Cultivating Meaningful Work
Patricia’s work explores the question of how can we encourage dialogue between communities and create transformation through art.
Creating.
PRODUCING & COLLABORATIONS
Remote L.A. This pedestrian-based live art experience had groups of 50 people swarming out into L.A. on a guided audio tour. Created in collaboration with international documentary theatre team Rimini Protokoll. A computer-generated voice set folks out on a trail, guiding the group’s movements in real time. We aimed to reveal "secret L.A.," and the group was given tasks—take the Metro, travel at a new pace. Participants were provided with a soundtrack to the streets, sights, and rooftops of L.A. and were not just audience members but active creators.
The Greek Trilogy of Luis Alfaro.
I produced readings of The Greek Trilogy written by MacArthur Fellow Luis Alfaro at Center Theatre Group in partnership with the Getty Museum. Each of these Chicanx adaptations of classic Greek plays, Electricidad, Oedipus El Rey, and Mojada were streamed online and filmed at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. Alfaro's award-winning trilogy of plays transplant themes of the ancient Greek tragedies of Electra, Oedipus the King, and Medea into the 21st -century streets of Los Angeles, giving voice to the concerns of the Chicanx and wider Latinx communities.
Soapbox. While working as a barista at Starbucks I had a desire to showcase my fellow baristas’ amazing talents. So often retail employees are not seen much further than the apron they wear or the food they serve. I created and produced for 7 years an interdisciplinary arts festival including visual, dance, performance and artisan crafts featuring annually over fifty retail employees including securing and coordinating sponsorship with Starbucks Coffee Company. It helped anchor my journey in producing and my passion for lifting up artists.
Kristina Wong For Public Office. I co-produced this incredible piece written and performed by Kristina Wong and directed by Diana Wyenn. It streamed on Center Theatre Group’s Digital Stage and was filmed at the Kirk Douglas Theatre. Kristina Wong for Public Office is a comedic performance that crosses the aesthetics of campaign rallies, church revivals, and solo theater shows to tell the story of what it means to run for local office, the history of voting, and the impact artists can have on democracy. Kristina is an actual elected representative of Koreatown, Los Angeles.
Community as Creators. A two-year multi prong project that worked with El Teatro Campesino and artist Jerry Quickley to explore different artistic aesthetics starting with lifting up the community. Popol Vuh: Heart of Heaven worked with Boyle Heights residents and culminated at Grand Park playing to crowds of hundreds, incorporating puppetry, music and pageantry. Through the Looking Glass played in Leimert Park, Montebello and at the KDT and centered stories around police violence, immigration, assumptions of the unknown, and community resiliency.
Holding Space.
FACILITATION
Los Angeles Performance Practice is an organization founded by Miranda Wright, devoted to the production/presentation of contemporary performance by artists whose work advances and challenges multi-disciplinary artistic practices. In June 2020, Miranda invited me to facilitate a conversation with 8 incredible Los Angeles artists as they shared their current creative needs and curiosities from decolonization, resiliency, to the microfauna growing on all of us. Artists included: Milka Djordjevich, Jessica Emmanuel, Joel Garcia, Miwa Matreyek, Alexandra Meda, Anna Luisa Petrisko, DeLanna Studi, and Kristina Wong.
Performance in the Midst of Radical Change Panel. In December 2020, I was invited by the incomparable theater maker Jessica Hanna to join a panel conversation about art and action in a changing world hosted by the Skirball Cultural Center. We discussed how our artistic practices have adjusted due to restrictions on in-person gatherings, moving to distanced artmaking and exploration, and what will stick with us when we reopen. I was honored to share space with choreographer Ryan Heffington, comedian and elected official Kristina Wong; and storyteller Bruce Lemon.
Celebrating the Legacy Lessons of Diane Rodriguez. At the Latinx Theatre Alliance of Los Angeles’ (LTA/LA) first convening in 2013, legendary theatre artist, Diane Rodriguez, gave a rousing keynote to artists about the lessons she had learned along her own path. After losing Diane earlier this year to cancer, her family and friends reflected on her wisdom and the urgency and relevancy behind her words for today at the opening for LTA/LA’s 2020 Convening. I facilitated, on behalf of Team Diane, this panel live streamed on HowlRound. I am so honored to carry forward Diane’s legacy and impact with for years to come.
NET Community Forum: Beginning to Heal Through Connection. On January 22nd, NET hosted a Community Forum which I facilitated in my new role as Director of Programming and Engagement. As we turn towards reopening, NET is mindful of the role ensemble can and needs to play in healing inside our own community and with broader society. We heard from a group of our Spring 2020 NET/TEN Remote Connection Mini-Grants recipients about the activities they embarked on last year and then opened up the discussion to dialogue with one another.
Goal Setting Workshops. For several years, in partnership with my dear friend Elizabeth Leonard, we hosted goal setting, values clarification, and visioning workshops at the start of each year. We center people in reflection of their accomplishments from the previous year and guide them through exercises to dream and set realistic achievable goals for the year ahead. Throughout the day we introduce various self-awareness tools and anchor the work through hands-on creativity. I continue to offer values clarification and goal exploration workshops. For 2021, we went digital on Zoom with a small group.
In Service of Justice.
EQUITY & ANTI-RACISM WORK
Culture Shift. A brilliant colleague and friend, Katrina Frye, invited me to collaborate as a facilitator to work alongside several clients on their anti-racism and equity commitments under her business moniker Culture Shift. She works with all different types of organizations to further dialogue around intersectionality, social location, and instilling equity practices. The approach is to center the folks of color in these organizations and lift up their needs while sharing strategies for the organizations to implement fundamental anti-racist policies and practices.
artEquity provides tools, resources, and training at the intersection of art and activism. artEquity offers training and consulting services to individuals and organizations on creating and sustaining a culture of equity and inclusion through the arts and culture.
I am a National Facilitator Training alum. Just wrapped the webinar series BIPOC Surviving Predominantly White Institutions. Each session had around five hundred participants and we repeated the series. Also, recently was on the team for the BIPOC Leadership Circle.
March For Our Lives. The mission of March For Our Lives is to harness the power of young people across the country to fight for sensible gun violence prevention policies that save lives. I strongly believe in the work they do and the national movement they have put into action as a result of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida on February 14, 2018. They demand bold action to end the gun violence epidemic. I was a co-facilitator for their staff retreat in 2019.