I first met Gea in the middle of a snowstorm. In mid-January, when Belgium was covered in white, she presented Apapacho at the Théâtre de la Parole, a children's show on Mexican culture combining storytelling, music and dance. A few weeks later, I joined her at her apartment in Brussels. We spent two hours together over coffee and quesadillas. It was a meeting in the image of Gea, passionate, luminous and generous. An opportunity to talk about her career path, how to generate our luck, the use of "new" technologies in art and the management of her heritage.
We naturally start the discussion by talking about Apapacho, her latest show. It all began with a request from her daughter's school for a St. Nicholas show. The result was Cadeau, which later became Apapacho, in which Mexican culture is offered as a gift.
Gea is used to working with kids. "To pay for my university studies in Mexico, I was already teaching children. What I learned in school, I put into practice with them. That's how I began to develop my own method, a dance laboratory for children, where they could create their own choreography."
She takes this working method with her when she leaves for Belgium. It's a demanding job, but one that complements her projects for adults. "Children are a wonderful audience. They're very sincere. If something doesn't work, they'll let you know”. They are ultimately the breeding ground for her work as a dancer, choreographer and lighting designer. "Everything I do, I try out first with kids. I can experiment with all my madness; they have no prejudices. If it works with children, it will work with adults".
Ingesting wholesale social networks
And indeed, during the pandemic, when she was no longer able to give these dance laboratories face-to-face, she developed "videoconfedanzas", a virtual dance and experimentation workshop. The confinement enabled her to find a new mode of expression, "working with the possibilities of the screen as a creative tool". An experiment which, at its peak, will bring children together behind their screens for three hours a day.
This work with kids will find its counterpart in the adult world with a virtual workshop, Dance your PhD, a collaboration with Professor Nicolas Kervyn from the University of Louvain-la-Neuve. This is an international competition in which doctoral students have to explain their research topic through dance. A project of scientific disclosure through artistic creation and technology that developed during the pandemic and continues to this day, under the name Dance your research.
The idea behind this project is that "anything that has a place in the real world must find its equivalent in virtual space". This leads her to constantly ingest social networks, to study the forms of this new language. Gea is convinced that these tools need to be assimilated by everyone: "Our generation has a huge responsibility in content creation. People my age don't know how to apply these tools to their profession. As a result, we're leaving this space for expression in the hands of the younger generation, who are talking about experiences of their own age. Which is normal! But our abandonment of these spaces prevents transmission between generations".
For Gea, the use of technology and social networks is fundamental to her work, providing fertile ground for creation. "Apapacho is typical of my work. It's a hybrid creation, but in reality... Apapacho is a Tik tok!". Indeed, for this show, Gea dissects the mechanics of the social network and appropriates all these layers of language (visual, written, sound), it's a resource that serves her discourse. "Apapacho is conceived in this way, and unconsciously the audience already possesses this language. But this construction would have been impossible 10 years ago".
Apapacho - created by Gea Zazil
"I’m making my own spot and never look back"
What makes Gea so admirable is the sheer number of projects she pursues in parallel with apparent fluidity and relaxation. As I prepare for my meeting with her, I remain impressed by the network she has developed since her arrival in Belgium. An impressive network of contacts and partners that she has built up from scratch.
Gea arrived in Belgium in 2009. At the time, she was living in Mexico, where she danced for various companies and created lighting for shows, all the while in a relationship with a Belgian man. Following problems with her spine that handicapped her in her work, she decided to come to Belgium for treatment. It was a decision she imagined to be temporary, but one she intended to make the most of. For two years, she took care of herself, learned French and wanted to work for the best cultural institutions so as to make the most of her experience back in Mexico.
That's how she came to knock on the door of the Opéra de la Monnaie. Or rather, she got her foot in the door. "My philosophy is always to ask the question. In my head, I've already got the “no”, but I'm not afraid to go and ask first." And so, one morning in late 2010, she arrived at the Opéra reception desk, her laptop under her arm, and asked to speak to the producer. After an hour's wait in the lobby, she finally harpooned him as he was coming out of his lunch break. She meets Carlos Proenza, who, as luck would have it, speaks Spanish. She gave him a brief presentation of her creations in Mexico, and landed an internship contract with the Opera's lighting team the same day. "I took the risk, my whole life has been like that, I’m making my own spot and I never look back".
In 2011, a law called on cultural institutions to achieve greater parity in their technical teams. In the male-dominated world of lighting control, Gea is the ideal candidate. The right place, at the right time. In the end, Gea the all-rounder stayed at the Opéra for 10 years, alternating between the lighting and costume departments.
An experience that almost never saw the light of day. In 2011, she was separated from her boyfriend and her entire circle of friends moved away from Brussels. Gea felt she had come full circle and bought a ticket to return to Mexico. "That day I met my current husband, the father of my daughter, and I've never left". Those are the days that redefine the rest of a life.
"A woman from the Acapulco coast, with all that implies"
Mexicanity is at the heart of all her projects. It's an interest that stems from her personal journey. At the age of 9, she entered the Mexican Institute of Fine Arts, where she studied contemporary and traditional Mexican dance. In Mexico, however, her passion for popular dances soon found itself corseted. "On the one hand, they're not appreciated for what they're worth, because of class prejudices about what 'fine art' should be," she says, "but it's also a discipline with a lot of codes. The Mexican folklorists of the time were very strict and conservative about what could and couldn't be done in folklore".
It was finally when she arrived in Brussels that she found her identity in dance, her Mexicanity, made up of constraints but also opportunities. "When I arrived here, I felt free to do whatever I wanted. On the one hand, I was in the Mecca of contemporary dance, where the competition was very tough”. But nobody knew anything about traditional Mexican dance. "So I wanted to take advantage of the freedom my identity gave me. Since then, all my creations have followed this line, deeply rooted in Mexican culture but with a contemporary language".
An identity that has become even richer in recent years. Pregnant with her daughter, Gea is experiencing some health problems. Concerns which, according to her gynecologist, are typical of women from the Afro-Caribbean community. Gea then discovered that she was Afro-descendant. "A lot of things started to make sense from then on. At dance school, I was surrounded by little white girls, I always was the most "morena" (brown-skin) of the group".
In Mexico, the Afro-descent heritage is a huge taboo. Gea believed that her skin color and morphology stemmed from an indigenous past. "We never talked about it at home". Gea comes from Acapulco, a coastal region with an Afrodescendant community, who arrived in Mexico as slaves in the service of the Spanish Crown. When Gea discovers her origins, she begins to ask questions. Her mother revealed that when she was pregnant with her, her maternal grandfather had come to apologize because "the little one will probably have Afro features".
In Mexico, this is a stigma heavy to bear. "For my grandfather it was a disgrace, 'cosas del diablo' (things of the devil), as they say. He had another language that he refused to speak, because he was too afraid of discrimination”. For Gea, these are roots she's only picked up on late in life, but they are essential. Her next project will speak of this heritage. Today, she identifies much more with the roots of her region, "I'm a costeña from Acapulco, with all that that implies".
It's this new identity that has led her to take an interest in the decolonial perspectives she intends to apply to her discipline of stage lighting. "Lighting design is the basis of everything in a theatre. Without light, you see nothing! And we're taught this from a Eurocentric point of view. At school, we're taught that it all starts with Greek theater. The idea is to start working on other points of view. For example, because of our geographical location, light - and therefore colors - are more intense in Latin America".
A migration experience steeped in History
Like her heritage, which has an impact on her creative work and is part of Mexico's racial history, Gea is aware that her migratory journey is also the fruit of a History that goes beyond her. For one of her projects, she interviewed several generations of Mexican immigrants living in Brussels.
In recent years, she has seen a change in the profile of Mexicans living in Brussels. "Those who arrived 30 years ago have very few links with the Latin community. They had to erase their Mexican identity to integrate into the Belgian system. In fact, they hardly ever go back". She then returns to the importance of social networks, "as they are not present on them, we lose track of these generations". Yet they paved the way for later arrivals like herself. "Life in Belgium isn't easy, but it's easier than it used to be. In the field of dance, the cultural path was already mapped out for us, and we 'lo petamos todo' (it worked well for us)!".
A dynamic that continues to grow stronger with globalization, scholarships and multinationals recruiting all over the world. Mexican immigration is represented in all professional sectors, all social strata. "For my generation and those who are settling here now, returning to Mexico on a regular basis is a necessity and a requirement". This integration is facilitated by Mexico's international image: "A great deal of marketing has been done here. People here associate Mexico directly with a positive image, which helps us to integrate".
To conclude our meeting, I ask Gea to take a photo in the courtyard of her building with an object that symbolizes her journey. She chooses to pose with her dancing shoes, which have come all the way from Mexico. Black heels, with soles worn by exercise. "These are special heels, called "muñeca" heels. They're bigger than flamenco ones. Mexican dances require more stability, as we move around a lot on stage".
Stability in constant movement. Gea couldn't have offered me a better personal metaphor to conclude this meeting.
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