ABOUT • Jesús López VargasJesús (he/they) is a visual artist, writer, educator and manager for the arts. They graduated from the University of California, Irvine (UCI) with a Masters of Fine Arts (MFA, 2021) in Stage Management, and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA, 2018) in Technical Theatre with concentrations in Stage Management and Lighting Design from UT at El Paso. Jesús has worked in the US and internationally as a producer, director, production manager, stage manager, educator, lighting designer, photographer, publicity artist, cinematographer, video editor, writer, and as a translator for English/Spanish.
Jesús is the founder and the current Artistic Director for MOON Collective, an independent group of creatives and storytellers whose passion anchors on an insatiable curiosity for human nature - "we believe that the processes of exploration & collaboration inclusively lead to both an unlearning & learning of our contexts. Our goal is to study & challenge our past & our presents, using storytelling as a tool through which both the process & the end product guide us through becoming not necessarily better, but further." Since 2020, Jesús has also worked as an Associate Creative Producer alongside Transversal Theater and their artistic director, Bryan Reynolds, producing and devising new work internationally as a director, writer and manager. In 2022, Jesús returned to their alma matter as the Director of Outreach & Development for the New Swan Shakespeare Festival & Center. Jesús is also a co-founder of K.B. Theatre Company in El Paso, TX., a small theatre company that he co-runs alongside collaborator and friend, artistic director Stephanie Carrillo. K.B. focuses mainly on supporting young local artists with their career development whilst providing opportunities to exercise their training. Amidst the COVID-19 crisis of summer of 2020, the company produced "Re-Creating the Stage: a Roundtable for our New Reality", a virtual, nationwide, and free summer program aimed at undergraduate/graduate-level students and young industry professionals in the United States who lost their internships, apprenticeships & summer work opportunities. |
CURRICULUM VITAE | RESUMES |
As a passionate producer of the performance arts, Jesús has produced, written & directed 5 live-performance productions, 5 short-films, 1 feature art film & a long-form interactive web series. His first original live production, RED (2017), was a 35min. performance poetry piece that touched on themes of trauma & healing. His second original production, /Echo (2018), opened for a 7-performance sold-out run in April 5th, 2018, an hour-long production with a score & script involving lyrical narrative, performance poetry, contemporary dance & rap. In 2019 Jesús presented a performative art-installation piece at the Segerstrom Center for the Art's Plaza, CA, titled In This Light | There is Silence (2019), showcasing animation, lighting design, dance, poetry & an original score created by Dimitri Soto and music by Ernie Figueroa. Jesús also wrote and co-directed the 90-minute theatrical event Tzaqik | a tale, of many (2020), a collaboration with dance, theater, music & visual artists, co-directed by Shelby Caughron & choreographed by Piper Bockstahler, which was unfortunately postponed due to COVID-19 two weeks before its sold-out opening night. In July 2020 he released a short film titled Zu Sein (2020) produced by the Medici Circle & MOON Collective, scored by Pan-Pan Gou & starring Erica Clark, followed by Symptoma 20 (2020), a post-dramatic video project in collaboration with MOON Collective released in Halloween 2020. In April 2021, he traveled to Cairo, Egypt to co-direct alongside Bryan Reynolds a movement-based devised production with Transversal Theater & Dawar Arts, No Erasure (2021). Jesús will also be releasing a trilogy of multimedia short films with MOON Collective between 2021 & 2023, A Trilogy on Duality, exploring various definitions on duality using live action & animation. Jesús also produced Distance in its Movement, an interactive movement art-film produced by MOON Collective & Transversal Theater Company, that premiered in August 2021. Jesús' biggest project to date released in October 2021, When We Watch (WWW) an immersive virtual limited-series that voyeuristically follows an international group of individuals, inspired by the genres of mystery & horror.
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Jesús has worked for New Swan Shakespeare Festival in Southern California as a Production Stage Manager in 2019, the Assistant Artistic Director in 2020, and the Media Coordinator & PSM in 2022, working alongside Eli Simon & Julia Lupton as the festival merged with the inaugurating New Swan Shakespeare Center at the University of California, Irvine. Jesús also worked as a Production Stage Manager for Monomoy Theater in Chatham, MA, for the summers of 2017 & 2018. During his time at Chatham he also collaborated with most theater artists of the company in various photographic ventures. He has also worked as a Production Stage Manager with Lake Dillon Theater in Colorado and Chesapeak Shakespeare Company in Maryland.
In the Summer of 2016, Jesús published his first book of poetry & photography for young adults titled I See Red, under his blog penname K. Zakrevski - available worldwide for distribution through Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com. He is currently working on his second poetry & photography book, as well as on multiple literary and research projects with members of MOON Collective. |
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While working at the University of California, Irvine, Jesús taught Introduction to Stage Management to undergraduate students and he revamped the course curriculum alongside Arielle Singer, making the course a much more culturally-enriching experience for the students. He also assisted Bryan Reynolds in various in-person & remote courses in Performance Art & Performance Culture. Jesús was also heavily involved in highlighting student-led work at UCI & helped lead the department's conversations regarding cultural-justice & community awareness through his role as a leader for the student group Brown Bag Theater Company (BBTC) & through his consultation of Students Mobilizing Change (SMC).
Jesús was proudly born in Sonora, México and has spent his life studying & working in both the US & México, having lived in California, Idaho, Massachusetts, Maryland, Arizona, Texas, Chihuahua & San Luis Potosi. He is bilingual in English (United States) & Spanish (México) - most of his written & performative work is written in verse in both of these two languages. He is the son of an accountant & a graphic designer / event manager. Jesús proudly lives with his partners, Armando Acosta (lyricist, rapper & performer) & Merle DeWitt III (technical director & master electrician), with who he parents three lazy cats: William Shake'the'Spear Apropo DeWitt I, Captain Max & Izma. Some of his biggest inspirations in the arts are photographers Duane Michals, Francesca Woodman, Arthur Tress & Lucas Garrido as well as artists Nicola Samori, Marina Abramovic, Björk Guðmundsdóttir, Roberto Ferri, James Turrell, Eugenio Salvador Dalí, Rembrandt, Anna Malina, Arca, Robert Wilson & the choreographer & director Damien Jalet. His literature & poetic inspirations, whom have motivated him to continue pursuing a new unconventional style for playwriting & experimentation for lyrical productions are Ed Alvarez, Frank Bidart, Anne Carson, Mark Danielewski, Roberto Bolaño, Wisława Szymborska, Mary Oliver, Sarah Kane, Benjamin Alire Saenz, Wes Anderson, Dylan Thomas & the Wachowski Sisters. |
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TEACHING
Philosophy
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As a philomath I live my life through a lens of unyielding curiosity. All people one meets, all experiences one lives, all complications triumphed or failed prove to be lessons from which one expands their understanding and furthers their development. As a teacher I translate these values within the spaces I mediate. Students should not settle by achieving a single goal, they should pursue constant movement towards understanding, whether it be by learning or unlearning. I seek to be a guide that supports exploration through facilitation, co-experimentation, and active mentorship.
I also believe that "the teacher" is not the only one able to pass on knowledge. It is the community itself that teaches its individuals, via analysis, discussion, and practice. The soft skills which I excel at teaching are communication, inquiry, analysis, and leadership. |
"WHO AM I?"
Master of Fine Arts, Thesis Excerpt
University of California, Irvine - 2021
Aliya Kerimujian - Dancer / Director / Educator
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I struggle still to this day with this question - language fails me. All of the languages! Whenever someone asks me who I am all I want to do is answer: Rain, Noise, A Battle Cry. Y al mismo tiempo silencio, un vasto silencio. (And at the same time, a vast silence).
But you can’t do that in interviews cause you freak people out. So I’m still struggling to answer that because I am in the process of unbecoming and furthering every single second that I breathe - I contract and expand and morph and regret and learn and... sometimes I get stuck. Still. I struggle with definition every day. So who am I? |
Am I what do? What I dedicate my time and energy doing? My actions? My career? People around me have always pressured themselves to define themselves - who they are - by what they do, and I am starting to realize how conflicted I feel by this. I am not just what I do. I am not just what I am good at. I am not just what I have done or what I will do. So no - I am not a stage manager. Not a director. And I am not an artist. I am not a storyteller or a photographer or a lighting designer. But am I? So much of who we are is how people perceive us. And so I am stuck again.
Am I maybe then where I come from? Porque yo vengo de México. Nací en Hermosillo, Sonora, un estado del norte de mi país. Aprendí a hablar español con ayuda de mi mamá y mi papá que hoy están aquí presentes - quizá ellos saben quien soy? Quizá ellos me pueden definir mejor que yo. Y si no él y ella - porque no mi tierra? Y que el término tierra no sea confundido con el término nación que no son lo mismo. Yo hablo de la tierra, el lodo y las raíces y sus huesos y su polvo. Quisa cuando regrese a ella, la tierra me podrá definir. (Because I come from Mexico. I was born in Hermosillo, Sonora, a state in the north of my country. I learned to speak Spanish with help from my mother and father who are present here today - perhaps, they know who I am. Maybe they could define me better than I could. And if not him and her - why not my land? And let the term land not be confused with the term nation, for they are not the same. I speak of my land, the earth, the mud and the roots and its bones and its dust. Perhaps when I come back to it, the earth will be able to define me.)
Or maybe I am defined by where I am going? But then we are back to the beginning cause fuck knows where that is. I don’t really know - but, I am no longer scared.
So maybe - who I am - is no longer afraid. It feels good.
Am I maybe then where I come from? Porque yo vengo de México. Nací en Hermosillo, Sonora, un estado del norte de mi país. Aprendí a hablar español con ayuda de mi mamá y mi papá que hoy están aquí presentes - quizá ellos saben quien soy? Quizá ellos me pueden definir mejor que yo. Y si no él y ella - porque no mi tierra? Y que el término tierra no sea confundido con el término nación que no son lo mismo. Yo hablo de la tierra, el lodo y las raíces y sus huesos y su polvo. Quisa cuando regrese a ella, la tierra me podrá definir. (Because I come from Mexico. I was born in Hermosillo, Sonora, a state in the north of my country. I learned to speak Spanish with help from my mother and father who are present here today - perhaps, they know who I am. Maybe they could define me better than I could. And if not him and her - why not my land? And let the term land not be confused with the term nation, for they are not the same. I speak of my land, the earth, the mud and the roots and its bones and its dust. Perhaps when I come back to it, the earth will be able to define me.)
Or maybe I am defined by where I am going? But then we are back to the beginning cause fuck knows where that is. I don’t really know - but, I am no longer scared.
So maybe - who I am - is no longer afraid. It feels good.
*All photography in this website was taken by Jesús López unless stated otherwise*
(c)opyright Jesús López 2021
(c)opyright Jesús López 2021
