Sayda G. Trujillo

Sayda Trujillo, actor, director, and voice specialist was born in Montreal and grew up in Canada, Guatemala and the USA. Identity and storytelling inspire her personal work, as well as collective work with actors and non-actors around the corner and around the world. Teaching and performance work abroad include Guatemala, Ecuador, Chile, Singapore, Spain, Germany, Colombia, UK, Egypt, Turkey, India and Palestine with The Freedom Theatre. Sayda has written and performed four solo shows presented nationally and internationally at theater houses including La Mama, REDCAT, and NYTW. 

Before coming to Cal Poly Pomona Sayda taught at Pace University, Florida International University, Occidental College, Cal State Northridge, CSULB, UCSB, UCSC, Humboldt State, Williams College, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore and at Dell'arte International, where she developed a voice curriculum to complement the three-year MFA in Ensemble Based Physical Theatre. Sayda has taught at the California State Summer School for the Arts for 25 years, and  is on the faculty with the Michael Chekhov Association where her  focus is on the integration of voice and Michael Chekhov technique. 

Sayda volunteers for Clowns Without Borders performing for thousands of children in Latin America and the Middle East, and has served on their board of directors. Sayda teaches Voice, Acting, Tai Chi Chuan, Contact Improvisation, Solo Performance and physical theatre forms including Commedia Dell'arte and Clown. Education: BFA in Acting from the California Institute of the Arts; Diploma in Physical Theatre from Dell’arte International; MA in Voice Studies from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London.

Sayda's practical research and writing focuses on voice and identity, the integration of voice and movement, and decolonizing actor training and pedagogy through the study of the concept of Nepantla and Mayan Cosmology. You can access her essay Liberating Terror published at HowlRound in their Clown and Activism series; and her chapter “Nepantla: lingering in-between to embody our voice” in the book Stages of Reckoning: Antiracist and Decolonial Actor Training published by Routledge. For more information visit: Sayda's website.