La Mujer Fragmentada

La Quebrada/La Mujer Fragmentada is a bilingual performance piece in development that explores colonial/imperial state violence and forced migration in the lives of rural/urban women and children in El Salvador. Through a collaborative multidisciplinary and bilingual devising process, the piece uses mask work, projection, dynamic titling, and video editing to explore these themes. With the title I also refer to a Náhuat myth of the same name, La Mujer Fragmentada, which was documented in El Salvador by the German anthropologist Leonhard Schultze-Jena in 1930 – two years before La Matanza of 1932 when much cultural knowledge was lost. Drawing on this Náhuat myth and on contemporary experiences of my own and of women in my family, I seek to draw connections across time and geography, giving presence to experiences otherwise left al olvido. The experiment of La Quebrada/La Mujer Fragmentada is an attempt to remember contemporary colonial ruptures – from one’s self, one’s land, and one’s family – at individual and collective levels.

This piece draws on the work of Salvadoran filmmaker Brenda Vanegas, Cartas de Lucía.

October 14, 2021 at 7:00 PM

About the artist

María Escolán (she/her) is a queer theatre artist from El Salvador living on the unceded traditional Coast Salish Territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. Recent work includes DBLSPK with rice & beans theatre, Playwrights Theatre Centre’s Dramaturg Launch Pad program, Dusty Foot Productions’ Attachments excerpt for Rumble Theatre’s Tremors Festival, Rumble Theatre’s online production of B, and a translation excerpt of Corazón del Espantapájaros by Hugo Carrillo in the online journal Asymptote. María holds a BFA Degree in Theatre Performance from the School for Contemporary Arts, Simon Fraser University and a BA Degree in Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice from the University of British Columbia.

Brenda Vanegas holds a BA in Communication from the Mónica Herrera School of Communications (El Salvador, 2006) and Masters in Screenwriting from Escuela TAI (Madrid, 2008). In 2017 she created the production company ENCANTADA POR LA VIDA where she is currently Artistic Director. She has directed numerous documentary and fiction works as well as communication campaigns focused on human rights directed at diverse public audiences. She presented as speaker at TEDex in El Salvador on “The Wounds of Migration”  and in 2020 she was selected as one of the top 100 most influential women in Central America by Forbes Magazine.

Karla Desentis Rodríguez is an interdisciplinary artist who works across live performance, choreography, video art and installation. Through her art practice, she has explored approaches to identity and perception from different angles, including in relation to sexism and racism. She is concerned with engaging art as a medium to explore alternative ways of thinking and perceiving. Karla graduated as a dancer from the Mexico City Ballet Academy and as a Musical Theatre actress from CECAAP. She holds a BFA in Choreography from the National Fine Arts Institute (INBA), a Bachelor´s in Industrial Design from the National Autonomous University of México (UNAM) and a Master´s in Fine Arts -Interdisciplinary Arts- from Simon Fraser University (SFU).

Valeria Ascolese is a Peruvian-Italian multidisciplinary artist and educator born in Lima, Peru. A graduate of Capilano University, she has collaborated with theatre companies like Electric Company Theatre, rice&beans theatre, Rumble Theatre, Bard on the Beach, and Pacific Theatre, while simultaneously working in film and TV. As a Teaching Artist, she works at Bard on the Beach, Carousel Theatre for Young People, Lights Up Musical Theatre Schools, North Van Arts, and the Vancouver Telmud Torah School. Valeria holds a TEFL-PP certificate after spending the summer of 2021 touring as a Teaching Artist in Italy. In addition, she is the Communications and Outreach Coordinator at Electric Company Theatre and the Canadian Latinx Theatre Artist Coalition (CALTAC). Valeria focuses on making art accessible to everyone and anyone by bridging her cultures and identity into the work.

Kimia Koochakzadeh-Yazdi (b. 1997 Tehran, Iran) is a Vancouver-based composer-performer. She writes for hybrid instrumental and electronic ensembles and performs electroacoustic music. Kimia explores the unfamiliar familiar while constantly being driven by the mechanism of the human psyche and exploring ways to manipulate it.
Being a cross-disciplinary artist, she has actively collaborated on projects evolving around dance, film, and theatre. Kimia recently graduated from Simon Fraser University’s interdisciplinary School for the Contemporary Arts with a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Music Composition – having studied with Sabrina Schroeder, Owen Underhill and Mauricio Pauly. Kimia will be starting her DMA in composition at Stanford University in Fall 2021.

Presently, ilvs strauss finds herself residing in Vancouver, BC, having earned her MFA from Simon Fraser University this past winter. She actively explores and creates subtle spectacles of temporal collage that challenge traditional notions of theatre and performance through the use of technology, corporeality, and ephemerality. She aspires to become a full fledged Qlab Wizard when she grows up.

Anthony Kit Lee is a Vancouver-based filmmaker, theatre-maker from Hong Kong. His interdisciplinary practices involve film and immersive theatre, and is keen to speak for cultural diaspora and post-colonial Hong Kong anarchism. A graduate of the film production program at Simon Fraser University, Anthony has worked with numerous film and theatre companies including Progress Lab 1422, Radix, Rumble, rice & beans theatre and the Cinematheque. His films have been screened at VAFF, Sundance Film Festival, Reelworld film festival and local sighting film festival. He is currently looking for a pot of sundew for his micro backyard.

Photo by Darylina Powderface
Design by Derek Chan
Vase by María Escolán

La Quebrada/La Mujer Fragmentada is possible thanks to the support of the Canada Council for the Arts through their Research and Creation program.