Moderators

Panelists

Biographies

Susana Baca is the foremost singer of Afro-Peruvian music. Her music, on Luaka Bop lable, has promoted an awareness of the many cultural contributions of African-Peruvians. Also to this aim, she and her husband Ricardo Pereira are the founders and co-directors of the Instituto Negrocontinuo in Lima.

Guillermo Gómez-Peña is a writer and performance artist. He was born in Mexico and came to the U.S. in 1978. Since then, he has been researching issues such as the border and trans-cultural identity. Through journalism, performance, radio, video, poetry and installations, Gomez-Peña has looked into the relationship between Latinos and the U.S. From 1984 to 1990, he founded and participated in the "Taller de Arte Fronterizo" and contributed to the public national radio show "Crossroads." Lately he has been one of the editors of "High Performance" and "Drama Review" magazines. He has been awarded with the Prix de la parole at the Festival Internacional de las Américas (1989), a Bessie in New York (1989) and a fellowship from the MacArthur Foundation (1991) among others. He is the author of "Warrior for Gringostroika" published by Graywolf Press in 1993. His book "The New World Border" received an American Book award in 1997.

Jesusa Rodríguez is an actress and director. She was born in Mexico in 1955. She was awarded Best Actress for El Concilio de Amor at the Montreal's Festival de Las Americas in 1989. In 1990, she was awarded with a Guggenheim grant. In 1994-1997, she received an Arts ad Humanities grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. Along with Liliana Felipe, she renovated the Teatro la Capilla and founded the cabaret El Habito in which she has acted and directed more than 320 productions in ten years (1990-2000). In 1996, she directed a video version of Mozart's opera Cosí Fan Tutte and Da Ponte. In 1997, she directed a version for the opera Primero Sueño de Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (Sister Juana Inés de la Cruz's first dream). In 1998 and 1999, she acted in "Las Horas de Belén" in Mexico and New York. In 2000, she presented José Ramón Enríquez's El Fuego (The Fire). Renato Leduc's Prometeo Sifilítico (Prometeus stricken with syphilis) and adapted Esquilo's Prometeo Encadenado (Prometeus in chains). In 2000, along with Liliana Felipe, she was awarded with an OBIE from New York's The Village Voice. In 2000, Ms. Rodríguez opened the Teatro Brava, in San Francisco, CA, with her play Belén. At present, she is working on Shakespeare's Macbeth.