For nearly a quarter century, San Francisco’s Center for the Art of Translation has been making a polyglot array of international literature available to English-speaking audiences. But the organization has never brought a text to life like the June 6 program at Brava Theatre. Featuring a cast of four Latina actresses, the performance manifests “Soroche,” an Andean gothic horror story written by acclaimed Ecuadoran author Mónica Ojeda. With sound design and subtle lighting, “it’s a multimedia first for us,” said Cuentero Productions’ Camilo Garzón, the Colombian-American writer, filmmaker and evening’s creative director.
“My job was really easy, because of the translation,” Garzón said. “The dialogue and monologues are so powerful; our job is figuring out the underlying ambiance.”
He was speaking on a video conference with North Carolina-based Sarah Booker and New York City’s Noelle de la Paz, who grew up in San Francisco, co-translators of Ojeda’s tale. They’ll be on hand for an on-stage conversation after “Soroche” with Two Lines Press’s Sarah Coolidge, editor of the sold-out anthology “Through the Night Like a Snake: Latin American Horror Stories.“
“Soroche” follows a group of upper-class women traveling together who end up grappling with the shockwaves unleashed by a leaked sex tape. As the production’s content warning promises, the story features toxic friendship, body horror, graphic sexual content and self-harm.
“This is not a ghost story,” Garzón said. “But, at the same time, it’s about someone feeling disembodied, and one of the actresses isn’t on stage. You only hear her disembodied voice, which gets under people’s skin.”
A prolific novelist, poet and expert short-story writer, Ojeda is a rising star in the world of Spanish-language literature, up there with Mariana Enríquez, ”the Argentine novelist and journalist, said De la Paz. “Her prose is very poetic. She’s making this mark in Andean gothic literature, but I don’t think her first three novels are Andean gothic.”
The title, “Soroche,” is a Quechua word for altitude sickness, which is both literal and metaphoric in the story as “these women from that higher social status look down on others,” Booker said. “You see that interaction amongst the four of them. There are things that happen that are strange, weird, magical, fantastic, and you don’t know which is which.”
While Thursday’s production is the Center for the Art of Translation’s first foray into Brava, Cuentero Productions is looking into other CAT stories that could be adapted. “This literature is so ripe for so many different things,” Garzón said.
Celebrate romance with SF Salon Music
Returning to Club Verdi on Sunday, SF Salon Music presents “Seasons of Love,” a collage of musical-theater odes to romance, including “Maria” from “West Side Story,” “Some Enchanted Evening” from South Pacific, “What I Did For Love” from “A Chorus Line,” and “Glitter and Be Gay” from “Candide.”
Michelle Chang’s ongoing series is known for juxtaposing unexpected forms of creative expression, but this eclectic program follows a well-trodden path, woven together by well-traveled storyteller Joel ben Izzy. Performers include soprano Emily Crawford, mezzo-soprano Alyssa Vieau, tenor Seth Hanson, and bass-baritone Don Hoffman accompanied by pianist Andrew McIver.
A dance of anxiety at Dance Mission Theater
As the Nov. 5, 2024, election looms ever closer, Dance Mission Theater has put out a call for artists to participate in a 13-day performance festival/ritual/invocation for world peace. The deadline is July 1 (visit DanceMissionTheater.org or email stella@dancemission.com). Whether you’re most concerned about reproductive justice, voting rights, immigration, democracy, environmental justice, women’s rights, or world peace, Dance Mission Theater would like to hear from you.
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