voces Resonantes
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Program in Experimental Animation MFA 00, BFA 97 Having made waves with the Emmy and Annie Award-winning animated series El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera, Jorge Gutierrez has stepped up to feature films, writing and directing the much-anticipated Book of Life for Reel fx and Fox Animation Studios. The cg movie is a bilingual Romeo-and-Juliet love story that unfolds during the celebration of El Día de los Muertos—the Day of the Dead. Scheduled for release next October, Gutierrez’s feature debut already has a high-profile Hollywood champion: its producer is Mexican fantasy and horror filmmaker Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy).
volver al futuro
looKiNg bAcK To The FuTuRe Los Angeles, the second-largest metropolis in the United States, also happens to be the second-most-populous Mexican urban center in the world, trailing only Mexico City. Besides this huge population of Mexican origin, the l.a. metro region is moreover home to numerous other communities with roots throughout Latin America. Overall, according to the 2010 census, Latinos are the single largest ethnic group in l.a. County, soon to become an outright majority, and Spanish is the most widely used language among the county’s households. Amid the often breathless coverage by the national media of the demographic rise of Latinos in the u.s., it is worth remembering that Los Angeles was a Mexican pueblo for 70 years before it ever became a u.s. city. Students and faculty from the CalArts School of Theater are revisiting this early history as they examine the 1781 formation of the pueblo by a multiracial contingent of settlers from Mexico in a work-in-progress entitled l.a. Founding Families—the latest project developed by Duende CalArts, the Spanish-language theater initiative of the Institute’s Center for New Performance. “Did the inception and early development of the city foretell its future demographics in the 21st century?” asks Marissa Chibas, the School of Theater faculty member who heads Duende CalArts. Launched in 2009 to meet an outpouring of interest from students and faculty in Latin American theater, Duende embraces pan-Latino cultures and their stories, both canonical and new. Its mission is to stage bi- or multilingual productions and workshops each year and collaborate with leading Latino artists, ensembles and presenters.
El Tigre—created by Gutierrez with his wife Sandra Equihua—broke new ground by bringing urban Latin themes to American animation programming when the toon screened on Nickelodeon in 2007. Gutierrez, a student of CalArts legend Jules Engel, believes the Flash animation show resonated with audiences because it told stories with a personal conviction. “Between Sandra and I, all our favorite films, books and music came from artists inspired by their experiences growing up, in whatever place in the world,” he says. “At CalArts, I was very much encouraged by faculty to ‘look inside’ for both aesthetic and emotional truth. So, every single thing we did in El Tigre was motivated by real-life events from our childhoods in Mexico City and Tijuana. Both legal and not.” He credits the Institute for the development of his artistic and story skills as much as for providing an environment in which he came into his own among an eclectic group of passionate artmakers. “CalArts is where I was born as an artist, writer, filmmaker and all-around troublemaker,” Gutierrez declares. “And being away from home for the first time made me realize I was actually Mexican. Who knew, right? My love for the culture intensified at school and I began what is a torrid and, I’m sure, lifelong affair with the memories of my chaotic and very beautiful home country. That’s one more thing I owe CalArts.”
FROM TOP The first workshop iteration of l.a. Founding Families was staged on campus last February by Duende CalArts, the bilingual theater arm of the Center for New Performance. Artwork from the Nickelodeon series El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera, co-created by Jorge Gutierrez.
courtesy of the artist
“Spanish speakers at CalArts very much want to engage with the language, the literature, and the social, economic and political issues that are relevant today to Latino communities,” says Chibas. “But it’s also non-Latino students who recognize the high artistic value of the work being done in the Spanish-speaking world and who are just as eager to interact with the exciting Latino artists we’re inviting to campus.”
Book of Life has been a labor of love for Gutierrez, in the works for more than a decade after evolving from his mfa thesis film, the 3d short Carmelo. “Like the most glorious tortilla soup ever made, the new film is simmering beautifully and the flavors are starting to explode on the screen,” says the Mexico City-born cartoonista. “This humble epic really comes straight from the heart, inspired by all the tall tales heard in my family.”