+ Dramas de barrio

Juan Ayala works as a director, actor, playwright and stage designer. After graduating as an architect, he trained in stage creation at the Jaques Lecoq School in Paris and at the London International School of Performing Arts (LISPA) in London.

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He has directed and written more than thirty shows presented, among others, at Teatro Español, Matadero Madrid, Circo Price, Teatro Central Sevilla, Casa Encendida, Teatro de La Abadía, Conde Duque, Escena Poblenou Barcelona, Greek National Opera in Athens, BAC London, MAC Birmingham, Greenwich Dance Academy London, Siobhan Davies Studios London, Tobacco Factory Theatres in Bristol, BeirutSpringFestival in Lebanon, TeatroMania in Poland, and Physical Festival in Chicago.

He has created a multitude of experiences of a community nature with organisations and arts centres (Teatro Abadía, Circo Price, Museo Reina Sofia, Escena Poblenou, Shioban Davis Studios, among others), working collaboratively with local casts and mixing professionals and non-professionals for non-conventional spaces. As a teacher, he has given courses and seminars on stage creation in Spain, England, France, Greece, Germany, Morocco and the USA.

Miguel Oyarzun is a director, actor, playwright and cultural manager. He holds a postgraduate degree in Performing Arts Leadership from RNCM in Manchester. Jacques Lecoq’s pedagogical journey in stage creation at LISPA, London. He holds a degree in Dramatic Art, specialising in acting and rextual interpretation from RESAD View more .

He was artistic director of the FIT in Cádiz from 2020 to 2023, with Isla Aguilar; of the Conde Duque Cultural Centre in Madrid from 2018 to 2019; and of the BE FESTIVAL in Birmingham from 2010 to 2022, of which he is also co-founder.

He has directed and written more than fifteen plays and community projects co-produced with Teatro de La Abadía, Teatro Español, Museo Reina Sofía and La Casa Encendida, among other institutions. His acting career includes plays, series and films. He has given courses, seminars and conferences in Spain and England.

Inés Collado

Actress, creator and producer who graduated from Nave 73 School, Queen Mary University of London, and Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. She has also trained with professionals such as Brigid Panet, Pablo Messiez, Alberto Velasco, Voadora, Teatro en Vilo, Juan Ceacero, Francesco Carril and John Wright.

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She works as an actress-creator between Spain and the UK with companies such as Grumelot in El Aquiles (2014) and Pablo Gisbert’s Un cine arde y diez personas arden (2015), Un tíovivo en una ratonera (Juan Codina, 2016), PAN-Optikum (Crossing Lines Project, 2017), and in projects such as Cervantes’ El viejo celoso (Vicente Fuentes, 2018), The Crucible (dir. Andrea Lewis. London, 2018), ¿De qué te resulta imposible hablar? directed by Juan Ceacero (2021), and in the UK Spring Tour of Qrumpet (ANTS Theatre, 2022).

In 2018 she founded drift productions where she directs, writes and performs four trains (Festival IMPARABLES, Nave73, 2019). In 2020, she co-founded Tea&Party with Olga Hernández, with whom she coordinated the cycle of pieces #OutofContext within the Domingos de Insurrección project at the Teatro de la Abadía and where she created, with drift productions, SANTA EUGENIA, a piece that became part of the season of the Abadía in 2023.

She is currently in the process of touring the UK for Person Spec with the Forest Sounds Theatre Company (Alphabetti Theatre and Camden’s People’s Theatre. United Kingdom, 2023) and in the process of creating De la juventud (La Compañía Exlímite).

Cristina Marín-Miró

She holds a Degree in Textual Interpretation from RESAD. During her training, she co-founded the company La Nomai, directed by Mattis G. de la Fuente, where she worked as an actress and assistant director.  View more

After graduating, Cristina co-founded Les Bolinguis, a company created to bring theatre to refugee camps. In 2018, they created Chroma, a piece of physical theatre and music that they took during the summer to more than twelve refugee camps all over Greece.

Cristina continued her training by taking the annual course for performers with Carlos Tuñón. With La Nomai, she premiered Chest Press in 2021 at Sala Exlímite. She also received a grant for the research project Historias de Peques, undertaken at the Conservatorio de Música de Getafe, the Escuela Superior de Canto, and at RESAD. In the same year, Cristina took part in a dramatised reading of Ellas hablan solas (Women’s Day; Biblioteca Nacional).

In 2022 Cristina, together with Inés Collado and Inés González, creates SANTA EUGENIA (drift productions), a headphone theatre piece premiered at the Teatro de la Abadía. In 2022 she also works as an actress with the company Nao de amores in Numancia, a co-production with the CNTC. In September of the same year, Cristina joined the Joven Compañía Nacional de Teatro Clásico, with whom in April 2023 she premiered La discreta enamorada, by Lope de Vega, scheduled to tour and run until 2024.

Xirou Xiao 肖熙柔

Young artist born in China and based in Madrid since 2013. She is a PhD student at the Faculty of Fine Arts (UCM), mainly working as an artist, educator and researcher, but also as a performer, manager and artistic and intercultural mediator.

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She is the creator and director of the performance company Cangrejo Pro; co-founder of Liwai Acción Intercultural; director of the arts and community project 天马行空 TIĀN MǍ XÍNG KŌNG with Chinese families; coordinating member of the Chinese Diaspora Network in Spain; coordinator of Casa Asia’s Bamboo School in Madrid.

Xirou collaborates in various artistic, cultural and educational actions with cultural institutions in Spain, including in the Ministry of Culture and Sport, the Museo Nacional del Prado, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza; New York University in Madrid, Complutense University of Madrid, Autonomous University of Madrid, University of Barcelona, Autonomous University of Barcelona, University of Zaragoza; the Centro de Creación Matadero Madrid, the Centro Cultural Conde Duque, the Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo CAM, the Sala Arte Joven CAM, the Museo Artium in Vitoria, the Museo Carmen Thyssen in Málaga, the Palacio de las Artes in Valencia, the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Burgos CAB.

Cangrejo Pro

It is the first and only project of scenic creation in Spain that is formed exclusively by a group of young Chinese women active in Madrid since 2018. They use collective performance creation as a situated practice to build a Chinese “sub-community” from within, in a process of grouping and communication that develops their own collective identities with roots and many roots, gathering strength and growing.

© Laura C. Vela