Rising Stars: Meet Yané Garcia

Today we’d like to introduce you to Yané Garcia.

Hi Yané, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I first fell in love with performance by participating in my high school’s local poetry competition. After that experience, I decided to join the drama club because I figured that I should give performance a shot since I really enjoyed it. Back then, I was an awkward, quiet, and so deep in the closet queer, but performance allowed me to step out of that. Even though my high school drama teacher was not the sweetest to me, I still decided to pursue theatre in college because I knew something was there for me. Theatre has saved my life. I have dedicated so many hours in working on productions, on stage, backstage, front of house crew, and as a performer. College showed me that there is no limit to what aspect of theatre I could not do. After college, I had the honor of starting up a theatre company, Teatro Liberado, with friends and graduates of Cal Poly Pomona. We wrote a play, Caminos: A Mothers Journey, where we interviewed our mother or mother figures to capture their stories on migrating to the United States. We had a total of four performances with sold-out shows. Most importantly, the mothers who were interviewed felt seen and heard. I feel really blessed to be where I am today. A Queer nonbinary writer, producer, and actor who is finally giving themselves permission to create.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
There have been countless struggles and obstacles I have had to overcome as a nonbinary artist of color now in 2020. The one that is most recent is probably doubting myself as an artist during this pandemic. Creating art has never been more challenging. It’s a really tough field to navigate throughout quarantine but, I feel hopeful that I will continue to create content while also taking care of myself and my mental well-being.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m most known for being the cofounder to Teatro Liberado, a social justice theatre company. I am most proud of what the company was able to accomplish together. The play we wrote, Caminos: A Mothers Journey is one of the pieces I am most proud of. Currently, I specialize in making interviews into plays/screenplays. This is a technique I recently learned with Tectonic Theatre who are based out in NY.

So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
Queer narratives told by, created by, and produced by Queer people of colors matter to me tremendously. It is important that the stories for our community is also created from our community. I am tired of seeing queer narratives that don’t include queer voices throughout the creative process. It’s 2020, it’s time to put a hold on heteronormative stories and shine light to queer POC, nonbinary, and trans stories.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mx.yane.garcia/

Image Credits
Xuli Garcia