Interviews with Angelika Jansen-Brown and Greta De Leon, board members

By Keith Hennessy

Interview with Angelika Jansen-Brown

Keith Hennessy: Just tell me your name and why you are on the board at Jump-Start.

Angelika Jansen-Brown: I am Angelika Jansen-Brown and I am on the board at Jump-Start because I believe in innovative theater. When I came from New York, I didn’t find any innovative theater in San Antonio, and then I discovered Jump-Start. I think they are doing a fabulous job. Some of the performances are not wonderful, but they are trying against all odds to really create a dialogue with controversial topics. At least thought provoking topics. I think it is the only one in San Antonio that deserves the credit for being innovative or trying to experiment.

KH: As someone who has experience of work from Europe, work from New York, what do you think Jump-Start could use in terms of a little bit of helpful critique? What direction would you push them?

AJB: You can not really say this. They need maybe a little bit more exposure to the outside world to see what has been done and what they can add to it. The problem in this is money restriction. We need to raise some more money in order to afford the actors and the directors and the producers to go there and have really that comparison. Only with a comparison can you learn. You have to learn in order to go ahead. When you are only in this town you don’t have the opportunity to learn. That really is the major, major need that they have. To get more money so people can travel and learn.

KH: I think it’s great that you are on the board. San Antonio is really an isolated city here in the United States. A lot of people don’t even know that it exists. I see the art that is happening here is very unique and very about where people are coming from. But I think you are right that technically there’s not as much exposure to what is possible. Even with the resources people have. I think you are right. It is all about cultural exchange. I saw the Festival de Libre Enganche, that seems like a really great direction. To bring artists from other countries, other places.

AJB: We did last year the International Theater Festival in San Antonio together with the Mexican Cultural Institute. Jump-Start was involved. That gave them an opportunity to really integrate and perform and learn with other performances. They came from all over. That was a very wonderful opportunity. More of these opportunities have to be created and that is really a matter of financial support.

KH: What do you think is the impact really or the effect of Jump-Start in San Antonio, in the different communities, or in specific communities, or in the larger community. How do you see it as a community project as well as an art project?

AJB: I think it is a very important community project because it raises a lot of questions and dialogues that people really have and dare to bring it forth. Political, sociological, personal questions, and they approach it less veiled than southern comfort, so to speak, because the southern mentality is one that tries to be nice to everybody and they dare to pose questions that are not as polite. Not as socially acceptable. That is very important. They reach a lot of young people. They reach a lot of important problems...not problems, questions within society and they put it on the stage so that people can associate with it. That is very important.

Interview with Greta De Leon

KH: Why are you on the board of Jump-Start?

Greta De Leon: Well, that’s a long story. When I first moved to San Antonio, I started working with the Mexican Cultural Institute. I was dealing with the theater department under the direction of the institute, who is a very well-known playwright in Mexico. We started working. We started trying to put together some performances. It was very strong, the change for me, from one culture to another. The time that I was here, like for six months, I was not aware of Jump-Start at all.

KH: Where are you from, or where were you living before?

GDL: I was living in France before.

KH: Where in France?

GDL: Paris

KH: That’s where I work.

GDL: Really? So, well the whole experience with Jump-Start, and the first really contact was Phillipe was commissioned to do a play with Sandra Cisneros. It was one of the projects that they had with her, some of her short stories were adapted to a play. I started working with Jump-Start. I got really familiar with the work they were doing and the proposal. It was the only space like it that I’ve seen. And also, even in Mexico. In Mexico, you have a lot of companies that are companies, but don’t have a venue. This place you have this amazing combination of gifted, talented, independent people. But they also work. They know how to work. They are not messy, disordered. On the contrary they are extremely professional. Really demanding and very structured and they know how to run a theater. You have the whole structured thing in one way, and the whole creative bit of avant-garde part in the other. So, I was completely fascinated with Jump-Start. I was production manager for that play. And I fell in love with it. Every time I could volunteer I did. Every time I could do something for them I did. And they asked me to start working with them, being host, things like that. Until they asked me to be on the board. I always said no to be on the board of organizations because it is really like a second job that you don’t get paid for, and that you really need to invest a lot of time in it. With Jump-Start I never had a second thought. It’s completely unique. The work that they are doing, I believe in it. The whole process. The way that they develop a piece. They are really integrated. For example, they did this piece of Shimi’s. They have creative responses. It is a whole process that you get involved with as a board member, as a company member you are invited to join in the whole growing of it. For me it was no question.

KH: How long have you been around Jump-Start?

GDL: I’ve been on the board for I think two years.

KH: How long have you lived in San Antonio?

GDL: Four years.

KH: What do you see are the challenges that Jump-Start is facing, whether they are external or internal.

GDL: Right now I think they are external ones. I think the whole financial process, I was so proud of them when they started this whole capital campaign. And really working to create an endowment, and really being into this mind of big company with the whole independent approach to it. I think it is financial. In the quality of their work, I am always thrilled. They do such a variety of works. It’s very open space.

KH: And are you from Mexico, were you born in Mexico? You are not from Texas?

GDL: No. I am from Mexico City. I never thought that I would live in Texas. Oh, my gosh.

KH: I know. And so, coming from Mexico and then being in North America, how do you see the way that Jump-Start is diverse or is in the different communities? How do you see that?

GDL: They have the whole education component that is very, very important for them. At the same time they also have the Festival de Libre Enganche that is a theater festival that deals with Mexicans or Americans with Mexican origins. They present their work.

KH: What does "enganche" mean?

GDL: Enganche means exchange.

KH: Ah. Free exchange...

GDL: Well, free exchange, and at the same time "enganche" is kind of like a hook. So, it is a very good word. I don’t know who came up with that one. That is a very good title for a festival.

KH: But as far as inclusion, is there anything more you would say about the way that they work in communities?

GDL: Yes. Absolutely. In all of them. They present works of a variety. They are very inclusive.

KH: If you were going to say, this is what you would like to see from Jump-Start. if you were going to look five years or ten years down the line. what more would you like, or what different?

GDL: I would like the theater to have more money. So, they can have better high-tech productions. I would like that they were able to pay a repertory company. That’s very important for the work that they are doing. Everybody is underpaid and overworked. Everybody does it because it is their mission and they believe in it. I hope that will get paid off. And the interaction with Mexico. I think that is very important. It is one of the few organizations that does this. They have this very select curatorial process for the work they are going to present here. It is very much underlying what they do. What they showcase of Mexico is really work that in Mexico is very avant-garde. Is like the top of it. And they are working with that. And they are bringing that here. I wish there was like a branch of Jump-Start in the country.

KH: That’s great. Are there any stories that you think are interesting? Any stories that you think really capture who Jump-Start is that you would like other people to know? Or whether it is an idea that you have, or something that has happened that they’ve done, a show that they have done, something that you think captures who they are?

GDL: Well, there have been so many. They have a project of right now documenting there work, the plays that are being made in Jump-Start, and they are going to create a book. So, I do believe in documentation. Documentation is very important to an organization and they are doing that. Creating this volume of work, of plays and I think that is very exciting. And it is not very common to see in a theater with this kind of involvement. The outreach of Jump-Start is amazing. You see the students praising the work. They go to see Shakespeare in the schools. And they go to see "La Frontera" by Lisa Suarez, and it starts with them seeing Lisa on stage. It is a very layered company, and that is why I believe in them. It doesn’t exclude anybody. They are included by the quality of their work. The stories? There are way to many. The gallery, .every time they have a show they have an art show. It is a part of it.

KH: You are the first person to mention the gallery. Are there any shows that stand out for you, visual art shows?

GDL: Well, when we did the play of Sandra Cisneros, "The Eyes of Zapata," it was really nice, because the whole exhibit we did was very old Mexican newspapers about the whole story of Zapatismo. So, you could see the whole movement of it. During the time you are in the lobby you are completely involved in different approach to a performance piece. When they approach the conceptual. When they do the Festival de Libre Enganche it is the same. They have a video looping all the time of video artists, so they really engaged different mediums. That is very complete. And that is something that I haven’t seen in other places. It is a very complete entity.

KH: What do you want people to know about Jump-Start and to take as a model?

GDL: Well I think Jump-Start is so unique that it is going to be difficult to adapt a model. It was a theater, it was a project that started from very visionary people and very restless people. Very excluded in a way. No, not excluded that is not the word. Edgy could be. The way that it has grown into this, and what it is going to become in five years, it is like a role model for companies. But yes, with the idea of having a company. The way that they have organized it I think is an important thing. For Jump-Start, when they have a company member they are allowed to present their work, and they meet proposals and they accept it. It is extremely democratic. The thing that is always lacking in theater companies, because we always have the vision of our director. The name. That is X-machine and that is it. Nothing else will be featured there. Jump-Start is everybody’s work that is featured, and that is a roll model.

KH: Brilliant. Thank you.

Keith Hennessy is a Canadian-born, interdisciplinary artist choreographer and community arts organizer living in community in San Francisco. Hennessy's solo work has been produced throughout the U.S., in Canada, New Zealand and Australia, including several gay and lesbian performance festivals. Since 1998, he has performed with Cahin-Caha, cirque bâtard, a French/American, mongrel circus based in France. Hennessy was a member of the performance collective Core and was a founding member and principle collaborator in Contraband, a San Francisco-based performance company. Hennessy co-directs 848 Community Space. He is a member of Alternate ROOTS, a service organization for community-based artists, and serves radical cultural agendas as a consultant, director, teacher, curator and agitator.

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