MEET ELA TROYANO
“I tend to seek challenges, humor, and often happy to receive the totally unexpected.”
Location: New York, New York
Disciplines: Theater, Narrative film (fiction), Documentary film, Experimental film/video art, Photography
Ela Troyano is a filmmaker and interdisciplinary artist, born in Cuba and based in New York City. Select films include include Carmelita Tropicana Your Kunst Is Your Waffen / Your Art Is Your Weapon (1994); Latin Boys Go To Hell (1997); La Lupe Queen of Latin Soul (2007); the expanded cinema performance The Silence of Marcel Duchamp with Uzi Parnes, with music by John Zorn (2010), the podcast That’s Not What Happened (2021) by her long time collaborator and sister Carmelita Tropicana. Select awards include funding from Creative Capital, the Ford Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Latino Public Broadcasting, New York State Council on the Arts, Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, the Independent Television Service (PBS), and United States Artist Fellowship. She was selected to attend the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program and script writing programs at INTAR with Maria Irene Fornes and at the Sundance Institute with Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Her films are in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Arsenal Institut fur Film und Videokunst e.V., Berlin. Troyano developed Creative Capital’s signature Spanish language professional development program Taller, was the founding Director of the Leslie-Lohman Museum’s Artist Fellowship from 2027 to 2024, and she’s a founding member of Strategic Planning Partners.
Work
mentor profile
What interests you about mentoring?
“Mentorship is a part of my practice. I was very lucky to have been mentored early on by the legendary Jack Smith and have continued the process.”
Given your experience and interests, what kind of emerging artist do you feel best positioned to support?
“I've been working since 2003 as a professional development consultant and individual coach in different disciplines, but feel I can best support artists working in media, performance, and across disciplines.”
As a mentor, what would you like to offer an emerging artist? What would you like to receive?
“There are no specifics, I'm open to an artist's needs and values. I'm trained in professional development, (strategic planning, fundraising, negotiating, etc.) but love to problem solve as a writer, director, producer, with an entrepreneurial mindset. I tend to seek challenges, humor, and often happy to receive the totally unexpected.”
Have you had mentors of your own? Who have they been?
“Jack Smith, Maria Irene Fornes, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Colleen Keegan.”
This Mentor is open to working with Fellows either remotely or in-person!