Monique Mojica

Monique Mojica (Kuna and Rappahannock), born 1954, is a playwright, director, and actor based out of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She was born in New York City, but came to Canada as founding member of Native Earth Performing Arts.

She has appeared in several films and plays, including Smoke Signals in 1998, and her own stage play Princess Pocahontas and the Blue Spots.[1]

Biography

Mojica comes from a long line of theatre practitioners. Her mother, Gloria Miguel, and aunts Muriel Miguel and Lisa Mayo (born Elizabeth Miguel) are the founders of Spiderwoman Theater. Mojica began training in acting and theatre at the age of three and follows many of the traditions of storytelling and theatre creating seen in Spiderwoman's works.[2]

She is also of Jewish ancestry. Jewish–Indigenous hybridity is one of the themes of both David Treuer’s and Mojica’s work.

Career

Her most famous plays include Princess Pocahontas and the Blue Spots, Birdwoman and the Suffragettes, and Chocolate Woman Dreams the Milkyway. She has collaborated with Floyd Favel on research and theatre projects that focus on Native performance culture.[3][4]

From 1983 to 1985 she was artistic director of Native Earth Performing Arts, which is Canada's oldest professional Indigenous theatre company.[5] She is currently the artistic director of Chocolate Woman Collective.[6]

Along with Jani Lauzon and Michelle St. John, Mojica co-founded Turtle Gals Performance Ensemble which produced the plays The Scrubbing Project and The Tripple Truth.[7][8]

Mojica is co-editor of Staging Coyote's Dream: An Anthology of First Nations Drama in English with Ric Knowles. She has been nominated for best supporting actress by Native Americans in the Arts for her role in Smoke Signals.

In 2019, Mojica was involved with the launch of Canada's National Arts Centre's Indigenous Theatre. She performed in their first show, The Unnatural and Accidental Women by Metis-Dene playwright Marie Clements.[9]

Filmography

Theatre appearances
  • The Rez Sisters (Native Earth)
  • Red River (Crow's Theatre)
  • The Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God (Nightwood Theare/Obsidian/Mirvish)
  • Home is My Road (Factory Theatre)
  • Death of a Chief (Native Earth/NAC)
  • The Governor of the Dew (Globe Theatre/NAC)
  • Jessica (TPM)[4]
  • Honour Beat (Theatre Calgary)[11]
  • Side Show Freaks and Circus Injuns - co-created by Mojica with LeAnne Howe and Jorge Luis Morejón[12]

References
  1. "Mojica". NAC-CNA.
  2. Carter, Jill (2010). Repairing the Web: Spiderwoman's Children Staging the New Human Being (PDF). Library and Archives Canada: University of Toronto.
  3. "Monique Mojica Bio". Playwrights Canada.
  4. "Monique Mojica". Gary Goddard Agency.
  5. "Native Earth Performing Arts". Native Earth Performing Arts.
  6. "Monique Mojica, actor, playwright, artistic director of Chocolate Woman Collective". NOW Magazine. 2017-01-04. Retrieved 2020-11-12.
  7. "Monique Mojica". Canadian Theatre.
  8. Gazette News, The (3 April 2006). "Turtle Gals to present original play this week". Champaign, Ill: The Gazette News. pp. C-3.
  9. Ho, Solarina (2019-09-13). "World's first national Indigenous Theatre program launches in Ottawa". CTVNews. Retrieved 2020-11-12.
  10. "Monique Mojica". IMDB.
  11. Hobson, Louis B. (2018-09-13). "Review: Being true to oneself at heart of Honour Beat at Theatre Calgary". calgaryherald. Retrieved 2020-11-12.
  12. Barnes, Zachary (2016-11-18). "Artists strive to decolonize indigeneity". Brown Daily Herald. Retrieved 2020-11-12.
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