By Prof. Carmen Sanchis-Sinisterra

Many years ago I saw a play that changed my relationship to theater; it was a rupturist staging of La vida es sueño, a 17th-century masterpiece by Pedro Calderón de la Barca. It touched some place very deep in me and, since that day, theater is one of the art forms that I admire the most. Why then—I often wonder—do I fail to include theater in my syllabi?  This semester, inspired by my colleague Prof. Christina Baker and with her precious help, I decided to introduce and experiment with embodied pedagogies in the classroom.  In our course devoted to literary criticism, HISP 208, students creatively and critically engaged with the famous play by Croatian-Chilean author Sergio Vodanović, El delantal blanco (1956).  What follows is the explanation of the project by three of my students in their own words:

“El delantal blanco was a thought-provoking play that we read for my Literary Criticism course in Hispanic Studies,” says freshman Joel Calfee (’20).  “The play focused on a woman and her maid spending the day at the beach, and the work explored themes of social class and gender roles. However, what made this play even more interesting was that our class explored it in a deeper fashion by breaking into groups and performing it in front of the camera. We were instructed to act out sections of the play, while having one director film it and add any personal touches that seemed necessary. Once all of the projects were completed, we watched them as a class, and it was very interesting to see everyone interpreting the lines uniquely. This project showed us that written works can be absorbed by students in so many distinct ways.”

The challenge of performing scenes from El delantal blanco led students to constantly revisit the script and explore meanings that otherwise may be lost in a simple, quick reading of the print version. “Although at first I stumbled through the words and awkwardly moved in front of the camera, I gradually became more comfortable,” adds Ashlynn Sommers (’20).  “By the end, I realized that through the process of filming I was able to better understand the play and it made me more confident in my Spanish-speaking abilities.”

The performances offered by students were far from a simple, mechanical enactment of Vodanović’s play.  Rather, it was a collaborative enterprise that allowed students to creatively craft meaning beyond the literal words of the script.  Caroline Nutter (’18) explains this creative process as follows: “We decided to drive to the beach to film our portion (the play is set on a beach), and the other actress and I decided to switch characters halfway through because I fit the role of one character better than she did. It is encountering these artistic problems, and finding creative ways to solve them, that made this project so enjoyable.

The RiverRun International Film Festival is one of the premier film festivals in the southeastern US.  Celebrated in Winston-Salem, NC, this year (March 30-April 9 2017) the organizers invited Prof. Ann Marie Stock to present a special program entitled “Cuba on Screen: Perspectives through Retrospectives.” The program included a selection of short films such as Conexión (2016), Kid Chocolate (1987), Presidio Modelo (2008), and Soy cubana (2016), but also feature-length Cuban classics like Soy Cuba (Mikhail Kalatozov, 1964), Vampires in Havana (Juan Padrón, 1985), Memories of Underdevelopment (Tomas Gutiérrez Alea,1968), and Lucía (Humberto Solas, 1968), and Santa y Andrés (Carlos Lechuga, 2016).

When asked to comment on the selection, Prof. Stock shared: “Memories of Underdevelopment (1968) and Lucía (1968) are two classics of Cuban cinema. Many people in the first world learned about Cuban cinema thanks to these two jewels. Both directors—Tomas Gutiérrez Alea and Humberto Solas—joined in the search for a cinematic language appropriate for the new Cuban revolutionary context. And with their respective films, they succeeded in relating stories that were essentially Cuban. These works still resonate in Cuba today. Many young filmmakers continue to be inspired by these films.”

You can read the full press release from Cuban Art News of The Farber Foundation here.

As part of the Bellini Colloquium series for spring 2017, Prof. Christina Baker shared her research with colleagues and students.  On April 20, Prof. Baker presented a talk entitled “(Re)EnActments of Belonging: Performances of Mexicanidad in Cabaret and Film.”

Prof. Baker’s presentation focused on how the Mexican contemporary cabaret group, Las Reinas Chulas, uses performative means to critique definitions of mexicanidad (or, Mexicanness) proliferated by Mexico’s Golden Age Cinema (1930-1960) and its on-screen idols. Prof. Baker explored how a particular piece re-enacts one of Mexico’s most successful films of all time, Nosotros los pobres (1948), and its lead actor, Pedro Infante (Think Clark Gable and Gone With the Wind). The piece she analyzed was Nosotras las proles, which she saw performed live in 2013 by the cabaret group. The piece, as indicative by the title, is a play on words, but also a critique of articulations of Mexicanness, belonging and state policies. In the piece, by absenting Pedro Infante from his quintessential role, coupled with his melodramatic confession of homosexuality, Prof. Baker engaged with queer studies to propose this piece drags and reorients masculinity, heterosexuality, and the family unit.  Prof. Baker’s engaging talk generated a lively discussion.

The Bellini Colloquium is a lecture series sponsored by the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures. It is named after the first Professor of Modern Languages at the College, Carlo Bellini, a native of Florence, Italy and close friend of Thomas Jefferson. Bellini taught French and Italian from 1779 until 1803, and holds the distinction of being the only Professor to stay in residence at the College when classes were suspended for two years during the Revolutionary War.

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Cuban filmmaker Aram Vidal was invited to W&M to participate as a special guest at the W&M Global Film Festival this spring.  On February 24, Aram screened a director’s cut of his debut feature film El pez azul [The Blue Fish] and discussed his filmmaking process. El pez azul follows Ernesto after he leaves Cuba, abandoning the love of his life, and continues to exist in two stages: his new life in Mexico and his past in Cuba with Clara.  While in Williamsburg, W&M Libraries also hosted a “meet and greet” with Aram on February 23, where he shared his work as a filmmaker and showed a few clips from the film.

Aram began his career as a writer. He won the El Caballo de Coral, Premio Nacional FEU prize and the Pinos Nuevos award which led him to publish his book La gente sí se da cuenta (2007). In 2005 he graduated from the University of Havana with a degree in Communication and started to work as a screenwriter and director at the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (ICAIC). He has participated in artist residencies in Cuba, Mexico and the United States. His fiction productions include Recursion (2012), Relief (2013), and Cat (2016), which have garnered numerous awards.  You can watch clips from his films here.

This was not Aram’s first time at W&M.  During the summer of 2010, Aram became the inaugural Swem Media Artist in Residence.  During that summer, Aram shared his documentary “Ex-Generación”, a film about Cubans who have migrated to Mexico City, and which was subtitled by W&M students in Prof. Stock’s New Media Workshop.