- They're the only bilingual theater group in Tennessee, hosting some of Memphis' most visible expressions of Latin American art and culture and bridging the gap between English-speaking and Spanish-speaking people in the Mid-South.

I'm Mamie Pike.

Join me for A Conversation with Cazateatro.

[energetic music] We're here today with Dorimar Ferrer, Executive Director, and Monica Sanchez, Artistic Director.

So, how did you girls end up here?

Are you from Memphis?

- Well, now we are from Memphis.

I am 50% Memphian now.

I am from Puerto Rico.

- And I'm from Mexico.

- So when did you get here?

- Sixteen years ago.

- How did you, why did you leave Puerto Rico?

It's so beautiful.

- You know, work.

- Yeah.

- Work and family.

- Family, and what brought you here, Monica?

- Exactly the same.

I've been here for almost, hmm, almost 27 years, so it was a job opportunity, and we decided to move, and we stayed a little longer than we were supposed to, but we are here.

- Now you are 50% Memphian.

- And now I'm almost 80%.

I'm used to this weather.

- So what I love about the fact that you're a 501(c)(3) now, you established your nonprofit status in 2010.

I love the fact that you are a community-strengthening group.

You actually work with Spanish-speaking and non-Spanish-speaking people to bridge that gap and come together using art and culture and the artistic expression as a way to build relationships.

Tell me about some of these amazing partnerships that you have, because you've got them all over town.

- Yes, we have great partners.

We are so grateful for that.

You know, Memphis Brooks Museum, Crosstown.

- Dixon.

- Dixon Gallery Opera Memphis.

We have great partnerships in Memphis.

- Evergreen Theater?

- Evergreen Theater was our family there.

Latino Memphis, La Prensa Latina, the Overton Park Shell, Overton Park.

We are so grateful for that.

- You girls are everywhere.

- Yeah, we try.

- I love it.

- Sometimes it's not that we try, it just happens.

There are activities that we're invited, and there are good projects, and we say this is a good opportunity to put the communities together, so that's why we're in partnership with different, the National Civil Rights Museum call and say, "Can somebody come and read or do something for us?"

Yeah.

- We will be there.

- We will be there.

- I love the way that your enthusiasm as Memphians is, it draws people in that may feel like they would not be a part of a program if it didn't stress so much building those relationships, and that's what drew me in.

We were just sitting here trying to remember how long ago we met.

I don't even remember.

It just seems like you've been my family forever.

Tell me about your '23-'24 season.

- Oh, it's full of theater and cultures and traditions.

We are so excited.

A lot of work to do, but we love our mission.

We love Memphis and we are ready to be out.

- Exactly.

Usually we try to have four plays during our season.

This year we started in August, at the end of August.

Once in a while we try to have one full play in Spanish.

People say, "Why, if you do it bilingual, if you want to encourage everybody?"

Because once in a while, the Latino community wants to go to theater in their own language, and it's kind of hard.

If you live in Chicago or maybe Miami or some place in California, you're gonna find theaters there that have plays in Spanish.

Here we are the only resource for our community, so once in a while we have one that is in Spanish, but we have other cultural plays that involve everybody.

We're gonna have a musical in October as part of the Hispanic Heritage, and we're gonna have of course Christmas.

We want the people to learn a little bit.

Everything is about learning.

Want to learn a little bit how we celebrate in our countries, because she's from Puerto Rico.

She has different traditions.

I'm from Mexico and I have a different way to celebrate.

- Exactly.

We have people on our team that are from Colombia, Venezuela, so we try to gather all these little details.

We might speak the same language, but we're really unique with different things that we can share, and that's one of the things that we want to do in Cazateatro, to show the people that we are really diverse between the Hispanic community, and we don't want you to hear a person who speaks Spanish and think, "Oh, it's from Mexico."

No, no, no, no.

We have people from different countries.

Just in the Memphis area, and this is a number that a lot of people don't know.

We have about 56,000 Latinos living already here.

A lot of people say, "Really, that many?"

Just go to Summer Avenue and see how many Latino businesses.

- Cordova.

- Cordova now.

I say was just in Jackson, they call it the Little Mexico long time ago because there was an area there, they are all people from Mexico.

But right now we are everywhere.

You go to Barlett, you have Latinos in Barlett.

Even Germantown, people in Collierville.

All focuses engage all the communities.

Find that thing that we say we can share this.

You can learn and enjoy it, and we can be proud of our culture, our heritage.

- Yeah, I love the fact, again, that you're so open and you draw people in, because my life has been so much richer because of you and I hope that some of my heritage has become a part of you, and as you've just said, you're 50% Memphian.

- Absolutely.

- Listen, let's talk about 901 Fest, because that comes first, and that is such a cool event.

- Yeah, after August, we'll move to the Spanish Heritage Month celebration.

We will celebrate the Latin Fest 901 to celebrate the Spanish Heritage Month in Overton Square.

- And so you actually encapsulate and include all of the population, Spanish-speaking population.

I love that.

- It's a huge celebration.

It's a family event.

It's a free event, and everyone is welcome.

- It's in Chimes Courtyard, isn't it?

- Correct, in Overton Square.

- So what all do you have scheduled for this year?

- We have a lot of resources.

We have food from different countries.

We have a person from Puerto Rico, we have somebody from Columbia, Venezuela.

We have of course tacos from Mexico.

We have-- - El Salvador.

- El Salvador.

So we try to bring also a taste fr om other countries here, so you can say, "Oh, I never tried, "I don't know pastelitos from Puerto Rico or I never tried a pupusa from El Salvador."

So you have the chance to do that here.

- And we can go and find out more information at cazateatro.org about that.

But now let's go into my favorite, which is Day of the Dead.

The Day of the Dead parade means so much to me.

For people that don't know, it's not about Halloween, it's actually a family reunion, but you're celebrating people that are no longer with you.

The ofrendas are so beautiful and they're so personal, and it helps you to look at someone and kind of see where they come from and what means something to them.

One of the sweetest ofrendas I ever saw was a gentleman's father had passed away, and he was a construction worker, and had his boots and his hammer and his hard hat and some of the things that he'd actually hand-carved.

It was just so touching that you learn a little bit about someone that meant so much to them in their life, but is no longer with them.

It's such a beautiful tradition.

What are we doing in the parade this year?

- One of the things we do even before the parade, before the preview, is try to provide workshops, because there's a lot of people who say, "I want to be part of the parade.

"I want to get involved with the preview, but I want to learn more about it."

Like I said, one of the things we want to focus is learning about each other, so we provide a workshop where we teach the real meaning of Dia de Muertos.

Like you say at the beginning, a lot people think Dia de Muertos is the Mexican Halloween.

- Exactly.

- No, it's not, no it's not.

So that's one of the things that we try.

We do a teacher's workshop so the teachers can go back to the classroom and tell the children what it is, and we do a communities workshop.

Sometimes companies call us and say, "We want to be part, can you bring the workshop here?"

Because they want the people.

- That is important.

We will be to everywhere with the Dia de Muertos workshop.

- Who are some of the companies that you've worked with?

That is so interesting.

- Well, yeah, a lot of people.

We visited AutoZone and ServiceMaster in the past.

- Oh my gosh, that's fantastic.

- Shelby County Schools, they always partner with us.

- So again, it's that community outreach aspect that you're going into so many different avenues, and it's all because of culture, art.

- Exactly.

- And I love that.

- The best thing is that people are open.

They are open to our culture and they try to learn.

I say for example, I'm from Mexico and the Day of the Dead is my thing, you want to say.

And I feel really good when people want to know more, not just try to do it.

That's why we say let's go to the workshop to know the dos and don'ts, because people make mistakes more than anything because you don't know.

With this celebration, we try to unite all the communities, the Latino community, and especially people, maybe a lot of people might think that Dia de Muertos is celebrated everywhere, but it's not.

This was something new for Dorimar when we started talking about doing the celebration.

- I think the Aztecs brought it here, didn't they?

- One of the things that they started, this is a celebration that started hundreds of years before even the Spaniards came to my country.

- Like in the 1500s.

- Before that.

- Really?

- Because the Aztecs, my ancestors, they believed that life, like in other cultures, life starts when you die.

That's why you have to pass certain levels.

You have to have some other things with you to be ready.

All the things that my people, my ancestors were celebrating, usually the celebration was for three months.

When the Spaniards came, there was this fusion between what my ancestors were doing and the Spaniard celebration of the All Souls Day, and they tried to mix with the Catholic religions.

What we celebrate right now is that mix that happened years ago when the Spaniards came to Mexico.

So we try, and even with that, a lot of things with the time has been added, symbols, icons, and that's something that people might not know.

It's been changed a little with the years.

- So the parade starts at Ov erton Square on Trimble Place, and then you go to the corner and take a right, head down Madison.

- We go to Old Madison.

- Tucker to Brooks Museum.

- Madison to Tucker to Brooks, and then once you get to Brooks, there's actually another celebration at Brooks.

Who all is included, and what do you have going on at the Brooks?

- We always try to have music.

Of course we have dance Azteca, theater.

Like I said, the children who are gonna be part of the theater classes, the bilingual theater classes, are gonna have a small presentation for Dia de Muertos.

- The mariachis will be there, the ofrendas.

- The ofrendas.

- It's a huge celebration.

- We have vendors, of course food, and the partnership with the Brooks has been wonderful from day one when we decided to go and talk to Kathy and say, "There is a chance that we can do a Dia de Muertos parade here," And they said, "Yes."

And then when everything was done that year, we were worried about they say no, but they say, "Let's start talking about next year."

- Yeah, the Brooks Museum are amazing partners.

We are so grateful for this partnership.

- Well, talking about amazing partners, for Christmas you have Opera Memphis and Dixon.

- We have amazing partners.

- I know, I know, so tell me a little bit about the Christmas celebration.

- Well we try to, like I say, to showcase a little bit of what a parranda is, because it's a tradition.

- What is a parranda?

- It's like a Christmas carol, but we do a Christmas carol at 5:00 a.m., and at 3:00 a.m. in the morning we visit your home, you wake up with music, you need to make breakfast and food.

After that, we move to the other home.

But it's like a surprise Christmas carol.

- So tell me a little bit more about Christmas tradition.

I want to know about the food.

You know that's my favorite.

- We try to have vendors who sell things that are traditional Christmas food, and also to have vendors who have things to decorate your home and be part of Christmas.

- It's an opportunity for the people who want to buy stuff.

- And don't you include pinata in your Christmas celebration?

- Yes.

- That sounds like fun.

- That's one of the things.

That's what we try to teach the people, that some of the celebrations are specific for some countries, like from Mexico.

Christmas for us is the pinatas, the posadas, it's different the way you do it.

We don't go and sing.

We kind of go and pray and then ask for the posada.

We sing and then we break the pinata, that's the posada, and we have a play called Pastorelas.

- What is that?

- The Pastorela is the battle between good and evil that always happen.

Somebody told me one time, because this is also a Mexican tradition, why do you have a devil and an angel in a Christmas-- - My first time for me was, why?

- In a Christmas pageant?

- We're all that, seriously.

We're all that, we've all got a little bit of devil and a little bit of angel, so which one are you gonna nurture?

- The thing here is when the Pastorela, you follow the quest of the shepherds to see baby Jesus and adore baby Jesus.

And like you say, you have the devil trying to stop them and you have the angels trying to help them.

This is also something that was a mixture.

It was a way for the Spaniards to introduce all the nativity ideas, and they use theater.

That's something that a lot of people don't know.

They use theater to introduce.

That's how the Pastorela starts working.

- And you know, rather than just talking to someone, actually having them see a production like that, it draws your attention in and actually teaches so much more.

- Exactly.

One other thing also this year, aside from the Christmas Fiesta with the Dixon and Opera Memphis, we have a play also, one of the plays.

Like I said at the beginning, we have to have four plays.

We're gonna have the one, it's in August, the Com-partidos.

We're gonna have From Here and There in the Spanish Heritage Month, and we are having the Christmas play where the people are gonna be able to be part of the story.

We are gonna tell the Christmas story.

I'm not gonna tell you because it's kind of a surprise, but the people that come to see the play on Christmas, they're gonna be able to be part of the stories.

- Well, talking about telling a story, Afro-Latino week is probably one of my favorites.

I saw the first one at Evergreen Theater years ago, and it was such a beautiful, moving experience that I never knew.

Where do all of the actors and the players and the people who you have in your productions come from?

Are they professionals?

- Yeah, they are a professional group from Chicago.

- From Chicago for just Afro-Latino week.

The girl, the lady that was the dancer.

- That girl was from New York.

- Oh, she was fabulous.

- Next year we'll have Las BomPleneras.

It's an Afro-Puerto Rican group from Chicago, and the other Mexican group from Chicago, too.

- One of the things with the Afro-Latino is we want the people to understand and see that what's happening here is happening in all Latin American and the Caribbean.

We have all those ships filled with people who were brought here to work and stayed here, and they started having families and everything, and the same thing happened in Mexico.

We have Afro-Mexicans, we have Afro-Venezuelans, we have Afro-Puerto Ricans.

Something that I love with the Afro-Latino, because I didn't know a lot about the rhythm, the Bomba, that comes from, it has African roots, and the dancers and how Dorimar explained to me that the slaves in that time weren't able to talk, but they were able to dance and with this dance.

- Get their message out with their feet and their rhythm.

It was beautiful.

- They express everything.

- And that is during Black History Month.

- It's the last week in February, correct.

- So again, anything you want to learn about the schedule, go to cazateatro.org.

- Yes, either the website or even Facebook.

Facebook we will be good also because you have more details about the events that are coming.

- Instagram or Facebook or our website.

- So ladies, let me ask you this.

What other education programs do you provide?

- We provide different workshops.

Like mentioned before, the Day of the Dead workshop.

We also have Hispanic Heritage Workshop-- - Cinco de Mayo workshop.

- Cinco de Mayo.

Because a lot of times people misunderstand some things.

When I got here, somebody came to me and said, "Happy Cinco de Mayo."

And I was like, "Okay."

In Mexico, we don't celebrate that way.

- And it's not about drinking a margarita.

- It's not about nachos and margaritas.

It was later that I started learning and I said, we have to tell the people about Cinco de Mayo.

Here it's a big deal, and why it's a big deal here and why we have to celebrate and how we have to celebrate, and don't confuse a lot of people for Cinco de Mayo.

It was my Independence Day, Mexico Independence Day.

So with this, we try to teach the people no, it's not, it's this, this is the reason, this is what happened.

This is the president who support, the American president who supported to have a celebration for Cinco de Mayo as well as Hispanic heritage that started with one week and then changed to one month, and a lot of young people don't know that, so we have to remind them all those little details.

We have different kind of workshops, and also we have a program called Cazateatro.

- On the Road.

- Where we provide those workshops, but also we provide a small place.

- Children's shows.

- To take to the schools.

- Where do you go on the road?

- Everywhere.

Libraries, school systems, companies.

Somebody calls us, we will be there.

- This is with the children's theater and the adult's theater, and it's bilingual?

- It's bilingual.

We have a group of actors who do the On the Road, and we have different place, something that we call Fairytales with Latin Flavor.

We have our own version of Little Red Riding Hood.

We call it Roja, because Little Red is from Colombia and his father's from Colombia, even the wolf.

So we teach a little bit about Colombia with the Little Red, and we still have the story with still the grandma, with still the wolf that tries to eat them, but it changed a little.

Also we always have a vocabulary, words the kids have to pay attention, even grownups, to pay attention to try to remember or learn that day.

Small things like manzana that means apple or abuela that means grandma.

So they hear it and they start to understand everything.

I'm gonna feel like I repeat all the time, but everything we try to do is for the people to learn something.

Yeah, have a good time and enjoy it, but take a little bit and say, "I didn't know this."

- Language, the culture, the traditions.

- I'm gonna put you on the spot.

What's your favorite thing that Cazateatro does?

- Oh.

[Mamie laughing] - It's kind of hard.

- It's hard.

I think for me, my program is the Afro-Latina week.

I love that week, but for me it's wonderful every time we need to go to the schools and the kids ask questions.

They want to know everything.

They want to be part, and they get so excited about the characters of the children's show.

- It's gotta be so neat when they get it.

- Oh yes, absolutely.

- They come in and they're just kind of sitting there.

- For me, the beauty of Cazateatro is community, right?

Everyone is welcome here.

The beauty of Cazateatro at the backstage at the show, we have actors, if they don't speak Spanish or somebody who doesn't speak English, if they are trying to talk each other, and "How do you say that?

And in Spanish, how do you say that in English?"

That is a community, because everyone is welcome in Cazateatro.

We believe it's no excuse to be together.

Not because I know I don't speak English.

No, we can work together, we can be together.

We can respect other.

- The thing they say, "I would like to be part of your group, but I don't speak Spanish."

You don't have to.

- (Mamie) Right.

- Or I don't speak English.

- The one language that everybody understands is food.

Put some food.

- And art.

- Food and the arts.

- But with dance, like in the Afro-Latino, you don't have to learn to speak Spanish to move, to feel the dancer, to feel the rhythms.

With music, to hear the mariachi band, the people don't have to understand what the mariachi is saying, but just the vibration of the instrument.

You feel it.

- It's heart.

- If you see Danza Azteca and don't bawl your eyes out, there is something wrong with you.

It is so moving.

They are just amazing.

- For example, we always have this children's ballet called Mesli.

Seeing the small kids follow their traditions with dancers and see them try, as small little kids from 4 or 5 years old to 12.

That is something that we want to do.

We want the kids to feel proud of their heritage, wherever the parents come from, because a lot of the kids are Memphians.

They're born here.

But their parents are from Mexico, from Colombia, from Honduras.

We have last year at the Latin Festival a lady who said, "I want to be part of the parade," and she brought her kids.

They were from Honduras, I think, and all of them, they had the kids, the traditional attire from Honduras.

And it was like, wow.

The kids feel proud.

They maybe didn't speak Spanish the whole time, but the mother was feeling so proud and the kids feel so good dressing with Honduras traditional clothes.

- It's really, for me, it's wonderful when some volunteer calls us and says, "I don't speak Spanish, but I want to learn the culture.

I want to practice my Spanish, I want to be there."

That is the community.

- Girls, thank you so much for being here with me and for sharing this with me.

Dorimar Ferrer, Executive Director, Monica Sanchez, Artistic Director.

I love you, I love Cazateatro, and thank you for being with us and having a conversation.

- Thank you.

- Gracias a ti, Mamie.

Muchas gracias.

- Thank you for the invitation.

[energetic music] [acoustic guitar chords]