Meet Victoria Collado and Vanessa Garcia of Abre Camino Collective

Today we’d like to introduce you to Victoria Collado and Vanessa Garcia. Them and their team share their story with us below:

Together, we, as the two founding members of ACC, have assistant directed John Leguizamo’s Latin History For Morons on Broadway and taken him on tour (Victoria), written for Sesame Street and Caillou (Vanessa), won an International Latino Book Award and been on NPRs Best Books of 2015 (Vanessa), written for the LA Times, The Washington Post, The Miami Herald, ESPN, The Hill, and numerous other publications (Vanessa), and been called Best Director of 2020 by Miami New Times (Victoria). We’ve produced, written, and directed plays around the world from Edinburgh to Amsterdam, New York City to Miami; Los Angeles to Little Rock.

As a collective, Abre Camino is comprised of visual, theater, film, literary, and performing artists redefining the American narrative through radical storytelling.

For us radical storytelling means using our own voice to tell our stories instead of having others tell it for us. It’s doing this across mediums that connect like constellations of the same sky. We believe in creating worlds and universes that reflect our truths, who we are, and what we feel the world does not yet know but needs to. In the process, we do this by building teams that are families — invigorating them from a place of mission, not just craft. This is our calling, our purpose, and our responsibility.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Smooth roads are paved by others. New roads are always bumpy. So we’ve had our fare share of bumps.

Actually, if we’re totally truthful, ours has been a combination of both smooth and unpaved roads. We stand on the shoulders of others that came before us, but we’ve also cut a lot of brush along the way, put in good walking paths, and made the path smoother for ourselves and for others.

We both have memories of empty pockets, bank accounts, negatives, “in-the-reds,” risk-all-moments and jump-and-the-net-will-appear years. We, like all artists, have faced rejection. Vanessa used to have a bag full of writing rejections (back when rejections came in the mail and not digitally). Until she realized that keeping rejections around was like keeping Potpourri around — better to have fresh flowers and toss the bad karma out the window. Victoria has been the only woman in the room often, as a director — it hasn’t always been fun having a “dude” watching over her shoulder, as if she couldn’t do her job (I’m sure all women can relate to this).

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
We’re best known for our work on The Amparo Experience, an immersive production that told the story of the Arechabala family, who created the Real Havana Club Rum, from whom that company was stolen by the Cuban regime, and who fought for its legacy in exile. We’re still telling this story. And will continue to tell it.

Our obsession is Cuba. We have a number of projects both in development and in production. Many of them tell the true story of Cuba, which has not been told. Which has been obfuscated by a dictatorship that many have not been allowed to see (because that’s the thing with dictatorships, they’re good at hiding history, burying truth and making mirages).

We also believe, very much so, in telling true Latinx stories — not the stories that are assigned to us, but the true stories we live.

What were you like growing up?
We both grew up in Miami, and both lived in New York, ten years apart from each other. Vanessa also lived in LA for five years. Vicky is the extrovert — so she was the dancer, performer, actor who loves music and is extremely musical. Until she figured out she was really a director. Vanessa also started out as an actor — but as an early introvert, she took to writing and painting. For a long time, she did both writing and painting/visual art right alongside each other until she figured out the visual art was really a part of her writing, which is multidisciplinary in nature.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: https://www.abrecaminocollective.com
• Instagram: @abrecaminocollective
• Facebook: @Facebook.com/AbreCaminoCollective
• Twitter: @abrecaminoco
• Youtube: @rubenology101

Image Credits
Victoria Collado and Vanessa Garcia
Diego Texera