This summer, Brava! For Women in the Arts will premiere one film and two plays as part of the theater’s Summer of Xicanas series. Two of the events examine Argentina’s Dirty War, a period in the 70s and 80s when the country’s military dictatorship persecuted tens of thousands suspected political opponents.
The first is the film “Observando al Observador (Observing the Observer)”, which premieres in the United States on June 21. The documentary is the work of first-time director Malena Juanatey, who followed United States citizens Olga Talamante and Patricia Erb in the aftermath of their torture in Argentina during the period.
In the play “Ghost Limb”, which premieres on July 6th and runs until the 23rd, playwright Marisela Treviño Orta’s uses the Dirty War to reimagine the Greek myth of Persephone; when one woman’s son is “disappeared” by the government — a tactic often used during that period, when suspected political dissident often went missing — winter falls over the world.
In August, the theater will produce “The Mathematics of Love,” a play written and directed by Cherríe Moraga with Ricardo Bracho, in which a Mexican woman suffering from Alzheimer’s and her husband await their son in the lobby of a Los Angeles Hotel.