IU Spanish language performance group to take the stage this weekend
One of the coolest things about IU Bloomington is the proliferation of arts groups and arts events on campus. OK, fine, maybe I’m just biased — but you have to admit there’s so much to do, see and experience here.
Members of IU’s Grupo de Teatro VIDA during rehearsal of “La Quinta Temporada.” Photo by Israel Fernando Herrera.
That includes Grupo de Teatro VIDA, a Spanish-language theater performance group that produces plays aimed at fostering cultural understanding and promoting the richness of Hispanic culture and expression. Open to both native and non-native speakers, the group is sponsored by the IU Department of Spanish and Portuguese, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, the IU Student Association, the Office of the Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Multicultural Affairs, the Commission on Multicultural Understanding and La Casa.
This year’s show “Suspicion and Desire,” or “Deseos y recelos,” will be 8 p.m. today, Feb. 21, and Feb. 22 at the Bloomington Playwrights Project, and at 8 p.m. March 28 and 29 at IndyFringe. Admission is free and open to the public for all performances.
The group collaborated with local Academy of Science and Entrepreneurship Spanish teacher Melissa Tesoroni Mitra, whose high school students wrote original Spanish language skits; as well as the group’s founder Marda Rose, now a faculty member at IUPUI, who will direct a contemporary Spanish piece.
“We’ve also included a suspenseful Ecuadorian piece called ‘El Tigre’ by Demetrio Aguilera Malta, in which Aguayo, played by junior Andrew Shively, suspects he is doomed to be eaten by a tiger,” group president and third-year doctoral student Hannah Agauas told Art at IU via email. “In addition to being a visceral piece that asks us to examine the prominence of fear as a motive in our own lives, if you’re looking for it, you might find a social commentary on the condition of the rural working class and imperial power dynamics.”
The group will also perform the Guatemalan work “El tamal de nochebuena,” as well as a piece performed predominantly in English titled “Quinta temporada.”
Tags: Bloomington Playwrights Project, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, Commission on Multicultural Understanding, Equity and Multicultural Affairs, Grupo de Teatro Vida, IndyFringe, IU Department of Spanish and Portuguese, IU Student Association, La Casa, Office of the Vice President for Diversity
