The panel for SDCC ’24 kicked off with panelists, Maybelle Reynoso (Indigenous and Latinx Public Art: Turning Stage Plays into Comics), Johnny Bear Contreras (Kumeyaay public artist), Zulema Reynoso (comic artist and educator), and Arturo Medina (actor, activist, artist). It began by discussing Maybelle’s stage play Somos Aire, a steampunk fairytale set in the borderlands about a young woman who returns to her hometown of San Ysidro in search of a cure that will save her sister and community.
The analogy was distinct as Maybelle and Zulema are actual sisters as well as collaborators. Much of their life experiences played a key part in their stage play. Maybelle said, “I think we both are excited. I’ll be talking about us regularly because we’re sisters, we’re 13 months apart. We have been collaborating since I was born.” It made making this play possible but this truly began with the Far South Border North Grant.”
She continued to explain how this grant was given to 60 artists in San Diego and Imperial Counties to create campaigns about issues affecting under-resourced communities. How both Maybelle Reynoso and Contreras were grant recipients and had to work with community organizations.
Reynoso felt she had to tell this story because it was the reason they were all there there. Johnny had streamed their panel online during the pandemic, and Reynoso recognized him from it and asked to have him help with her play. She joked that although it may come off as stalkerish, when she saw that he was based in El Centro and was going to an organization in San Ysidro called Casa Familiar, she followed.
Maybelle added, “San Ysidro is the busiest land crossing in the western hemisphere at the border to Mexico. We went on a walking tour of the neighborhood, and at one point, there is an elementary school where the playground ends right next to the freeway. When I heard that was the case, I knew right away, I’m going to write a play about air.”
This was important, as the playground lay next to the freeway where 60,000 cars crossed daily, and you could see that pollution was living in that valley. Having been born in Tijuana, Reynoso had to cross the border her entire life and not once did she ever stop to think about the air. Reynoso got to work doing her research, writing the play, and then proceeded to work with young people. She conducted a youth workshop in Seattle, talking about the importance of showing up in theater. Johnny Bear gave a powerful lecture on what it means to be an artist, and the young people had the opportunity to write their own scenes based on what they wanted to change in their communities.
Reynoso concluded by saying, “There’s something really powerful, which I think is really important. When young people create to have their work celebrated, honored, and performed with the respect and rigor of professional artists.”
Zulema Reynoso then took control from there, going on to talk about how that influence helped with the design of the play, especially the costumes. She said, “For context, the actual script fueled my imagination and creativity in conceptualizing the materials. She said steampunk, and I’m all in. I was always a fan. I was thinking of something visually exciting, and having worked with other adults in plays, it means a lot to us that we present a very vivid experience for our videasiewers.” Zulema explained how this led to exploring the theme of the environment and building some of the green and biological .
Following that, Johnny Bear Contreras, a member of the San Pasqual tribe of Kumeyaay, shared his perspective. He said, “Now it’s been a learning process, it’s been a great thing. You get creatives in a room. And there again, I have to thank the county of San Diego and some of the other facilities that help facilitate this, especially Casa Familiar being the hub. And it needs to happen on more levels, exactly with what you’re mentioning, and how certain groups, especially here near the border area, are underrepresented.”
Arturo Medina had much to say about that, because of a tragic event 40 years ago, he had to leave San Ysidro, which was heartbreaking, and he had only now opened up about this story. Meeting Maybelle allowed him to be more open and expressive. He didn’t have theater before, he wasn’t an actor, but he wanted to be a storyteller, a writer. Somehow, in a different way, he became the actor he had wished to be. It was a different way to tell a story, but that wasn’t a bad thing—it was just a different avenue.
He ended with a profound statement: “It’s amazing when your words are performed on stage and brought to life. Representation matters. The first time I heard someone speak my words on stage, I was blown away.”
If the impact on these creators wasn’t enough the Reynoso sisters had decided to take up one more job. They needed this story to be able to draw in kids, to influence children to want to see the play and invest in art. Due to their mutual experiences as children the answer seemed clear to them. They were going to make a comic book of Somos Aire.
Maybelle Reynoso stressed the importance of this comic book, stating “The comic book is the thing that is going to outlive the stage play because the stage play, live theater, you can see a recording, saying seeing a recording of a place anyone can do, but a comic book, the comic book carries the story. That is why it was super important for us to make the comic book”.
Stay tuned for more SDCC ’24 coverage from The Beat.
