Josefina Baez actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

, writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

, director and educator, is the founder and present director of Ay Ombe Theatre Troupe (estd. 1986). Dominicanish and Comrade, Bliss Ain't Playing are two of her published works, and are both performance texts. Dominicanish has been performed several times internationally over the last ten years. The text has also been translated into Bengali

Bengali language

Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...

.

Baez describes herself as "a performer-writer-educator-director whose work explores the present and its encounters with the past and future." She has taken part in numerous theatre festival

Theatre festival

Theatre festivals amongst the earliest types of festival. Classical Greek theatre was associated with religious festivals dedicated to Dionysus. The medieval mystery plays were presented at the major Christian feasts...

s over the years and travels globally conducting Ay Ombe workshops and theatre retreats.

Written

Her works have been published in Forward Motion Magazine (NYC), Brujula/Compass (Latin American Writers Institute (NYC), Ventana Abierta (University of California

University of California

The University of California is a public university system in the U.S. state of California. Under the California Master Plan for Higher Education, the University of California is a part of the state's three-tier public higher education system, which also includes the California State University...

), Tertuliando/Hanging Out (Anthology of Dominican women writers in New York), Vetas (Dominican Republic), Caribbean Connections: Moving North (NECA/Washington, Dominicanish (NYC), Beacon Press

Beacon Press

Beacon Press is an American non-profit book publisher. Founded in 1854 by the American Unitarian Association, it is currently a department of the Unitarian Universalist Association.Beacon Press is a member of the Association of American University Presses....

 2001 Anthology, among others.

A review of Comrade, Bliss ain't Playing describes the work as "an intimate journey dressed up with a beautiful vulnerability"

Themes

Baez's works deal with themes like racial and ethnic identities, global concerns, spirituality and psychology. In her own interpretation:

Sound and silence| movimiento y quietud|

Movement and stillness| sonidos silencios|

All colors| All textures| las gamas de los colores|

Swimming in all possibilities| texturas melodias|

en encuentros posibles|

Performance Autology

Josefina Baez has also created a system of art, based on her own learning, called "Performance Autology©". It has been described as:

"It approaches the creative process from the autobiography

Autobiography

An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...

 of the doer. Technically kept to the core, this path is developed in sobriety

Sobriety

Sobriety is the condition of not having any measurable levels, or effects from, alcohol or other drugs that alter ones mood or behaviors. According to WHO "Lexicon of alcohol and drug terms..." sobriety is continued abstinence from alcohol and psychoactive drug use...

. The physical, mental and spiritual realms are researched and nurtured. Sources in this study includes theatre biomechanics, yoga

Yoga

Yoga is a physical, mental, and spiritual discipline, originating in ancient India. The goal of yoga, or of the person practicing yoga, is the attainment of a state of perfect spiritual insight and tranquility while meditating on Supersoul...

, meditation

Meditation

Meditation is any form of a family of practices in which practitioners train their minds or self-induce a mode of consciousness to realize some benefit....

, calligraphy

Calligraphy

Calligraphy is a type of visual art. It is often called the art of fancy lettering . A contemporary definition of calligraphic practice is "the art of giving form to signs in an expressive, harmonious and skillful manner"...

, world dance, music

Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...

, literature

Literature

Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...

, theatre

Theatre

Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

, popular culture

Popular culture

Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...

, tea culture, video arts, social, health and healing sciences, among others."

Retreats

Baez also organizes theatre retreats internationally on a regular basis. Ay Ombe Retreats have already been held at:

Christchurch

Christchurch

Christchurch is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the country's second-largest urban area after Auckland. It lies one third of the way down the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula which itself, since 2006, lies within the formal limits of...

, New Zealand: February 2004;
Pirque

Pirque

Pirque is a commune of Chile in Cordillera Province, Santiago Metropolitan Region; it is located 2.8 kilometers SE of Puente Alto and 21.3 kilometers SSE of the center of Santiago. It is situated in a mountain chain.-Demographics:...

 and Miravalle, Chile

Chile

Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

: February 2005, April 2006, November 2007;
Bangalore

Bangalore

Bengaluru , formerly called Bengaluru is the capital of the Indian state of Karnataka. Bangalore is nicknamed the Garden City and was once called a pensioner's paradise. Located on the Deccan Plateau in the south-eastern part of Karnataka, Bangalore is India's third most populous city and...

, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

: January 2009;
New York, USA: August 2009 .

Performances

Her most recent performance of Dominicanish marked its 10th anniversary and took place at Harlem Stage, New York from 6–8 November 2009.

It deals with issues of migration and absorption of new cultures. Baez draws heavily from her own experiences as an immigrant from the Dominican Republic. The one-woman play is directed by Claudio Mir and was accompanied by trumpet

Trumpet

The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...

 music by Ross Huff.

The performance, which went under the title "OM is 10" was followed by an academic symposium "Dialogue Dominicanish" organized and co-ordinated by Esther Hernandez (Brown University

Brown University

Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...

). Participants included: Conrad James (Birmingham University, UK), Arturo Victoriano (University of Toronto

University of Toronto

The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...

, Canada), Danny Mendez (Michigan State University

Michigan State University

Michigan State University is a public research university in East Lansing, Michigan, USA. Founded in 1855, it was the pioneer land-grant institution and served as a model for future land-grant colleges in the United States under the 1862 Morrill Act.MSU pioneered the studies of packaging,...

), Sophie Mariñez (CUNY Graduate Center), Nestor Rodriguez (University of Toronto, Canada), Merle Collins (University of Maryland

University of Maryland

When the term "University of Maryland" is used without any qualification, it generally refers to the University of Maryland, College Park.University of Maryland may refer to the following:...

, USA) and Percy Encinas (Universidad Cientifica del Sur

Universidad Científica del Sur

The Universidad Científica del Sur, or UCSUR, is a higher education and research institution located in Lima, Peru. It has a four-hectare campus close to the Pantanos de Villa Reserved Zone, in Villa El Salvador.-History:...

, Peru

Peru

Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....

).