“I like to cross boundaries,” says Alberto Ruiz Lopez, performer, director, teacher and trainer. “I respect the purity of things. But I think my destiny lies in exchange, in taking information from one side to the other, which can affect people in a good way,” says the theatreperson from Mexico, who wants to be known as ‘Beto’ Ruiz.
Head of acting at Intercultural Theatre Institute (ITI) in Singapore, Ruiz’s life in theatre, has taken him from Guadalajara in Mexico to Singapore, and now to Kerala.
“At 15, I decided theatre was what I wanted to do in life,” says Ruiz, currently leading the rehearsals of his new production at Irinjalakuda with a predominantly Indian cast comprising contemporary and traditional performers. He took up theatre studies during secondary school. During his college years, Ruiz met a director who was working with the Guadalajara University’s theatre company and soon entered the local professional theatre circuit, a thriving industry in Mexico.
However he decided to move on and at the age of 20, he went to Mexico City to pursue an undergraduate course in drama. “That period was inspiring as I got to see a lot of national and international performances,” says Ruiz. He was already learning contemporary dance then and started exploring the notions of physical theatre, dance theatre and the like. “I was slowly moving towards an interdisciplinary practice, using the body more and more. I brought in more dancing, more of the body into theatre.”
Back home in Guadalajara, Ruiz started his own company called TEATROTEATRO. He worked with both the dance community and the theatre community. “I was bridging a breach in my country. That is what excites me about my job. I don’t believe there is one unique truth that we can impose upon anybody. There should be no colonisation in art; there should be no saying this is the right way or the wrong way.”
He should know that better than anyone, coming from a country that has been struggling to forge a new identity after shaking off the shackles of Spanish colonisation that obliterated the native Aztec culture. “We have no traditional theatre, unlike Asia,” says Ruiz. “I am a Metizo – half native and half Spanish. But the native half is almost forgotten. There are very few people in Mexico who can speak the native tongues.”
Perhaps, it’s this longing for his own lost roots that led Ruiz to the cultures of Asia. His first brush with Asian theatre was at a workshop conducted by the great master Eugenio Barba. “I was 25 when Odin Teatret came to Mexico to conduct a week-long workshop. That opened me to the universe of Asian theatre.” A few years later, he was exposed to Kathakali at a workshop. He also learnt Chi Kung, a form of Tai Chi, the ancient Chinese martial art form, and different forms of Yoga. He is also a certified Kundalini yoga teacher.
Asia in focus
Although he was planning to do his post graduation in Western theatre from Italy, he ended up in Singapore to study Theatre Training and Research Programme (TTRP), an acting training programme. “I also realised that Asian theatre forms were on the verge of disappearing and that prompted me to understand the tradition directly. I was convinced that it was what I wanted to do. Thus, he arrived in Singapore in 2005. In traditional theatre, the performer is also the dancer, the singer, and, sometimes, the musician. That holistic approach attracted me.”
He returned home after finishing the course in 2008, only to return as the head of acting at ITI. Ruiz says that he has always been teaching, directing and performing. Among his works are operas such as Verdi’s La Traviata and Purcell’s Dido and Aenes , plays such as Dario Fo’s Un Dia Cualquiera and Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi and a physical solo piece, R vs J . He has worked in Poland, Texas, the US and Colombia.
Ruiz is now looking forward to the evolution of the production Across the River (final name to be announced later), which he is currently directing with a team of actors connected with the ITI. The works draws a lot from Arundhati Roy’s God of Small Things and Perumal Murugan’s One Part Woman , two Indian novels with which he could connect immediately.
But it is going to be a devised performance. “I don’t want a vertical structure where everything comes from the director. It’s a horizontal process where the actors bring in their own process. All of us will be the authors of this work. And that is very important in interculturalism,” he sums up.
