JASMIN CARDENAS

JASMIN CARDENAS

Teaching Artist

Since 2001

Jasmin Cardenas is a Colombian-American bilingual storyteller, actress, director and arts educator. Jasmin is a long time Lookingglass teaching artist of 15 years, directing, devising and teaching arts experiences where young people’s voices are featured and celebrated. She was the Director and Co-devisor of We Speak, the Lookingglass Young Ensemble 2017 show. Jasmin supported the mainstage production of Beyond Caring as the Community Programming Liaison and Co-Designer of Community Partnerships helping to extend conversations beyond the stage about the plight of workers in America.

Jasmin is a professional actress working throughout Chicagoland’s vibrant theatre community and was seen in The Compass (Steppenwolf Theatre Company), Forgotten Future: The Education Project (Collaboraction), Electricidad (Goodman Theatre), The True Story Of The Three Little Pigs (Lifeline Theatre), The Blue House (Adventure Stage Chicago), and Devil Land, Beauty Of The Father (UrbanTheater Company, ensemble member).

Jasmin is a proud SAG-AFTRA member who’s TV credits include: ABC’s Betrayal & NBC’s Chicago Fire. Her one-woman show, written and performed by Jasmin is called ¿Niña Buena? and toured in Chicago (Links Hall), the Midwest, and to an international theater festival in Puebla, Mexico. A professional storyteller Jasmin was an Exchange Place Teller at the 2016 National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, TN. She tours her program Cuentos From The Americas to schools, libraries, festivals, and is a regular contributor with 2nd Story. She has been featured on NPR and was one of the first Latina’s to be awarded the Race Bridges Storytelling Fellowship to create new social justice stories.

Fusing her love of performance with the need for raising social consciousness, she is a practitioner of the technique Theater of the Oppressed, which she learned from the Brazillian founder Augusto Boal. Over the past 12 years Jasmin has been using theater as a device to spark dialogue, dig deep into real social issues plaguing Chicago communities and to bridge build between populations that might not otherwise engage each other. Reaching across divides of language, socio-economic bubbles, cultural, geographic, educational and cross-generational chasms,  she has been busy breaking bread and strategizing change with Chicagoans everywhere.

Jasmin is a co-founder of the local collective Theater of the Oppressed and Activism in Chicago. She thanks her parents and her husband for their love & support and her children for their inspiration and life-giving love.

Bio as of 2017

Education

B.A. in Theater Arts, Specialization in Creative Drama, National Louis University