Bio
Saul Garcia-Lopez has been employed as a professor in performance at Norwegian Theatre Academy (NTA) at Østfold University College since 2020. He is the program coordinator for the Master in Performance.
Garcia-Lopez is also artistically responsible for the interdisciplinary art organization La Pocha Nostra, which consists of around 800 international collaborators. Garcia-Lopez holds a Ph.D. in theater studies from York University, Toronto, Canada, and a postgraduate diploma in Dramatic Arts (Directing) from Victorian College of the Arts at Melbourne University, Australia (2001). His specific areas of development and research interest are related to theater, directing, and performance theory and pedagogy, including Indigenous perspectives, the incorporation of gender, ethnic and national identities, stereotypes and symbols, postcolonialism, and Latin American/Chicano performance and theater. He is currently the leader of the externally funded and international artistic development project "Radical Elders: Transgenerational Performance Knowledges", supported by Hk-dir/PKU, and has extensive experience in all types of productions, performances (physical and virtual), and artistic workshops, both nationally and internationally.
Garcia-Lopez is a co-author of the book "La Pocha Nostra: A Handbook for The Rebel Artist in a Post-Democratic Society," published by Routledge in 2021. He is also the author of "A Meditative Rant on the Importance of Addressing Ethnicity While Teaching Eurocentric Performance Methods," an essay that will be included in the upcoming book "Latinx Actor Training," edited by Cynthia Santos-DeCure and Micha Espinosa, expected to be published by Routledge in early 2023. In 2022, he participated in NASPA and Norteas (a network of Nordic and Baltic performing arts institutions for higher education within Nordplus) at the Danish National School of Performing Arts (DDSKS) and the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre (EAMT). In 2021, he also served as an international assessor in the review of applications for the Program for Artistic Development (PKU). Garcia Lopez has experience in teaching and assessment at the doctoral and postdoctoral levels in Finland, Sweden, and Norway.
Academic interests
Saul Garcia-Lopez, aka La Saula, is a queer multidisciplinary performance artist, Professor of Performance and the Norwegian Theatre Academy, and co-artistic director of the internationally renowned performance troupe La Pocha Nostra. He is dedicated to expose, dislocate and challenge assumptions of embodiment, gender, identity and representation within an intercultural and trans-cultural context. As an artist, pedagogue and scholar, he explores the intersections of the theoretical framework of performance theory and training. From this position, La Saula tries to expose and reconcile the contradictions and challenges of being a creator and a theorist at the same time. His research interest reaches acting, directing and performance theory and pedagogy including indigenous approaches from the Americas, the embodiment of gender, ethnic, national identity, stereotypes and representation, indigeneity, post-coloniality, and decoloniality.
Courses taught
Program coordinator for MA in Performance
Background
As part of his professional development, Saul Garcia trained as a Contemporary Dancer and graduated as Psychologist from the National University in Mexico City. Moreover, Saul Garcia-Lopez graduated also as an Actor and Director from the Mexican Ensemble Theatre. He completed a Post Graduate Diploma in Directing at VCA, Melbourne University, Australia and a Drama and Film Honors Degree at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. Saula has presented academic papers at IFTR, PSI, CATR, and the Encuentro of The Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics. He has vast experience touring with La Pocha Nostra around the world and pedagogically he has collaborated with La Pocha Nostra as a teacher during different workshops in many universities in the Americas and Europe such as Stanford University, Norway Theatre Academy, NYU, UC Davis, UC Berkeley, Chicago Arts Institute, University Catolica de Chile, UNAM Mexico City, University of Wisconsin Madison, University of Texas, University of Amsterdam among many others.