UNCOMMON VOICES PRESENTS
Ay Días, Chiqui
(Oh these days…Chiqui)
by Jose Manuel Friedel
Translated and adapted by Gabriel Torres & Scout Davis
Performed by Gabriel Torres
Directed by Scout Davis
WHEN: Monday, April 25, 2022
WHERE: St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church
(157 Montague St, Brooklyn, NY 11201)
$35 – includes Colombian food & a glass of wine; $15 – performance only, no food/drink
ORDER OF EVENTS:
6:30PM Doors Open
6:30PM Mingling, wine & Colombian food (advance purchase required)
7:30PM Performance Start
8:30PM Discussion of the piece with Gabriel Torres and Scout Davis, who will be asking you, our audience, to imagine possible endings for the play.
Ay Dias Chiqui (Oh these days…Chiqui) tells the story of a transvestite* in 1980s Colombia, South America. Fearful of leaving her home because of the crime riddled streets outside her door, Chiqui talks to us about God, her mother and her childhood. Through poetic language, song, dance and more, Jose Manuel Freidel, the writer, poignantly explores the loneliness of solitude and the impact of hatred towards things we don’t understand.
In the original version of the script, Chiqui comes back home stabbed and bleeding to death, Friedel hoped to inquire on the reality of the community and ask of the country to take action upon it. In this version of the script, contemporized and translated to inquire on the pressing issues of our country, and the relationship of latine queer bodies, we ask of the audience to re-imagine where Chiqui ends up after leaving her home, and what the uncertain future entiles.
*the use of the word transvestite is a direct translation of the original Spanish used in script, which was written in the 1980s and we use it today to honor the intention of the author at the time, while acknowledging the use and connotation of the word in today’s context is complicated at best and if used in inappropriately can cause harm.
CREATIVE TEAM
Gabriel Torres (they, them) (director) is a multidisciplinary artist from Colombia and New York. Gabriel’s work deals in the conversations between community engagement, creative placemaking, theater making and film. Gabriel has worked in Hong Kong, NYC, and Colombia as an educator, documentarian, theater director, and community engagement consultant. Gabriel is currently working on Haus of Dust, a campaign to bring awareness about substance use in latinx queer communities from their personal experience. Haus of Dust is a successful collaboration between Gabriel and a collective of 10+ artists and institutions working to bring forth the project. To learn more, visit iamdust.org. Gabriel is the community engagement and marketing manager at The Tank NYC.
Current Project: “Haus of Dust” – Loisaida Inc, The Laundromat Project, Unity Technologies Recent Projects: ”“Distant Bodies” – 2020 – The LGBT Center & Cyber Tank – NYC . “Still – Performance for Inner Peace” 2019 – Chashama – NYC Recent Theater Directing Credits: “Scribbled Lines”, Poetic Theater Productions NYC, 2021,“Village Stories, KrisP Productions”, Hong Kong (Virtual), “Leo and his friends by Amalia Oliva Rojas”, Theater Accident, NYC (Virtual), “Caught in The Act by Anna Parisi”, Biennal Immigrant Artist Festival, NYC (Virtual). Film Directing & Documentary: “OSS #DK Testimony Series”, Documentary Series, 2020, “Distant Bodies”, The LGBT Center & The Tank NYC, 2020.Residencies: Create Change, Laundromat Project, 2021; AIR, Loisaida INC, 2020. Fellowships: MDOCS, Skidmore College, 2021, EMERGENYC, Hemisphere Institute, 2020. Education: MA in Media Studies, The New School, BA in Media Studies, The New School. Taller Profesional de Artistas, Creative Capital. Meisner, One Year Certificate, The Neighborhood Playhouse Theater. Riggio’s Honors Democracy Writing, The New School. https://gabrielgtorres.com/
Scout Davis (they, them) (director) is a white queer non-binary director of new experimental works from Los Angeles, California. Their recent solo work, Fever Dream: A Return Performance Ritual toured NYC, Northern France and Sibiu, Romania. Recent directing credits include Cinzano by Ludmila Petrushevskaya (Carnegie Mellon University), My H8 Letter 2 The G8 American Theatre by Diana Oh (Studio of Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University), WET by Janelle Lawrence (Town Stages/Dramatists Guild), Many Loves by William Carlos Williams (Atlantic Stage II-Atlantic Conservatory), BARS by Pravin Wilkins (Digital Reading), Extra Ultra by Kate Conde Hamilton (Hamburg Studio-City Theatre). Scout is a recipient of the Robert L.B. Tobin Director-Designer Prize of OPERA America Prize for their production of Gluck’s, Orfeo ed Euridice. Scout is an alumnus of The Lincoln Center Directors Lab and Directors Lab West. Scout is an alumni of the inaugural class of the International Performance Ensemble program at Pace School of Performing Arts. Upcoming projects include a reading of Trauma Podcast Play by Nay Harris (Art House Productions) and Small Mouth Sounds by Bess Wohl (Pace School of Performing Arts). Graduate of The John Wells MFA Directing Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University. https://scoutfdavis.com
Jose Manuel Friedel (writer of the original piece) (Santa Bárbara, September 24, 1951 – Medellín, September 28, 1990) was one of the pioneers of local dramaturgy, actor, director and producer and one of the most influential people of colombian theatre.
Like many other creators of the time, he began doing theater with two experimental groups El Grupo and a.e.i.o.u (1971-1975) at the University of Medellín. There he studied law and stood out as a student. He abandoned the law in the third year, to devote himself fully to the theater.
Critics and scholars agree in highlighting and valuing various aspects of Freidel’s works, including: the poetics of language and the many hybridizations he proposed, the forceful metaphors about the country and about intimate dimensions such as loneliness, abandonment, hunger , lack of love, nostalgia for the past, eroticism, as well as the incursion into many genres. In his works, the social, the intimate and the existential are combined with beauty, refinement and depth. What Freidel managed to propose with his works and his artistic posture was transformative and forceful in the face of an extremely pamphleteer and schematic theater, which predominated in those decades. His legacy lives on and has left a deep mark on the national and Latin American scene. https://josemanuelfreidel.com (only in Spanish)
Daniel Diaza (he/ him) (Assistant Director) was born in Viterbo, Caldas. Daniel Diaza is a Colombian actor and director, and a scholar graduated from the program for young talents of the theater school of Caldas T.I.CH. , trained at the Superior Academy of Arts of Bogotá, ASAB. He has been part of the La Maldita Vanidad Teatro Foundation since 2010 where he develops his work as an actor, assistant director and theater director. He has participated in more than 10 productions in recent years, and in more than 40 national Colombian and international festivals, he also facilitates the workshop Benditas Lecturas since 2013. He has also acted in several Colombian national television productionsHe received the “Rejhan Demirdžić” Award for best young actor at the MESS Festival, Sarajevo, Bosnia Herzegovina (2013) for the Trilogy “On Some Family Matters” and the mention for best performance at the 7th International Film Festival The Mirror (2010 ) by Outsider. Bogota Colombia.
Ernesto Linnemann (he/him) (make up artist and costume) is a multidisciplinary artist from Colombia, Ernesto has worked with Fox Latin America, Caracol Television and several other prominent South American studios and TV Channels as a make up artist and costume designer. Ernesto is also a trained photographer, and has recently published his latest book New Religion, an exploration of the beauty of a dancer through his cinematographic lens. Ernesto’s work dwells in conversations between beauty, queerness, erotism, extravaganza and the irony of human desire and incontrollable needs. He also works as a hair styler in the lower east side and at his private studio in the upper west side. He is also the human behind the creation of Onika Trinidad, follow her and learn more about her devilish journey. IG: https://www.instagram.com/ernestolinnemann/