Applying a Decolonial Theatre Practice with Nadia Garzón

Nadia Garzón: I studied theatre in Bogotá, acting, and then I came to Orlando. And I was like, “I’m going to do acting because I don’t know what else to do.” And funny enough, they wouldn’t accept me for the BFA, so I ended up having to do a BA. Mind you, I had already done professional theatre and had a lot more skills than any of my classmates, but because I was a person of color and I had an accent, Latina, etc., there was no place for me. And there were no classes about Latin American theatre. There was no information about theatre for social change—that was unheard of. So, I started to try to find ways in which I could connect this desire to make a difference in my craft.

Yura Sapi: You’re listening to Building Our Own Tables, a podcast produced for HowlRound Theatre Commons, a free and open platform for theatremakers worldwide. I’m your host, Yura Sapi, founder of multiple organizations, including LiberArte, a nonprofit nurturing artists for liberated futures; Protectores de La Tierra, a farm and food sovereignty initiative based out of Colombia; Balistikal, an LGBTQ+ healing and art space for communities in Latin America. And through all my programs, workshops, coaching, and this podcast, I’ve helped countless founders and leaders unleash their brilliance and build thriving movements. In this podcast, we share visionary solutions, stories, and snapshots to support you as a leader on your own journey of creation and transformation.

This fifth season is especially meaningful. I’m recording while eight months pregnant, and this experience of bringing a new life into the world has brought a deeper opportunity for lessons in leadership, in legacy, and in creation, all of which I’m sharing in this season alongside the powerful voices you’ll hear from. You’ll hear extraordinary founders building their own tables for their communities, their lineages, and for the planet in this evolutionary time. You are here for a reason, and I’m honored to be on this journey with you. So, stay tuned and enjoy.

Welcome to the Building Our Own Tables podcast, pulling up a seat to our liberation. Today I’m joined with the wonderful Nadia Garzón. Thank you so much for being here today.

Nadia: Thank you so much for inviting me. So lovely to be here and share with you.

Yura: Yeah. So you are a Latina, immigrant, queer, feminist, woman of color. You’re the founder and executive director of Descolonizarte Teatro, which is a professional Latinx theatre organization centering Latinx, immigrant, and LGBTQ+ identities, and all of their intersections, based out of Orlando, Florida. And you have an emphasis on this idea of theatre for social change, theatre as a tool for decolonization and resistance. And your work centers around this belief that our bodies are crucial for empathy, connection, knowledge, and healing. And so, you use practices such as nonviolent communication and Theatre of the Oppressed, and you work in the US as well as in other countries like Guatemala, Brazil, Nicaragua, Australia, Colombia, and México. Amazing, yeah. And then just so we all acknowledge and share the love, we got connected through being part of the NALAC, the National Association of Latino Arts and Cultures, Leadership Institute and community. So great to be with you today. Would love to get into it and hear more about your story. What inspired you to start building your own table that is Descolonizarte Teatro?

Nadia: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me, and I’m so excited. I literally just came back from the Leadership Institute a week ago, so it’s really fresh. So, I appreciate the opportunity, and I appreciate meeting you through them. I’m grateful. Descolonizarte Teatro is born out of the need for spaces and representation. And I had been doing theatre for a very long time, probably as a child, did my first professional play in Colombia at age sixteen. Theatre was my thing. I was like, “This is what I’m doing.” I had no idea that there were other options for me. And when I moved to the States, we went to New York first, but I didn’t really get to live there much. And then we moved to Florida, and I found myself in central Florida, in Orlando.

And there was nothing for me. Literally nobody wanted me, nobody was interested in my work, nobody was interested in my acting skills. It was just like I went from doing professional theatre to being like a we-don’t-know-what-to-do-with-you situation. So, it was really shocking and difficult for me. I think I went through a process that happens to a lot of immigrants, which is realizing that you become a person of color when you come to the United States, whether you have been seen or treated as a person of color in your country or not. I think that—and this is also kind of part of how the name Desco comes around—I think colonization did a really good job, they did such a great job. We internalized all of these ideas and concepts, and we believe them so strongly. And so, when I came here, I went through a process of decolonizing in the sense that I really thought I had more in common with white people when I arrived.

And I also was shocked to realize, “Oh, what do you mean you don’t want me in these spaces? What do you mean you don’t want me on your theatre? What do you mean I can’t do Shakespeare because I have an accent and because I look the way I look?” It was pretty shocking and difficult situation for me. I have to explain that Orlando is not Miami. A lot of people when I say I’m in Florida and I’m in Orlando, people think Miami. They’re like, “Oh, but there’s so many Latinos and so much theatre and this and that.” But it’s not the same, and Orlando is its own thing. And I was lucky to meet people that were doing theatre in Spanish, but it was not common. It has not been common until just a few years ago.

And just to give you some information so people understand what Orlando is like, there is no Latinx-owned theatre venue in central Florida at all. Call it Desco for short, kind of comes from that need to have the spaces, the places to do the theatre that I wanted to do. I was able to build my career in acting with my accent and with my Latinidad and my Latina-looking everything. But it was difficult. And I started to get tired of typecasting, and I started to get tired that I wanted to do other things that were interesting, and they were not doing them. And so I didn’t know how to do them because I was like, “They’re not doing that. I always have to do the typecasted, right? I have to be the maid or drug dealer, or I have to be the feisty, fiery Latina, and that’s about all I can do.”

And so I just got to a point where I was like, “Let’s create our own,” like you said, let’s build our own table where not only we can provide programming that where people see themselves reflected, but also where I can do stuff. When people said, “Did you do this? Are you going to be in all your stuff?” Yes, because one of the reasons was I wanted to act. I wanted to direct. I wanted to produce the things I wanted to do and in turn give that opportunity to other people.

Yura: Beautiful. How has the journey evolved over time?

Nadia: Yeah, it’s been really interesting, because I think I always had this idea that I wanted to have a theatre organization. But it wasn’t clear to me exactly what kind of theatre organization it was going to be. And again, as part of my process of arriving and understanding myself as a person of color, as a person who has ancestors who were colonized and enslaved, and as a person coming from Latin America and understanding the United States intervention, what the history of Latin American is and opening my eyes to all of this, which was not as common to hear about, I think. I came as a teen, and I don’t think that was something I was thinking about, because I was a teenager. I was worried about other things.

But in my process, in learning about all of this, I think that activism crossed my path, so because I began to meet immigrants and learn their stories. We didn’t have Instagram or Facebook. It wasn’t common to know that people were crossing the desert, that people were dying, that people were being scammed to try to get their papers, that people were dehumanized. That was not common knowledge. And I started meeting people who were in these situations and became an activist.

And it is parallel to some of my activities in Bogotá, Colombia, where I feel like the school that I went to had a lot of social consciousness. And I remember volunteering in the favelas and being very aware of these differences since I was twelve years old. But I think there was something that shifted, right? Becoming an activist and starting to work with vulnerable populations, I began to wonder how to use my art to make a difference. And this was not clear, because, again, in Orlando… So I studied theatre in Bogotá, acting, and then I came to Orlando, and I was like, “I’m going to do acting, because I don’t know what else to do.” And funny enough, they wouldn’t accept me for the BFA, so I ended up having to do a BA. Mind you, I had already done professional theatre and had a lot more skills than any of my classmates, but because I was a person of color and I had an accent, Latina, etc., there was no place for me. And there were no classes about Latin American theatre. There was no information about theatre for social change—that was unheard of. So, I started to try to find ways in which I could connect this desire to make a difference in my craft. In that path I found sociology, which I ended up doing a double major in sociology. Because it crossed my path, and I thought, “This seems like something that I can definitely use that will help me inform my work.” And it absolutely did. It just changed the way I looked at the world, until these days very relevant to me.

And I think over time it became more and more clear that what I wanted to do, how I wanted to do theatre was a theatre that would help create that change in the world. And even when I found it, even with the name and everything, it was still shaping. I called a bunch of people, and I said, “I like working with you, can you come and work on this?” And I remember a couple of the people were like, “That’s too political. My name is already too political.” And I thought that was so interesting. And I was like, “If you know me, you know I’m political, because I’m an activist.” And everything that we do, as Boal would say, or human activities, political and more so theatre—and there is no way to separate. When we’re doing Latin American theatre in particular, there is no way to separate theatre and the political, it’s all one and the same.

And so, it’s been a process of defining more clearly what it means to be Desco and also bringing in the right people to carry the mission. Like I said, at the beginning it was like, “Oh, let me bring these people in who were lovely, who were important part of my life,” but who shared the theatre part, but didn’t necessarily all of them share the social change part. And in turn, as I was committed to the mission of our organization and to the name and to the work and how I wanted to do it, the right people started coming in. And the people who didn’t necessarily fit started leaving on their own. And I have to say that those have been those main shifts, right? Yes. What have been the changes? Those have been the main ones. And I’m so grateful now, because I have such an incredible team, and it’s an ensemble. And people are just like where I would like them to be in terms of understanding of what is it that we do.

Becoming an activist and starting to work with vulnerable populations, I began to wonder how to use my art to make a difference.

Yura: How do you nourish your team? What are some of the practices that you like to work with?

Nadia: I think one of the first thing is that we have an ensemble model, and it’s an ensemble model based on the way that I personally and another team member lived theatre when we were in Latin America. This is Ricky Avila, part of my team, and I’ve known him for twenty years now. And when we met, we did a little bit of theatre in Spanish for other groups and stuff. And one thing that we noticed a lot, and we were curious about was, it felt like it was different from the models that we had followed, right? People would call us, we would do something, and then we wouldn’t hear from them again. And usually it would be something like “So-and-so Presents.” It was the name of a person, and it just felt really interesting. And with time when I started Desco, we had a conversation and then we both realized, “Oh, of course, these are production companies.”

And we were not used to production companies. We were used to ensemble or sompañía teatral. And so, first way we nourish our team is that we have an ensemble. That means that we are not a production company. So people don’t come do a show and then they leave and we never see them again. But what we do is we have a group of people who work throughout the year together in different roles to bring the productions to life. Yes, I am the executive director, and a lot of the work as a small organization falls on me. When it comes to the productions themselves, we have a group of people who take on different roles. So, today you might be producing, but tomorrow you might be acting, but the day after you might be translating. We just do a lot of different things. And so that’s one of the ways. That supports my team in growing in learning different skills, in trying new things and also getting paid, especially as artists of color. And in particular we have, I think 95 percent of our team is immigrant and 95 percent is queer. It is not very common that queer Latinx immigrants are getting paid for being artists, so these are ways in which we nourish.

Plus in general we follow our mentality where, again, I might be the executive director, but when we meet I’m always like, “What do we do?” And I have to ask my team and everybody decides, and there’s certain things where everybody participates in decision-making. Even when we have creative stuff that we do together, it’s collective creation. So, we’re all supporting in that process. And it’s not like one person is, “This is what I saw, and this is what I want,” but it’s more of a, “How do we want to make it? How do we want to create it together?”

Yura: It sounds like this initial challenge around finding the right people paid off to work through that, because now with the right people you can have the right balance and ensemble style of leadership sharing.

Nadia: It was a little painful, I have to say, because it was confusing. And I didn’t know, “Am I going to get the right people?” And they require me to really be open-minded. I actually have a lot of musicians in my ensemble. That’s just the way it has been. We do have a couple of, “professional actors.” We’re all professional, and we always pay everybody, but we have only a couple of people who are professionally trained as actors. And the rest I have musicians, and I have a spoken word artist. And so, it also required me to be more open-minded and receptive to what life was bringing to me.

Yura: How do new people get involved?

Nadia: It’s actually so easy. I have to admit that at first when I started the organization I was like, “No, this is a team. And I don’t know the other people. We can’t let them in.” And one of the people who was working with me at the time, I said, “Oh, these people are writing. They want to get involved, but we don’t know them.” And I was so nervous. This was a project that had cos, so much effort to bring to fruition. And suddenly we were starting, just starting, and then I was like, “I’m not sure I’m ready to bring people in.” And this person was like, “What? But these people want to be involved. Why would you say no?” And then I didn’t have any answer to that. So I said, “Okay, fine, I will let them in.” And I did, and it was so lovely. I met lovely people.

From then on, what happens is basically people just say, “Hey, I want to get involved.” And I say, “Hey, let’s have a coffee, and tell me what you do, and we’ll talk about your skills. I’ll tell you about the organization. We’ll see if it’s a good match, and if it is, we’ll see what you can fit in and what kind of work you want to do.” And in that way many people have come to us. And also, people feel the flexibility of coming in and out, because many of us have very difficult and busy lives, but we are very open about you show up how you can and when you can, and people are always speaking up here and there.

Yura: Wonderful. Besides this aspect of the team and finding the right people, were there any other big challenges that you’ve encountered over the years?

Nadia: Absolutely. Let’s start with the fact that we launched in 2019. At the end of November 2019. October we did a pre-launch or whatever, but our official launch was November 2019. Little we know that the pandemic was going to come. So, that was a huge challenge. Because I felt there was this momentum that I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is the moment for the organization, that organization I’d be dreaming about.” Finally, DEI is everywhere, and we are a fad. I literally was like, “We’re a fad. This is going to be over soon. We need to ride the wave.” So I was like, “Let’s put the group together, let’s launch this organization.” So that was the first challenge that we faced was yeah, was not being able to ride that wave, but riding it and then falling quickly.

It was starting over when 2021 came around, plus 2021 we couldn’t even do a full year of programming. I remember we had to cancel stuff. We only had two events or something because the Delta variants and all of these things, so that was a challenge. And then, again, in Orlando the first grant for, specifically, for people of color by United Arts of Central Florida, which is the number one funder of artists in central Florida, was given in 2021. So before that we never had a grant specifically for people of color. And the theatres in town are historically white, center white-led. So, there was no opportunity for you create your organization. We created it, and we were like, “I don’t know how we’re going to do this.” I never thought we would get money. They did the first grant in 2021. And that’s just to say to show you how little support people of color and organizations, more organizations, the arts by people of color have. It's bad.

So that has been a huge challenge. Who supporting us? How do we get support? How do we get spaces? We don’t have a space, so we have to go around renting spaces, and our audiences often go back and forth, “Oh, I thought it was at this place, because this is where you were last time, but today we are at the other place.” Plus, the venues are not always available, and we don’t have that many. But there’s been a lot of shifts. But definitely funding has been a problem. The lack of support has been a problem. The fact that we provide services for identities that are stigmatized and also marginalized at the same time, underserved. So, also difficulty with that. So, I can talk about difficulties a lot.

Yura: How are you overcoming them?

Nadia: Yeah, different ways. I think community is going to be my first answer to this. Because my big community, and I was actually telling my cohort, the NALAC cohort during the Leadership Institute, is that my community has actually become the activist community. The queer Latinx community is my community and is where I feel the most relaxed, the most myself, the most just comfortable. And that’s because, again, the artist community, or the arts community, I should say, is heavily white, and also, believe it or not, rather conservative. Because, again, I’m in Orlando, Florida, so it’s rather conservative. Finding community there has been lovely, because not only we have our focus, which is on theatre for social change, but that is where we have, for instance, one of our main funders is not an arts organization, is the Contigo Fund, which funds basically service organizations and social change organizations and is, I believe, the largest LGBTQ+ funder of people of color, I think, in the United States, or at least in the South or somewhere. And they’re huge, but we’re the only one of the grants that they have that is the Movement and Power [Building] Grant. We’re the only arts or have been the only arts organization to get it. So that’s one of the ways is we have become very clear about what we do and very clear about our mission, and we collaborate and co-create with these other organizations that are more activist service organizations, immigrant, queer organizations, HIV organizations, people with disabilities. And this is how we’ve overcome some of these challenges of partnering up or finding some of the funds. So, that would be one, I think that’s really key for me.

Yura: Yeah. Kind of tapping into resources, support systems, people and groups outside of this theatre or arts space, which sounds like also what you did even in your college studies that you were able to do and found power in and even with some of the early collaborators.

Nadia: One hundred percent. I think that also, yeah, it has shaped my whole history throughout.

Yura: Because it makes sense: If you want to decolonize theatre you’re probably not going to get people who are indoctrinated in the colonized theatres—

Nadia: One hundred percent.

Yura: ... as the only people part of it. Yeah.

Nadia: I had a terrible time doing my theatre degree. I was like, “What am I going to do? I’m going to do theatre.” And then I was like, “What have I done?” I hated it. I felt terrible. I just wasn’t seen, wasn’t appreciated, wasn’t valued. It was extremely white. None of the professors looked like me. Nobody talked about Latin American theatre. It was like nobody has theatre, except white people. So yeah, so I think that you’re right. It makes sense that my instinct was always and has been and still is to always disassociate myself with other people that are not necessarily in these circles, that don’t think that the only theatre that exists is Shakespeare, or that don’t think that the only way you can know is if you go to the university, all of these different ways to do it.

Yura: And they say rejection is protection. So, you weren’t meant to do the BFA, maybe it would have been even worse for you.

Nadia: I know. No, yeah, yeah. No, I think I had enough already with just doing the BA. It was like enough. I always think like, “I wish some of those professors would remember me,” because it would be awesome to be like, “Look at what I’ve done.”

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What are you dreaming into being right now? What is this future that you’re building towards?

Nadia: For the world. The world is hurting so much. I think that we are, I want to say “all”— I’m going to include all of us—dreaming out this world where we can live and be and have harmony, etc. Understanding how we’re connected, but also how we need each other, how we’re human, but also, without our Mother Earth we can’t be here. And all the creatures on this planet deserve dignity and love and care. And yes, so I dream of that. And for Desco, and personally, so I think has been a huge undertaking for me. I was working full-time, also running the organization basically full-time. So, put all the hours together, I don’t know, maybe I was working at some point like eighty hours a week trying to get the organization to go, going to all of these events to network, but also trying to have a personal life, which wasn’t happening.

So, I think for me, I’ve been making a great effort to find more balance and to remind myself that while this is something beautiful that I want to do, it’s just part of who I am and part of my life, not my life. And to try to through the work also cultivate relationships, community, and to take care of myself, not this, “I’m going to pamper myself and do my nails,” but this really real self-care that really focuses on self-empathy, on regulating my nervous system, on connecting to other creatures. On having the ability to just be without feeling like I have to be doing.

And so, I think that part of that has also become part of what we’re doing with Desco. I want Desco to be, the dream is that Desco becomes sustainable, that this can be something that really opens up a lot of spaces and opportunities for artists. That it can become my full-time job, not just in hours, but in pay, that it can provide these opportunities to other people as well. That it can continue being this collective love on community and opportunity for healing and connection and understanding.

We work with such diverse communities, so we are constantly reminding people, being Latinx is not being one thing. But also, being Colombian is not being one thing. But also, you can be Latinx and also be an immigrant and also at the same time be queer; and also at the same time you can be undocumented; and also at the same time you can be first generation and not speak Spanish; and also at the same time, etc., etc. And I think that we’re working towards a beautiful reminder and that we’re all different, yet we share so much, and we have to be aware of these intersections that are within us. I love that in the work that we do we bring a farmworker next to a trans person next to a businessperson.

In the artist, too, because like I said,we’re very diverse and we work a lot with the community. We have people who are living with HIV and also people who might be a trans person. And also you might have somebody who’s a professional actor, but also musicians.

But in the audience, too, we intentionally craft the audience so that these connections happen. We make sure that we invite the Chamber of Commerce to come to the event at the same time that we invite the trans community, at the same time that we invite the farm workers, which we serve and have a huge population here in central Florida, and we make sure these different identities are coming together so they can hear from one another. We have these conversations after our events, and they can see each other and they can be like, “Oh, I was so scared about a trans person and now I have a trans person sitting next to me, because they just said they were a trans person. And wow, how do I feel?” I’m listening to them, and wow, the person who picks my food is sitting next to me. This is a farm worker. These are the people who we’re saying are taking our jobs and whatnot.

And so it’s really a bridge building, healing community. I think my dream is that we continue doing that and that our impact is stronger and wider, but that we become sustainable so that we all can do it. Because like I said, I was going through a lot of hours and starting to get burnt out, and I talked to my team, and I remember I said, “I don’t want to hate what I love. I don’t want to hate what I love because it’s too much. I want to make sure that I still love this.” I never dreamt of being an executive director. I wanted to be an actress, a director.

My creative part is always at odds with this admin stuff that I have to do, but I know I have to do it and I do it because I’m able to bring these things and services and these opportunities to others. But in the same way I feel like many of our artists have limited time, have difficulties, and they face a lot of different challenges, not just only because of the intersections that they’re part of, but also because of the consumeristic and capitalist and mentality and the way that we have to navigate. Sometimes it’s not even that we want to, but that we have to navigate the world sometimes. So, my dream would be that we can be part of this organization in a sustainable way, but also that people have to time to be part of it. And that they don’t feel bad about it and that they can do it and just be.

I think that’s also what you said acting is giving us. It’s not so much that I become another person that I’m able to feel with that character that I’m able to just be there, present for that character and fully connected with my body and my soul and my mind. I’m fully connected here with you and what’s happening within you.

Yura: Yeah, I really appreciate what you’re sharing, especially about impact on audiences and the kind of ripple effect that we can have with our art. That’s been a big focus of mine with LiberArte as well to figure out. And even with this podcast, with all the people I’ve spoken to, seeing how there’s an opportunity to have a kind of impact reporting on the work that we’re doing to be able to quantify, qualify, articulate the true impact of the work that we’re doing, that is worth the opportunity to say, “This is what we’re able to offer leaders of color as marginalized groups, as founding organizations that are this kind of building our own table space that can access connection a way that existing other organizations can’t do.” And so being really clearly kind of report on that and share the impact. And sometimes I do think there’s the world of the research reports and the white papers and everything. And then I also think that sometimes those genuine interviews, post-show interviews of people just talking about the experience or hearing these testimonials of audience members and artists are really powerful too.

And I think that it goes to show that if you already have a funder that’s not in the arts, that you are doing that well already. That’s also I think part of where the social justice, climate justice, racial justice work comes in. The arts is being able to reach the other sectors funding and they get support from them to help us with this justice work that we are doing through the arts.

Nadia: I also think that it speaks of the power of arts, but also recognizes that we can’t make a difference just with art, but they cannot make a difference just with social services. Neither one is complete. We have to complement one another. And I think that’s huge, because we tend to separate them. Is it one thing or is it the other? And then you can collaborate and it’s a collaboration when in reality what it is really just complementing. It’s proven, and I don’t mean scientifically. I mean our communities have proven that arts are radically important for their wellbeing. And so we take that out we take half of the equation.

Yura: The way that change gets enacted is through the storytelling, is through the emotional connection that we’re able to build around these topics. So, it makes sense that we need to have good storytellers.

Nadia: The storytelling and the empathy, right, at the end of the day is—my story is what’s going to generate that empathy. And therefore, I’m going to connect. And so many things can happen, but healing can happen. Because then I realize I’m not the only one. This is my story too. But also understanding can happen because I can be like, “I had it all wrong. You’re not the person that they told me you are.” All of these ripple effects of things that really can create that change. And I’m a firm believer that’s the way it is. It’s also why we work—yes, with the ensemble, but we work a lot with community members. Again, citing Augusto Boal, because I do a lot of Theatre of the Oppressed, but like Augusto Boal would say, “Everyone’s an artist.” Not everyone can paint as pretty or whatever as Picasso, but everyone can do it, right? Not everybody will do it the same, but everybody can do it. That’s the thing about it, that we have access to it.

And through our organizations, through the work that you’re doing, through the work that I’m doing, we are opening those spaces so that everybody can tap into the resources that they have as artists.

Yura: Yes, I think for me also what comes through with everybody as an artist is everybody is a creative. Everybody’s a creator. When we are in this world of the arts we get to tap into that creativity and awaken within us. And for me, that’s really the big thing about dreaming these futures into being is getting creative and being able to be open to the solutions, to the change, to things that aren’t yet here, but that can be. And so it’s a cosmic place to be, but I do believe that artists have that special skill, too, to be able to tap into the worlds that don’t exist and—

Nadia: Create it, yeah.

Yura: And then with the empathy too, definitely hearing the sociology side come through. But I actually wrote an article as well on HowlRound on the power of an actor’s empathy, realizing that a lot of the skills that we were trained in as actors are also developing empathy tools. And so, then we can also use that in different scenarios.

Nadia: Yes, definitely.

Yura: For the social justice work. Yeah.

Nadia: Definitely. There’s a couple of things that I think can come from acting training. One is the ability to be present, or mindfulness as people might call it, because when you’re acting, when you’re in a scene, you have to be in the moment. You can’t be thinking about something else. Because then your partner might not say the line or skip a line or whatever. And it is in that moment where you are so fully present. I tell people all the time when I do workshops, I’m like, “This is the best mindfulness exercise you’re going to have, because you have to be there.” And so I love it. And then like you said, the other one is these tools for empathy, which I have come to the conclusion, at least for me, that empathy is not as people usually say, “Placing yourself in the shoes of another person.”

Because I will never know what it’s like to be a Black woman in the United States or a Black man in the United States, etc., etc. But I can connect and I can be there present with you through what you are going through, and feel with you. And so, I think that’s also what you said acting is giving us. It’s not so much that I become another person that I’m able to feel with that character that I’m able to just be there, present for that character and fully connected with my body and my soul and my mind. I’m fully connected here with you and what’s happening within you.

Yura: And then able to take action, move forward, be supportive, not be consumed by it. Because I think that’s the other aspect too on the kind of other side of the spectrum of when empathy goes so far that we lose control of our own individual boundary of, “Wait, this isn’t my emotion. I don’t have to hold onto it.” And then also not being able to act on it, because we’re so consumed by it. Yeah, it’s a whole training opportunity, definitely.

I would love to hear any other advice that you have that you’d like to share with listeners if they’re just beginning their own table.

Nadia: I think any new venture is going to be scary, and you’re not going to know how it’s going to go. But I think trusting, I think trust. I don’t mean just trusting the process, but literally just trusting that it’s a learning opportunity. Finding community to build what you want to build. I think it’s also really important, because in that way you can also trust better. When it’s us on our own, I feel like it’s harder. When you have community and try it and do it, then it’s a lot easier to trust that whatever happens is going to be okay. And that you can be okay, regardless of what happens. That it’s going to be a learning opportunity.

I also have to say, I created a nonprofit knowing nothing about nonprofits, or very little, I should say, very little. I had worked for an arts nonprofit and I had learned a little bit about nonprofits, but it was not enough. It did not prepare me for what it’s like to have a nonprofit, to lead a nonprofit, to be the executive director of a nonprofit, and do all the things that come with it. But I think what I want to say by saying that, it’s doable, I wish I could go back, and I would have told myself, “Chill, it’s okay.” One thing that this NALAC Institute actually gifted me was I look at how… I’ve always been in an argument with, I feel like the nonprofit world is very, again, white-centered, Eurocentric. It doesn’t match our cultures. It doesn’t fit. Beginning with the idea of donating to the arts, for instance, Latinx people don’t donate to the arts, because most of people that come from Latin America are used to the government paying for the arts, and they pay their ticket, and that’s about it. They give money for food, for housing, etc., so the culture is already different.

Even the timeline. It’s so hard for me when they want things two years before. And I’m like, “I don’t even know what I’m having for breakfast tomorrow.” It doesn’t even go with my own personal rhythm. I feel like the nonprofit sector is just sometimes even violent, the way that people are expected to overwork and not get paid, and just in general I find it very problematic. I found reassurance in knowing that it’s okay to also allow yourself to lead in a different way. And I know that I was nervous about it, because it’s like I feel like I do a lot of things out of gut feeling. I follow a lot of my instincts. I let things flow. I try to plan, because that’s what they want me to do, but in reality I just would love if it just could just flow and try to flow as much as I can, because that’s how I do things and how I feel more comfortable.

And I felt reassured in this idea that it’s okay to lead like that too. It doesn’t mean that you don’t have to do all the work or you don’t have to do the work or whatever, but it’s okay. And I don’t have to feel bad about it. So if I could, I would go back and say, “It’s all right if you don’t have all the answers. It’s not a reason to freak out if you don’t know what a strategic plan is or whatever.” I still don’t have one. It’s okay. It’s also reclaiming how we want to run things. And I think there’s value in that too. Of course, keeping in mind that it can make it harder with some of the funders, etc., but I think that also is a statement on how we want to run things and what we want to do.

Perhaps becoming a production company would have been a lot easier than being an ensemble company. We want to be an ensemble. It’s where we find where we are doing things differently. I don’t see a lot of places that have ensembles. In fact, I don’t think any of the white theatres, except for maybe there’s a comedy place, has an ensemble. Other than that, everybody’s a production company. So we’re also doing things differently and using rules, so it makes sense that we want to lead differently. I guess what I’m trying to say is: If you want to do it, if you’re thinking about doing this, I hope this is useful to know that you don’t need to have all the answers right now, and that you can lead differently. And I dream, that’s another dream for the nonprofit world, is that I dreamed that we find other models. I know that some of the funders are trying, some of the people are trying, but I really want to find other ways of doing nonprofit.

Yura: Thank you for those words. This is definitely the place to find those models hearing from folks like you on the podcast. And yeah, trust that any of the challenges are actually out there helping us get to where we do want to go.

Nadia: Where we need to be with the people that should be in our lives.

Yura: Nadia, thank you so much for joining us today. How can we stay updated with you, with Desco Teatro?

Nadia: Thank you. I really appreciate this, it has been lovely. We are on social media. We are on Facebook at Descolonizarte Teatro, and we are on Instagram also at @Descolonizarte_Teatro. Our website is very easy if you prefer that word. If you’re like, “Oh, I can’t even type it.” It’s just we go by Desco, so D-E-S-C-O Teatro descoteatro.org. And that’s where you can find us. At the website you can learn about our programs and a little bit more about our mission and some of the things that we do. And it will take you to the social media too, so I would love for you to follow. I also have to mention that we have an Encuentro that is international. So, if you’re not in Florida or central Florida and you don’t plan on coming, it doesn’t matter. This is an Encuentro, it’s multidisciplinary. So if you practice any type of art, including theatre, which I understand most of the people here are practicing, you can participate, and you do that with a video.

And we do it hybrid. It came during the pandemic, it was the only program we had during the pandemic, because I have so many artists friends around the world, and I was like, “Let’s ask for a five-minute video of their art.” And we received so many submissions, we had to curate it. And in 2021 we were able to do it hybrid. People could participate with the video and other people in-person. And the money that we get from people who come to watch the Encuentro in person is donated to a program that supports children and youth who cross the US-Mexico border unaccompanied, it means usually they’re either on their own or they’re walking. Very difficult stories, but it’s lovely, because they participate too. I want to invite you to follow us, to look up the Encuentro so you can be part of it. And yeah, just we love collaboration, so hit me up if you have ideas. We would also love to visit you and bring some of our productions, so you see what we’re doing.

Yura: Amazing. Wow. So much opportunity for collaboration. Thank you so much, Nadia Garzón. It has been a pleasure. So good to connect with you.

Nadia: Thank you so much. It was really nice meeting you, and it was lovely chatting with you. Thank you.

Yura: This podcast is produced as a contribution to HowlRound Theatre Commons. You can find more episodes of this show and any HowlRound show wherever you find podcasts, including non-commercial, open-source apps like Anytime Podcast Player for iPhone and AntennaPod for Android. If you loved this podcast, please share it with your friends. You can find a transcript for this episode, along with lots of other progressive and disruptive content on howlround.com.

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