The Silversides Theatre Artists Series 2016 presents Canadian actor and playwright Monique Mojica in a talk, "Inscripted Earth: embodiment of place as research, process and performance."
Monique Mojica will describe her evolving process of creating an Indigenous dramaturgy rooted in land-based embodied research. This presentation looks specifically at work begun in 2011 (along with a collaborative team of Indigenous artists) and focuses on effigy mounds and earthworks as the first literary structures on this land.
Monique’s first play Princess Pocahontas and the Blue Spots was produced in 1990 and is widely taught in curricula internationally. She was a co-founder of Turtle Gals Performance Ensemble with whom she created The Scrubbing Project, the Dora nominated The Triple Truth and The Only Good Indian. In 2007, she founded Chocolate Woman Collective to develop the play Chocolate Woman Dreams the Milky Way, a performance created by devising a dramaturgy specific to Guna cultural aesthetics, story narrative and literary structure.
Monique has taught Indigenous Theatre in theory, process and practice at the University of Illinois, the Institute of American Indian Arts, McMaster University and is a former co- director of the Centre for Indigenous Theatre. She has lectured on embodied research and taught embodied performance workshops throughout Canada, the U.S., Latin America and Europe.
She was most recently seen onstage in Kaha:wi Dance Theatre’s world premiere of Re-Quickening choreographed by Santee Smith and with the National Arts Centre Orchestra in I lost my Talk as part of the Life Reflected series.
Upcoming projects include Side Show Freaks & Circus Injuns co-written with Choctaw playwright, LeAnne Howe and directed by Jorge Luis Morejón with an illustrious collaborative team of Indigenous artists from diverse disciplines.