Luisa Alarcón Criales is a New York City-based physical actor, theater director, and anthropologist from Cali, Colombia. She is currently directing "La Mujer que Amaba Demasiado" for her company Colectivo Acción Corrinche based in Cali. Luisa has performed at international festivals such as the Festival International du Théâtre Universitaire de Tanger, Morocco, and at the International Festival for Contemporary & Experimental Theatre in Cairo, Egypt. As an artist in residence at Circulo Escénico in Cholula, México, she developed her performance piece "Llanto a la Pirámide," which lead her into the continuous writing of "Historias de Monstruos y Otras Fantasias Tóxicas," which will have a brief appearance at the Magdalena Project in Ayllón, Spain. Luisa has also been developing work with her other theater company Exit 7 in Copenhagen, Denmark. As an anthropologist, she has focused in the women's resistance to Colombian state oppression at the Women OnStage for Peace Festival in Bogotá, Colombia, which concluded with her award-winning thesis "Women Performing to Resist: Colombia's Endless War."

Why PS @ NYU?

With the growing need to understand and cope with the endless Colombian war, I approached anthropology as a place to find a research methodology, thinking that my practice within theater would serve the purpose of understanding onstage performances, which are an essential resistance platform. However, I have come to understand in the practice, that performances of everyday acts of resistance and power, are fundamental to reassess the meaning of war, and the longing for peace in a society deeply traumatized as the Colombian one.