PROFILE / DIEGO VILLADA
Performance is Reborn, Remotely Professor Diego Villada Reimagines the Theatrical Experience BY ABBY WE INGA RTE N ‘0 0
TAKE AWAY THE STAGE, the set, the props and the audience, and what is left of theatrical performance? New College students and faculty have learned the answer to this question during the era of social distancing, and it has been more inspiring than they expected. Young thespians and aspiring cultural workers have filmed monologues, experimented with gestural improvisations, choreographed routines and built art installations. They have pushed the limits of their creativity without relying on external elements, and have found that it has made them work harder, emote deeper, and ultimately emerge as better actors. “In an essential way, we’re storytellers,” said Diego Villada, Ph.D., the director of New College’s Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies (TDPS) program, who has crafted an innovative virtual curriculum for his students. “And, if you’re a real theater person, you can tell stories even with extreme limitations.” When the campus population was initially evacuated due to the pandemic in the spring, New College’s fourth show of the season (Milk, Milk, Lemonade) was cut short. Left without a stage, students performed from their bedrooms, recording pieces on their phones and posting clips online for Villada to view. “Students were experimenting with gesture, dance, monologues, mime, art installations and lip-syncing,” Villada said about the participation in his “Movement for the Actor” class. “They even did duets, working with technology and
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having fun using TikTok or iMovie to move together in the same piece.” As the students persevered, the weight of current events regularly brought a spectrum of emotions to the surface. But they were able to use those feelings to enhance their theatrical work. Then, in the fall, Villada taught a “Pandemic and the Arts” lecture as part of a three-month-long remote course at New College entitled “COVID-19: An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Pandemic.” The lecture delved more into the arts management aspect of performance, and challenged students to think about how theaters, dance studios and cultural centers would survive the COVID-19 crisis. Villada wanted his students to learn about inventiveness and resilience in the face of turmoil, and to consider how to apply those lessons to their own lives. Along with the COVID-19 lecture, Villada is teaching “Acting I” and “Introduction to Performance Studies” in a hybrid format this fall. There will be no onstage performances in the Black Box Theater on campus; instead, TDPS mainstages will include a guest theater company presenting a social justice piece over Zoom and a radio play (similar to a podcast) presented by New College student-artists and directed by Theater Professor Andrei Malaev-Babel. Villada is continually drawing from his own extensive arts background when brainstorming for his students. He holds a bachelor of science degree from the University of Evansville, a master of fine arts degree from Virginia Commonwealth University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh. His academic research centers on Latin American performance, and he is an accomplished stage director and fight choreographer. For example, the off-Broadway production of Layon Gray’s Black Angels Over Tuskegee features Villada’s choreography. Villada has learned that there are multiple mediums for entertaining crowds even when circumstances are challenging; it just takes a tremendous amount of research and reimagining to get the job done. And, for students like third-year Kyla Hunter, being in Villada’s classes during an otherwise tumultuous year have been healing. “I could throw myself into the work, using the chaos surrounding me as inspiration,” Hunter said. “It was cathartic, in a way, to use art as an outlet during this time.”
