Hogfish’s Farm to Stage: LatinX Perspectives in the Performing Arts

Hogfish & SPACE present three dynamic, next-generation performers who share their perspective on the Latinx experience in America today through poetry, song, and dance.

The 2023 Hogfish artists-in-residence will share selections of their works in progress. Afterwards, we will invite feedback from the audience and the artists through a guided Q&A session with Hogfish directors Matt & Edwin Cahill searching for the next best steps in their work’s development.

Hogfish is a regenerative arts and artist training company at the historic Beckett Castle on the coast of Maine. They are dedicated to restoring creative and physical health to individuals, our communities, and our earth.

Rachel Hurtado Dunbar

“A Través de Estos Ojos – La Frontera through my eyes”

A reading of poems on life in the borderland. 

Cynthia Lópéz Pérez

“Canciones de mi tierra” showcases the song cycle “Cuatro Canciones en Nahuatl” by Salvador Moreno. Nahuatl is an Indigenous language that has been spoken in Mexico since at least the seventh century, prior to colonization. There are many words in Spanish spoken in Mexico that are heavily influenced by Nahuatl, and many famous cities and landmarks still keep their native names such as Xochimilco or Chapultepec. The language is beautiful and sacred to Cynthia’s own Indigenous ancestry and identity. This project aims to amplify works that focus on Indigenous languages and their preservation. 

Amelia Rose Estrada

Como Las Hortensias (Like the Hydrangea Flowers) explores themes of Dominicanidad, intergenerational relationality, and the laboring Caribbean woman through the story of Amelia’s grandmother, Minica’s life. Minica grew up in Bonao, a small city in the Cibao region of the Dominican Republic. Throughout her childhood and teenage years, she lived with her aunts and worked as a maid in return for room and board. When she immigrated to the U.S., she worked as a seamstress in New York, married in her early twenties, and had five children. She navigated the complicated realities of being an immigrant, non-English speaking, Caribbean woman living in the U.S. This performance work considers how gender-based labor and violence often intersect in the body. Critically, Amelia inserts pleasure and desire into the work to reintroduce agency and joy into histories marked by trauma, capitalism, and coloniality. She is interested in how the body in motion can ask questions about labor, sexuality, immigration, and how systems like capitalism, racism, and patriarchy impact Latina women in the diaspora. 

BIOS

Rachel Hurtado Dunbar is a Mezzo-Soprano from El Paso, Texas who enjoys performing the music of Spain and Latin America. She most recently performed El Amor Brujo with the Indiana University Chamber Orchestra and The Morpheus Quartet with New Voices Opera. Additional performances include Indiana University’s Latin-X Artist Showcase (2021-22) and the Bolcom Cabaret Songs with the University of Hawaii Wind Ensemble (2020). As a member of the Mae Z. Orvis Opera Studio, Ms. Dunbar sang with the Hawaii Opera Theatre in their productions of Le Nozze di Figaro (2020), Romeo et Juliette (2018), and Eugene Onegin (2017). Winner of the Dorothy Lincoln Smith Classical Voice Award, Ms. Dunbar is an accomplished classical singer.  However, she continues to sing and play a wide range of contemporary music including pop, rock, r&b, and ranchera.  When she isn’t performing, she enjoys teaching and mariachi coaching. Ms. Dunbar graduated with a B.A. from BYU-Hawaii and an M.M. from the University of Hawaii. She is currently pursuing a D.M. in Vocal Performance at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music where she is a student of Dr. Brian Gill. 

Praised for her “beautifully free and full upper register” (Voce di Meche) Compton-born Xicana soprano, Cynthia López-Pérez, is an avid performer of both standard and new repertoire, specializing in Latinx works and programming. Upcoming performances include Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro) with the Boston Festival Orchestra and NEMPAC Opera Project and “Soul Echoes”, a work based on sworn declarations by child migrants by J.E. Hernandez with ConcertiaHTX and Project Amplify. Ms. López-Pérez’s recent performances include Natalia (Caravana de Mujeres), Maria (West Side Story), and Mimì (La bohème) with MassOpera; Leonore (Fidelio) with Promenade Opera Project; Despina (Così fan tutte) and Blanche (Dialogues des Carmélites) with Boston Conservatory Opera; Nannetta (Falstaff) with Martina Arroyo Prelude to Performance; and Susanna (Le Nozze di Figaro) with The Ohio State University Lyric and Opera Theater. Ms. López-Pérez has had the pleasure of working with local Boston companies such as MassOpera, NEMPAC Opera Project, Promenade Opera Project, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, Odyssey Opera, and OperaHub. Ms. López-Pérez completed her graduate studies at Boston Conservatory, where she was the recipient of the Yolanda Cerreta Pangaro Scholarship, earning her degree in Opera Performance under the tutelage of Dr. Rebecca Folsom. As an arts advocate, she has had the pleasure of combining her work as a professional in the arts with her passion for advocacy through concert work, lectures, panel discussions, community outreach, and philanthropy. 

Amelia Rose Estrada is a queer, Latina interdisciplinary artist and scholar. As a performance maker, she is interested in crafting work that speaks to Dominicanidad, gender, queerness, and intergenerational ancestral relationality. Her choreography has been presented at the Spark Theater Festival NYC, Tufts University, FilmFest by Rogue Dancer: h2o Edition, the Koresh Artist Showcase and at Cuerpo Mediado Festival de Videodanza in Rosario, Argentina. In addition to her individual projects, Amelia makes lesbian dance theater with her artistic partner, Elle Jansen, under the company name MELLE. She is currently a PhD student at Tufts University in the Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies Department. Her current research focuses on the intersection of dance, race, and nation in the Dominican Republic. She performs as a freelance dancer and has had the pleasure of dancing with Joy Clark, Eventual Dance Company, Catherine Stiller, Brian Sanders’ JUNK, Megan Flynn Dance Company, and Leilani Chirino Dance and Drum Ensemble, among others. She graduated Summa Cum Laude from Swarthmore College with a B.A. in Dance and Classical Studies.