INTERVIEW: Gisela Cardenas brings ‘Herstory’ to Ice Factory Festival
Photo: Gisela Cardenas is the creator and director of Herstory. Photo courtesy of the artist / Provided by DARR Publicity with permission.
Herstory, the new theatrical piece created and directed by Gisela Cardenas, is set to play the Ice Factory Festival at the New Ohio Theatre in New York City. In-person performances run Aug. 4-7, according to press notes, which must be welcome news to the cast and creators of this unique theatrical offering.
Cardenas’ show, co-created by the cast members Laura Butler-Levitt and Heather Hollingsworth, was written for the stage by Javier Antonio González, with set and costume design by Peiyi Wong. The play tells the story of a female artist who dies and leaves her inheritance to two young women. These two characters never knew the artist in life, so they don’t quite understand why they would be the beneficiaries. The one catch is that in order to accept the gift, they must agree to create an artistic work together.
Herstory, presented by In Tandem Lab, is influenced and inspired by the female character Miranda found in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest. To better understand these connections, Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with Cardenas. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
How did the creation process work between you and your collaborators?
We have known each other for quite some time. As graduates from the same theater program, we share a common language that allows us to be in the rehearsal room and engage in physical and intellectual conversations without separating one aspect from the other.
A common phrase that anyone attending our rehearsals can hear is “talking and doing,” which comes from the conviction that thoughts and ideas are generated and trigger physical impulses.
At the same time, we want to live outside the culture of perfection that is scared of failure. Mistakes or bad ideas are opportunities to excavate deeper through the external layers imposed by society in our search for transformative kernels. Our creative process embraces this almost as a method. It has become very popular inside our process to have our “five minutes of bad ideas,” after which many good ones have appeared.
Our work is nurtured by a deep archetypal and mythological exploration of alternative narrative structures aiming at exploring non-traditional ways of creating performances. We strive to dive inside and broaden the universal drama that emerges from these journeys, which allows us to trigger poetic debates that connect the present and propel it to the future.
Our team is composed of very diverse individuals, some of whom were born here in the U.S. and others who have made this country our second home. Despite the geographical differences, what amazes us are all the stories in our past that repeat. For example, the woman escaping a family that wants to dictate who she marries, or the one that comes seeking a better future, or the one who comes here seeking to be who she cannot be where she was born. Wherever we were born, it is surprising that along the ages, there is this constant sense of imprisonment we feel connected to at In Tandem Lab.
What do you think the piece says about the artistic process?
This piece does not exactly address the creative process per se. Although we were inspired overall by a female painter unknown until today that probably was one of the first surrealist paintings, it is more focused on the possible histories of women we haven’t seen enough on stage.
In particular, Herstory was born from the necessity of having a conversation about women and their silenced histories that have never come to life. Either because they never were given space to exist or because even if they existed, society has been reluctant to provide us with a platform.
Herstory is about the different prisons or islands that women have been subjected to in specific points in the West. How much of the same discourse destined to control, encase or define who we — female-identifying people — are as subjects have been defining our stories? How much does it define us still today?
How important are stories that are passed down from one generation to another — whether this happens in families, cultures, neighborhoods?
Stories are memory. Being able to tell one story that you inherit from your family is essential to create your identity as a human, but most importantly, daring to imagine them is crucial. And here we are talking about the role of theater as an imagination machine that can offer possibilities and the opportunity to change reality by amplifying our perception of it. We strongly believe that if we can imagine it, then it is possible.
Herstory imagines the possibility that these two women have existed in the past, live in the present, and — under a similar shape — might exist in the future. Imprisonment has changed over the years, but we still suffer from some form of imprisonment.
What is the connection between the play and the work of William Shakespeare?
We, as most theater people, take Shakespeare as the equivalent of ballet for dancers. We think it is essential to know his work, train with his work, but is it still pertinent to stage his work today? I don’t believe we have an answer yet. We are still living inside the question.
Shakespeare’s Tempest was a source for this play, specifically, the question regarding Miranda’s future once she arrives in Naples. How will a woman, who used to roam free in a natural landscape wearing no shoes or corsets, … react to the restriction of the court’s outfits? But more importantly, what will happen to this well-educated woman once she assumes her role in Naples, where nothing but giving birth to an heir will be expected from her?
We connected these questions with the history of witch hunts and imagined Miranda’s possible future. By following this thread, we gradually found crossing time and space and arriving at the closest prison we had lived: The pandemic, which was when we originally created the work.
When did you first fall in love with theater?
Theater has always been a home for me. I guess my enjoyment with it started as soon as I discovered how to play. Looking back and after so many years, play is the essential force behind the work I do. It has become over the years what keeps me connected to the theater.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Herstory, created and directed by Gisela Cardenas, will play Aug. 4-7 at the Ice Factory Festival at the New Ohio Theatre at 154 Christopher St. in New York City. Click here for more information and tickets.
