AWAKEN YOUR ARTIST A 6-Day Acting Retreat & Performance Immersive in Mexico City Free

January 18–23, 2027
30+ Hours of Workshops, Training & Artistic Experimentation
Centro Cultural Casa Hechale · Mexico City

For six days in January, actors and performing artists from different places will gather in Mexico City to train, experiment and make work together.

Awaken Your Artist is an acting retreat and performance immersive built around more than 30 hours of workshops, movement practice, ensemble work, play and artistic experimentation, with accommodation, shared meals, cultural activities and time to experience the city together.

The programme takes place at Centro Cultural Casa Hechale, an independent cultural centre in Santa María la Ribera. Throughout the week, participants work closely as a small ensemble, moving between structured training and more exploratory forms of practice.

There is time to work seriously. There is also room to try something before knowing where it will lead.

Sessions move through acting, movement, Viewpoints, improvisation, ensemble practice, text, physical exploration and performance-making. Some work begins with technique; some with a body in space, a piece of language, an impulse, an image or another performer.

The week is shaped by practice, curiosity and play — and by the relationships that form when artists share more than a few hours in a classroom.

30+ HOURS OF PRACTICE

Across six days, participants take part in:

acting and performance workshops

movement and embodied practice

Viewpoints

ensemble training

improvisation and play

text and scene exploration

physical and spatial experimentation

collaborative performance exercises

conversations and exchange with artists working across Mexico and the United States

The group remains intentionally small, allowing people to know one another's work, take risks together and let the practice develop across the week.

LIVING AND WORKING IN MEXICO CITY

Mexico City is part of the experience.

Casa Hechale is based in Santa María la Ribera, one of the city's historic neighbourhoods, in a house that now brings together theatre, rehearsal, residency, research and artistic exchange.

Participants stay in Mexico City during the programme and share a rhythm that extends beyond the workshop room: training during the day, meals and conversations together, visits across the city, performances and encounters with its cultural life.

Group outings and selected cultural and artistic activities are organised as part of the week, creating opportunities to experience Mexico City through theatre, performance, neighbourhoods, museums, independent spaces and the artists who work here.

Some meals are shared as part of the programme, leaving room for conversation to continue after the day's practice has ended.

These quieter hours matter too. A conversation over dinner, a performance seen together or an afternoon moving through the city can return to the studio the following morning in unexpected ways.

A CROSS-BORDER ENCOUNTER

Awaken Your Artist grows from the work of Centro Cultural Casa Hechale and Hechale Productions across Mexico and the United States.

Casa Hechale was created as a place where artists from different backgrounds and disciplines can spend meaningful time together — developing work, rehearsing, researching and exchanging ways of thinking about performance.

Hechale Productions develops and produces theatre and performance across borders, connecting artists and creative communities in Mexico, the United States and internationally. Its work has been presented within Mexico City's public theatre and cultural ecosystem, including programming through the Sistema de Teatros de la Ciudad de México.

That cross-border practice continues inside the retreat.

Actors arrive with different training, languages, references and relationships to performance. Over the week, those differences become part of the work — through movement, rhythm, text, humour, memory, listening and the different ways we understand theatre.

The exchange happens through rehearsing, eating, seeing work, moving through the city and spending time together.

THE 2027 PROGRAMME

The January 2027 immersive brings together practitioners working across acting, movement and contemporary theatre, alongside workshops and artistic encounters developed through the Casa Hechale and Hechale Productions community.

Actor, director and educator Margo Hall will join the programme.

Across the week, concentrated training sits alongside experimentation, conversation, cultural encounters and the pleasure of making work with other actors.

WHO IT IS FOR

Awaken Your Artist welcomes actors and performing artists who are curious about process and willing to work generously with others.

It may be especially meaningful for performers who want to:

deepen their physical and ensemble practice

encounter approaches outside their usual training

spend sustained time experimenting away from the pressure of auditions and production

work alongside artists from different cultural and theatrical backgrounds

experience Mexico City through its contemporary artistic life

make space again for curiosity, attention and play

You may arrive with questions, an idea you have been carrying, or simply the desire to work.

What matters is a willingness to enter the room, stay curious and contribute to the ensemble.

THE RETREAT INCLUDES

30+ hours of workshops and artistic practice
Accommodation in Mexico City
Selected meals throughout the programme
Group outings and cultural activities
Theatre and artistic encounters in Mexico City
Shared studio and creative spaces at Casa Hechale
A small international cohort

January 18–23, 2027
Mexico City, Mexico

Language
English, within a bilingual English–Spanish artistic environment

Presented by
Centro Cultural Casa Hechale
Hechale Productions

Information & Applications
hechaleproductions.com/actingretreat