Today we’d like to introduce you to Xilo Martinez.
Hi Xilo, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I’m Director of HAPAA (Hispanic Alliance for Performing and Audiovisual Arts) a non-profit organization that is committed to offering its members education, and training in the wide range of skills required for the development of artists in the performing and audiovisual arts.
We started in 2017 as an Independent Theater Group under the name of Chilakill Teatro Since 2017 we have made 3 original plays, Cama Para Tres, Caja de Pandora, and La Vida es Corta, our projects are characterized by addressing issues such as Immigration, Violence Gender, Bullying, and how the Latino community participates and is affected by these issues. Always challenging the audience to exercise a deconstructive self-analysis of their reality.
In 2021, we transformed into a larger and more defined organization that opens the doors to artists, to provide them with training to develop their creativity and artistic interests through workshops, landing on new quality artistic projects to offer to the community.
The beginning was difficult and the transformation much more. In 2017 we started with our first staging titled Cama Para Tres (Bed for Three), being the first comedy of its kind, presented with local actors and presenting a story hundred percent based in Houston at the present time. The greatest importance of this work was that in a fun way it shows how the Latino community from such diverse backgrounds from all corners of Latin America interact with our differences while looking for our similarities. The story is narrated through 4 characters of different nationalities whose lives are intertwined through a love triangle that later becomes a quartet.
The first setback we faced was getting a space to present this play, since the theater requires certain infrastructure needs to be attractive, such as space, lighting, and adequate audio. and unfortunately, there are not many organizations that fully support Latin art, much less if you are not well known in the business. Fortunately, through the support of a great publicist friend, Luis Hernández, we got a bar that provided us with the facilities to perform the shows, and we managed to complete a one-month season, which for a start-up company is a great achievement.
The following year, in 2018, we managed to get one of our projects accepted to be presented at Talento Bilingue de Houston, (now MECA East End) it was the moment of La Caja de Pandora (Pandora’s Box) When a Man Loses Control. This is a work of my own, it addresses the issue of Control, seen through a story of Gender Violence, but in a comical and absurd way presented from the aggressor’s point of view. The idea was not to present a traditional story of sexism, but how human beings are bombarded from all directions to have an extreme and absurd need to control another human being to hide our own fears. The most difficult part of this play was the elaboration of the script, it took me a little over a year to have the main script, since the subject was approached from 360 degrees, seeing all its edges, from economic, cultural, religious influences as well, of biological myths, with a deep psychological analysis of mass behavior, in addition to combining all these factors with a lot of comedy to make it easy for the audience to digest.
That same year and a little before the premiere of Caja de Pandora, we were invited by other theater colleagues to participate in the first Teartix Theater and Film Festival, this was a particular experience of adrenaline because just the day before the premiere of Caja from Pandora I was told that the script had to be presented no later than Monday, practically finishing the show of Pandora’s Box, even with the character’s costumes on, I began to write Life is Short, which a few days later we were already making the premiere within the festival in the MATCH theater. It was a short play, with dark humor, that dealt with the subject of own existence and that in the end unexpectedly confronted the viewer with the idea of observing (metaphorically) his own death.
Later, with the pandemic, we had to stop our activities indefinitely, due to the lack of conditions and budget. But that time helped us to rethink the group’s destiny, so we used that time of confinement to plan how to establish an organization that would be constantly working for the benefit of the artists and with it, the public, and we decided to become HAPAA.
Our first project was to start the training workshops, in order to educate our artists and take them to a professional level of excellence. We have already spent six months of arduous training using the facilities of MECA East End, to whom we thank the support to let us occupy their space continuously. And with it came the first official participation in the First Cultural Festival of Houston, in homage to maestro Carlos Jesús García, one of the pillars of Hispanic theater in the city.
Our participation was through an adaptation of the play The Zoo Story, by Eduard Albee, starring Rafa Sosa and Gastón Heredia, members of the organization. this was super interesting work because the play is based on a story that takes place in Central Park in New York, and we gave it a slightly more local twist, presenting it as a street performance in the East End Farmers Market square to the east of the Downtown in a kind of happening while the audience was formed of visitors who walked through the square during the weekend.
This year we have benefited from the BIPOC Grant offered by Houston BANAF, which is awarded to communities of color and minority groups to support their development activities in our community, thanks to the fiscal sponsorship of Fresh Arts that has provided us with the fiscal help to be able to access this grant, and whose contribution will be a great boost to continue not only with our activities but also to be able to continue helping other artists who need it because this year we are planning to start a freeship program for artists who wish join the organization. and get ready for our first summer season as HAPAA.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Being an artist in Houston is practically sailing against the tide, for us the main problem has been having access to adequate spaces to perform our activity, it is a pity that in Houston there are so many auditoriums and spaces, practically every school, university, and high school has a fully equipped auditorium, and they are not used effectively. We have already had talks with different school districts and unfortunately, have not progressed due to conservative views in the administrations. It is also a shame that the libraries are running out, not because of the pandemic, not because of the internet, but because of the lack of activities that bring the community closer together, and in particular the Latino community. It is a shame that in a city as cosmopolitan as Houston, total fear of free thought continues to prevail. It is a pity that while the citizens and members of this community organize ourselves to create a better and more diverse community, the main blockade comes from authorities and official institutions.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I started my artistic career at the age of 15, in my hometown, Monterrey, Mexico. Being part of a children’s theater company, we began giving performances in each square, each school, each town that gave us the opportunity. And there I fell completely in love with theatrical activity and how it can help change lives just by sharing stories where people can feel identified and learn to empathize with other people no matter how different they are.
While I was studying mass media at university, I cultivated with each teacher who invited me to take a course or workshop on theater and dramaturgy in different institutions.
At the same time I began to work in professional theater productions as a costume designer, set designer, and lighting designer or doing musical editing, I was simply learning everything I could learn from this magical world.
At the age of 18, I had my first project as a Director titled “Countdown”, a play that addressed the study of psychosis as a mental illness and its effects on the family and community.
After a while, and due to the lack of opportunities in the professional and artistic area, I decided to emigrate to Houston, here like most immigrants, when I arrived I started working as a dishwasher and doing cleaning and parking cars.
After a while and by chance of fate I had the opportunity to work with Liberman Broadcasting as an actor and also doing some creative work as scripts and TV production, later the doors opened for me to at the Radio Programming department on Univision, as an on-air talent, I was there for approximately 8 years, during which time I had the opportunity to meet very good publicists in the city, who, upon finishing my career at Univision, invited me to work with them as Creative Director.
A few years ago. years ago I decided to return to my first love, the Theater, so I decided to move a bit away from advertising, although I am still an independent consultant for some important agencies here in Houston, as well as businesses whom I advise with their advertising campaigns, especially for the Latino community.
Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
I think this interview would not be complete without mentioning the people who have accompanied me on this crazy trip, starting with family, friends, and colleagues who have believed in me and in my crazy ideas of making a freer community mentally, I always tell them that our intention is not to tell you what to think, we are simply here to shake your neurons. Special thanks to Rafa Sosa and Oscar Mayoral, great friends who have accompanied me in this story almost since the beginning of the group, as well as Briseida Aguilar and Gaston Heredia, key companions on this journey. And invite your readers to stay tuned because very soon we will announce our summer season which we promise will be spectacular.
Contact Info:
- Email: hapaahouston@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chilakillentertainment/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChilakillMartinez
