Sharing Our Stories: Cara Mía Theatre’s 2024-25 season strengthens connection across borders

Lindsey Wilson·
Dallas/Ft WorthTheater
·

It’s the largest Latinx theater company in Texas, but Dallas’s Cara Mía Theatre is making waves that ripple far outside the Lone Star State. During its 2023-24 season alone, the 1996-founded Dallas company toured three of its original plays: Crystal City 1969 in San Antonio, Orígenes in Mexico City, and Ursula or let yourself go with the wind in Bogota and Chía, Colombia.

“After touring these three productions last year, I could see that in a world that feels increasingly more divided, the need for artists and communities from different cultures to connect and share their art is more urgent than ever,” says Cara Mía’s artistic director David Lozano, who has been leading the company since 2002.

And so they’re bringing back the Latinidades Festival & Symposium for a fifth year, as the first offering in their 2024-25 season.

The international fest is expanding from three productions to 11, which use live theater, dance, music, and poetry to celebrate diverse Latin American voices. From Sept. 26-Oct. 13, 2024, the Latino Cultural Center will host productions hailing from Dallas, San Francisco, Miami, Barcelona, Mexico City, Bogotá, and San Juan. The season launches with the acclaimed San Francisco-based troupe La Mezcla in Ghostly Labor, which explores the labor history in the US-Mexico borderlands. The multidisciplinary performance runs Sept. 26-28.

New this year is the inaugural Latinidades Arts Symposium, subtitled “Sustaining the Arts through Community Development,” and being held from Oct. 3-5. Designed to support both arts organizations and independent artists, the symposium will explore how arts can thrive during turbulent times, with emphasis on local community engagement and dynamic partnerships. Topics will include audience building, collaborations, community as a campus, working with city government, and how funders can partner with artists and arts organizations. Guest speakers include the former director of Dallas Office of Cultural Affairs, Margie Reese; visual artist and community activist Vicki Meek; and Cara Mía’s playwright in residence, Virginia Grise.

“While at the International Festival of Women on Stage for Peace in Bogotá, I spoke with the director of Casa de las Américas in Havana,” says Lozano. “Our conversation was a reminder of the challenges we face in cultural exchange, particularly the barriers that prevent artists from sharing their work across borders. Yet, while participating in a festival with 86 other theater companies, it also highlighted the immense value of these exchanges in enriching our communities and expanding our perspectives. The people of the United States badly need to know and experience the people and the art of other countries … especially now.”

Following the festival, a crowd favorite returns Feb. 8-23, 2025. Tina’s Journey / El Viaje de Tina, by Berta Hiriart, uses contemporary and Mexican folk masks to introduce us to a young girl crossing the U.S.-Mexico border around the Day of the Dead holidays. For safe-keeping, Tina takes a piece of her native land in her pocket and her personal history in her heart. She also leaves a trail of marigolds for her ancestors to safely follow her family across the border. However, Tina’s new reality in the United States makes her ill to the edge of death. She believes that her past has abandoned her, but her eldest ancestor helps her understand that the coexistence of the two cultures will form part of her new identity.

The play is appropriate for all ages and performed in Spanish and English with subtitles, making an incredibly important—and timely—issue truly accessible for everyone.

“It speaks to the relationships that we have with family across borders. Family can be separated by walls, language barriers, and prejudice, but how tradition and culture can bring us together is an essential theme of Tina‘s Journey, and of this season,” Lozano says. “Very importantly, we are bringing Tina‘s Journey back because it’s important for our theater to continue the tradition of mask performance. I like to say that we are a casa de la máscara, a home for the mask, where our mentor Alicia Martinez Alvarez can come to teach and direct.”

Closing out the season is a staged reading of a new play with music on July 26, 2025. It’s created in partnership with Voces Oral History Center and the Center for Mexican American Studies at UT Austin.

“Mariachi is a working title for the devised play, the staged reading of which will begin a two-year journey with a premiere in the spring of 2026,” reveals Lozano. “I’m excited to tell the story because we’re going to uplift the story of Texas mariachi and their relationship with these epic songs from Mexico.”

From new works to old favorites to keeping the tradition of masks alive, Cara Mía’s new season juggles a lot of priorities. But most important is keeping the river of respect and ideas flowing around the globe.

“Art has the power to bridge divides and foster understanding,” Lozano says. “By connecting with artists from around the world, we in the United States must play a vital role in promoting peace and mutual respect. It is through these cultural exchanges that we lay the foundation for a more peaceful and inclusive future.”

—LINDSEY WILSON

Lindsey Wilson

Lindsey Wilson is a Dallas-based arts writer and critic with a journalism master's from Syracuse University and an undying love for chips and salsa. When not at the theater (which is rare), she enjoys reading, playing with her dogs, and traveling. Photo by Jeffrey Hummel.