a network of dozens of theater and arts professionals, ID Studio works with immigrant communities to create new audiences, develop new works, and train new performers and artists. Formed in 2001 and incorporated in 2005, ID Studio promotes the performing arts as a means of building community knowledge, catalyzing collective action, encouraging inter-community dialogue, and celebrating our common humanity.
ID Studio’s projects have been shown at a wide range of venues, from international theater festivals to schools and community spaces. ID Studio fosters exchanges with cultural organizations in Latin America and France, and partners with community-based organizations such as Make the Road New York and Dreamyard in New York, and Unidad Latina en Acción in New Haven, to develop theater and dramatic arts as a vehicle for transformation within immigrant communities.
THEATER
Pedro Infante: Cien Años Pienso en Ti
January – February, September – November 2018
By Toby Campion
Directed by Germán Jaramillo
Music by Pablo Mayor
Choreography by Daniel Fetecua
With the support of the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs and New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), ID Studio presented a run of this play for 3 actors in Spanish with music. Pedro Infante offers a surreal story of the life a Mexican immigrant grandmother living in the Bronx as she has an otherworldly encounter with her life-long idol the great Mexican singer Pedro Infante. Featuring eleven classic Pedro Infante songs, The play was invited to tour to the Festival sin Fronteras, Ciudad Juarez, Mexico in September 2018, and returned to ID Studio Stage for Fall 2018 after winning three HOLA awards
Bone White
March – April 2018
By Sebastián Illera,
Directed by Nelson Celis
The English language premiere of our play for two actors Blanco Hueso. In Bone White, Daniel, an artist in the midst of a terrible depression, has hired Hugo to paint his apartment in the South Bronx. Hugo arrives to do his job, but Daniel puts all possible obstacles in his way. In this encounter, the two men confront their lives, love, faith, art, country, and socio-political positions. Through this discussion the two characters end up both destroying themselves and showing who they really are. Exploring problems of gentrification that surround us in the Bronx, “Bone White” also reveals what makes us human.
El Cielo y el Dolor
July – August 2018
By Alejandro Gómez
Directed by Germán Jaramillo
Music by Pablo Mayor
Starring Nelson Celis
In Summer 2018 ID Studio presented the US premiere of this play for one actor in Spanish (English performances to come in 2019). Alexandra, a trans immigrant working as a prostitute in Queen, reveals her deepest secrets: her sexual initiation, her discovery of love, her exile, the border crossing, New York, Queens, her work on the street. A love story that tells of survival, of sacrifice, of loneliness. ID Studio’s production of El Cielo y el Dolor is the winner of an HOLA award, and toured to Colombia and Europe in Fall 2018.
El Pesebre
(“Anuncio a los Pastores”)
December 2018
By Jorge Plata Saray
Directed by Germán Jaramillo
Music by Pablo Mayor
Choreography by Daniel Fetecua
Youth Workshop Leader: Jamie Vanegas
ID Studio continues our annual tradition of inviting our South Bronx community to celebrate Christmas with this comedic musical play within a play, featuring neighborhood children trained through workshops alongside professional performers. This year we will perform a never-before-included scene from the play, with the support of a grant from the Children’s Theatre Foundation of America.
SUMMER ARTS CAMP
Fábrica de Sueños
July – August 2018
NEA Guest Artist: Luis Guillermo Vallejo Vargas
Camp Director: Jamie Vanegas
Music: Anna and Pablo Mayor
Dance: Daniel Fetecua and Beverly Lopez
Through ID Studio’s first ever Challenge America grant from the NEA, in Summer 2018 we invited fifteen community youth ages 7- 11 to participate in a Summer Arts Camp “Fábrica de Sueños.” During a four-week residency in the Factory of Dreams, participants took part in daily workshops in Music, Dance, Theater, and Art with a focus on exploring and celebrating their personal and collective heritage and their neighborhood's rich natural and cultural history. The project culminated in a multidisciplinary performance "Te Amo Sol, Te Amo Luna" developed with and starring the project participants and the creation and presentation of three public sculptures made with Guest Artist from Colombia, Luis Guillermo Vallejo with the assistance of Cristina Mejía. These sculptures—the Turtle, the Turkey and the Bear, based on the creation myths of the Lenape tribe indigenous to the South Bronx, were installed temporarily in Brook Park for the entire neighborhood to enjoy.
WORKSHOPS
Community Building Theater
(CBT) Program
January – December 2018
Program Director: Juanita Lara
Workshop Leaders: Nelson Celis and Jamie Vanegas
“Two-Boro Bridge” Directed by Nelson Celis
With the support of a grant from the Bronx Yankee Fund, in 2018 ID Studio developed a free community theater workshop project, offering weekly acting/theater classes to a diverse group of ten Spanish-speaking people ages 15 – 71. From January – December participants learned the foundations of movement, voice, story-telling and trust, as they developed as actors and community leaders. The first phase of the project, which will grow in 2019-2021 thanks to a substantial grant from NYSCA, culminated in the development and performance of an original bilingual play Two-Boro Bridge.
Cumbia For All
March – June 2018
Theater Director: Nelson Celis, Dance Director: Daniel Fetecua
Music Directors: Pablo and Anna Mayor
Through NYC’s SU-CASA initiative, ID Studio ran our second year of multidisciplinary music, theater, and dance workshops, this year at BronxWorks Neighborhood Heights Senior Center. A diverse group of participants learned hands-on a range of Colombian music and dance traditions and later developed with the teaching artists an original multidisciplinary performance: AGUA: The River and its Stories.
Encuentro and Music Workshops
with Folklore Urbano
Saturday mornings year-round
Led by Pablo Mayor
Installation of a recording studio
Music workshops and rehearsals with the inter-generational ArtsLatinoNY ensemble, led by Pablo Mayor and featuring a diverse group of musicians. This group performs at ID Studio and all around the city. On November 17, the 13th “Encuentro” took place for the first time in the South Bronx as part of the PAMAR Festival, drawing an audience of more than 80 people.
Dance Classes & Intensive Youth Workshops
Spring – Summer 2018
Led by Daniel Fetecua and Beverly Lopez
In Spring 2018 ID Studio began offering low-cost modern/Limón technique classes to dancers in our community. In Summer 2018 Fetecua ran a low-fee dance intensive workshop for talented South Bronx youth selected through audition. The program culminated in a the performance of the original piece Ancient Wings, inspired by the great Colombian writer Gabriel García Marquez and his tale “A very Old Man with Enormous Wings,” and will continue in 2019.
COLLABORATIONS, POETRY & FILM
Crucial to our mission is collaboration with mission-aligned neighborhood groups. In 2018 ID Studio built on ongoing collaborations with neighborhood organizations including our nextdoor neighbor non-profit arts gallery BronxArtSpace, with body pride / consciousness group Live Big Girls, with neighborhood park and environmental/indigenous rights activist group Brook Park particularly for “Fábrica de Sueños”, and with the Bronx-based Latinx Slam Poetry team Project X.
In 2018 ID Studio also continued to host our monthly bilingual poetry series “Viernes de Poésia y Bronx” organized by Fátima Vélez and featuring a wide-range of acclaimed poets and scholars, and our monthly film screening series “Friday Film Fiesta” organized by Oscar Gonzalez, featuring international and local films exploring issues relevant to our community. We also hosted film screenings organized by Bronx Filmmakers and Bronx Narratives.
ORGANIZATIONAL GROWTH
& DEVELOPMENT
As ID Studio’s presence and impact in our community increases, so have funding opportunities and organizational growth. In 2018 we were thrilled to receive substantial government support at all levels, including two Council Initiatives—a Coalitions Theater of Color grant to support three Colombian plays, and a Su-Casa grant to run an arts residency at a Bronx Senior Center, in addition to DCA funding. We received a two-year Theater grant from NYSCA for our trilogy “Entre Mundos” including the hit play Pedro Infante: Cien Años Pienso en Ti. Through a substantial grant from the Bronx Yankee Fund we were able to fund a full year of Community Building Theater Workshops, now fully funded for the next three years (2019-2021) through matched grants via NYSCA’s Special Arts Services. ID Studio was thrilled to receive our first ever grant from the NEA, to support our summer youth arts project “Fábrica de Sueños” which also received support from the DCA, and the Puffin Foundation. Through a grant from the Hispanic Federation’s Coalitions Theater of Color Non Profit Stabilization Fund in Spring 2018, ID Studio staff took part in intensive training in Organizational Development with three leading Latinx non-profit experts: Edgard Lopez from the Repertorio Español; Claudia Norman, founder of Celebrate Mexico Now!; and Hersilia Restrepo, formerly of the Children’s Aid Society. Through this consulting period we planned our first ever annual Open House Fundraiser, raising $13,000 for “Fábrica de Sueños.”
BOARD OF DIRECTORS 2018
Germán Jaramillo, Artistic Director.
Linn Cary Mehta, Board President.
Herman Moreno, Board Vice-President.
Alfonso Rosas, Treasurer.
Arturo P. Archila, Toby Campion, Karen Davidov, Daniel Fetecua, Marcela Gaviria, Rodolfo Llinas, Pablo Mayor, Sergio Orozco, Moíses Pérez, Guita Schyfter, Segundo Tenesaca, Luz Miriam Toro.
With special thanks for their generous support:
National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)
New York Council on the Arts (NYSCA)
NYC Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA)
Spanish Federation (Federación Hispana)
The Mott Haven Community
