Collegiate Times

On Wednesday, March 26, the seventh conference and festival of Latin American Theatre Today will commence, infusing the Virginia Tech campus and participating satellites with Spanish-speaking culture until its end on the March 29, with a performance by the Latin American music group Solazo.

Distinguished alumni professor of Spanish Jacqueline Bixler has spent the last two years organizing the event. "(It) offers a unique opportunity in that never before have we hosted such a large Spanish speaking event."

Since its inception in 1982 at the University of Kansas, the conference/festival has run disjointedly over the country, with temporal and logistical data debated at round table discussions after each preceding conference. After its sixth incarnation at University of Connecticut in 2005, the conference and the task of its planning were given to Bixler, who at first felt hesitant. The lack of a graduate program in Spanish gave Bixler a small pool of people to choose from.

Undeterred and vigorous, Bixler enlisted her "theater and performance students (as) the elves," as she affectionately calls them, the invisible marionette masters behind the scenes, unstopping the dam and guiding the flowing reservoir of Spanish theater to smoothly undulate around our campus. Having those "elves" is a good thing, because organizing the conference is a significant undertaking. A total of 160 participants have registered, ranging from scholars to directors to actors from all over the western hemisphere. Performance and theater groups have been recruited from Mexico, Argentina, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, to name a few, and each will display the idiosyncratic approach to theater and performance peculiar to their nationality. The performances, held at the Lyric Theater on College Avenue and the Haymarket Theater in Squire's Student Center, will be free and open to all.

Alongside the performances, workshops and plenary discussions will be held, open to all as well. The workshops range from traditional mask making to the subtle art of translation. The plenary sessions will be led by distinguished scholars of Spanish theater who have more than just gotten their feet wet in actually putting on a theatrical performance.

The conference will balance concrete representation with abstract theorization in regards to the theater of our southern brethren, giving attendees glances at the two sides of a heavily nuanced, theatrical coin.

And all the participants involved are heavily qualified to impart wisdom on the subject they cultivate so carefully, with the scholars like decorated, medaled academic heroes and the performers as close-knit traveling bands of theatrical vessels, attuned to their work with an ear dogs would envy.

When asked what she anticipated most, Bixler responded "'Quin te entiende?!,' a play with two deaf actors and one speaking/signing actress from Mexico." Bixler said despite the play being spoken only in Spanish, it is easy to follow and incredibly moving, the hand signs a guide to the linguistically impaired that transcends the language barrier. With the growing prominence of Spanish as an American language, the gaps in interpersonal comprehension grow to chasms, but with this theatrical display, it reminds us that we can still communicate, and even come to understand one another.