Orisel Gaspar Rojas

Family
Spouse Wences Santomé
Son/s Adriano Carballo
Alma Santomé



Actress, theater director, acting teacher, poet, and Cuban-Hispanic casting director. She was born in Villa Clara, Cuba. She earned a degree in Performing Arts from the Instituto Superior de Artes ISA (University of the Arts of Havana)

Orisel Gaspar has been a student of Vicente Revuelta, Flora Lauten and Roberto Blanco, teachers considered by specialized critics among the most relevant actors and artistic directors throughout Latin America.

Her professional career began in 1985. She founded Teatro de la Villa in 1987 together with Joel Cano, with which she gained a reputation she has maintained until today. That same year she made her debut on Cuban Television, starring as Elsa in the Grimm Brothers' story.

Considered one of the great actresses of Cuban Theater, she has performed in titles such as A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare, Fable of a Wax Country by Joel Cano, The Black Dove by Rafael González, Right You Are (If You Think So) by Luigi Pirandello, Old Panics by Virgilio Piñera, The Rosalinda Marquise by Ramón de Valle Inclán, The Moral Equivocations by Reinaldo Montero, Son of the Soul in co-authorship with Javier Fernandez (Performance Award I Small Format Theater Festival Cuba/1993 and Performance Award Monologue Festival Havana Cuba/1993) and A Marriage Proposal by Anton Chekhov (Performance Award Small Format Theater Festival, Santa Clara, Cuba/1996).

In 1990 she works for Teatro del Centro where she begins to venture into actor training and show direction, premiering at Teatro La Caridad in Santa Clara the productions Old Panics, one of the most controversial works by the most important writer of Cuban Theater Virgilio Piñera, and Son of the Soul.

In 1993 she collaborates with the company Teatro Escambray where she remains until 2001. Attracted by actor training, she premieres there a good part of her productions as a director and teaches Interpretation Workshops: Action as a Particle (I Cuba-Canada Creation Workshop for Theater students and professors from York University-Toronto), Method of Creation (VI Cuba-Canada Workshop), Exercises for Actors (V Cuba-Canada Workshop), The Actor on Stage (II and III Cuba-Canada Creation Workshop), Exhibition of Productions and its Creation Method (IV Cuba-Canada Workshop) and the Permanent Actor Training Workshop Teatro Escambray (1993-2000). While simultaneously she founds her own group Teatro Vivo de Cuba. A persistent career of recognitions and awards has accompanied her in Cuba, Canada and Spain.

She has participated in numerous editions of Theater Festivals, among which stand out the International Theater Festival of Havana, International Theater Festival of Camaguey, International Small Format Theater Festival of Santa Clara, Yorick Theater Festival of Havana, Theater Without Borders Festival, Ciego de Ávila. In 1997 she travels to Toronto, Canada, to participate as an actress in the Du Maurier World Stage with the work Moral Equivocations by the renowned Cuban writer Reinaldo Montero.

In 2001 she collaborates as Movement Assistant for the work 'Caresses' by Sergi Belbel, premiered at the Harbourfront Centre in Toronto. Simultaneously she does Movement Assistance for the work Vinegar Tom, with Equity Showcase Theatre and also teaches Acting Workshops to professionals and students of Players Academy.

Her first two films shot in her native country prove that Orisel is not only for the stage. In 2003 she moved to France to receive at the Trois Continents Festival in Nantes the Golden Globe awarded for best directing of her film Seven Days Seven Nights, the first film of the First Independent Cuban Film Trilogy directed by Joel Cano.

After filming new scenes of Goodbye in France, the second film of Cano's trilogy, in 2004 she moves to Galicia, Spain, for the filming of the final scenes of the film. There, after conducting a study of the audience she faces, she premieres new productions for adults and children that she herself writes, directs and performs, and occasionally collaborates with the Galician Film School and Galician Television. Titles like Jeromita Medel Naked and Games in Reverse move with her conquering new audiences. A researcher, scholar and passionate about writing, she conceives her own texts and productions, and dedicates a good part of her free time to composition and poetry.

Between 2005 and 2006 she collaborates with the Galician Film School (EGACI), participating as an actress in the short films Alba and Lembrar. During her time in Galicia we see her also in the Galician Television series (CRTVG) A vida por diante, produced by Voz audiovisual, and Valderrei produced by Zenit Televisión.

Her constant need for exploration leads her to move to Madrid in 2007 where she continues with performance as a means of expression and free improvisation interacting with the ordinary citizen through two of her most beloved characters: Jeromita and Pupila Medel.

In February 2008 she is seen at the 27th edition of ARCO among the actresses starring in the performance Red Bed by artist Beth Moisés. Also in early 2008 the actress is portrayed by Luis Baylón, a self-taught artist born in Madrid in 1958, for the Exhibition New Faces of Madrid. The working session takes place during one of Orisel's traditional walks while interacting with passersby in the role of her well-known character Jeromita Medel.

That same year she stars in The Second Dawn of Blindness, a short film awarded the Casa de América Prize for best short film of Latin America in the XI Ibero-American Short Film Competition Spanish Version / SGAE, organized by RTVE's Spanish Version program and also winner of the Excellence Award (BS Busan Bank Award) at the Busan International Short Film Festival (BISFF) in South Korea, Second Prize of the National Competition of the 40th International Film Festival of Alcalá de Henares (Alcine) and Special Mention for Direction to Mauricio Franco Tosso at the VII National Short Film Festival of Boadilla del Monte.

In 2009 we find her among the seventy faces that make up the dynamic image of Marisa, the protagonist of the short film directed by filmmaker Nacho Vigalondo. That same year she collaborates with AniuR Creativos Audiovisuales as Casting Director of Lesson Due, the first feature film in post-production by the award-winning filmmaker Iván Ruiz Flores (The Guilt of the Other, Your Phrase, Shadows of Different Wrinkles). At the end of 2009 she works again with Iván Ruiz Flores in the Casting Direction for his short film Mie2 starring Laura de Pedro and Alberto Amarilla.

In December 2009 she participates with Pío E. Serrano (poet and essayist), Consuelo Naranjo Orovio (Dr. History) and Raúl Rodríguez (musician and anthropologist) in the Cinema with Debate program on RTVE's Cultural Channel hosted by Mara Torres.

In 2010 she directs the Casting for Sweet, a short film also written by Iván Ruiz Flores that will star Galician actress Fely Manzano (As Muxicas) and Pedro Peña.

That same year we find her with her poem Don't Leave Me Neruda among the 133 poets who join the initiative of Alfred Asís, Consul of Isla Negra and Litoral de los Poetas, member of Poets of the World and member of the Society of Writers of Chile, to publish the book A Poem to Neruda, a worldwide work that will be part of the Anthology Book Poets of the World in Tribute to Pablo Neruda that will travel the world's geography, being published in different countries and languages.

Her poems have also appeared in theatrical productions, performances, and in the Cuban magazine Albur. She is an active member of The Voice of the Written Word International (LVDLPEI), Digital Interjourn alism (Professionals of International Digital Communications and Journalism), Hispano-American Union of Writers (UHE), The Boat of Words and Image, Argentine Literary Foundation and Parnassus, homeland of artists.

From February 2010 until early December she collects images and supports the protest led by Doney Ramirez, a worker at Estructuras Jigar who lived perched on a crane for nine months in the center of Pozuelo de Alarcón to claim an unpaid debt from Ploder Uicesa.

In 2011 her poems are part of the Anthologies Oceanic Poems convened and edited by Freddy Pacheco and A Thousand Poems to Neruda convened from Isla Negra, Chile, by Alfred Asís.

She volunteers and altruistically collaborates in the organization and promotion of the Solidarity Auction for Cuban painter Agustín Bejarano alongside prominent visual artists including Oscar Rodríguez Lassería (Cuba 1950) International Master of artistic ceramics, Nelson Villalobos (Cuba 1956) Painter, sculptor, draftsman and screen-printer, one of the most prominent artists of the so-called generation of the eighties or Cuban diaspora, Roberto Valentín Hernández Expósito (Cuba 1950) renowned Master of drawing, Hortensia Margarita Guasch Padrón Chencha (Cuba 1953), Self-taught Painter, respected Independent Artist since 1995, Ángel Alfaro (Cuba 1952) prestigious Master of painting and engraving, Juan Garcés (Cuba 1953) one of the most important contemporary creators in the field of drawing and painting in Iberoamerica and the World, Noel Guzmán Boffill Rojas (Cuba 1954), one of the most important contemporary Naive painters in Cuba and Latin America, José Luis Fariñas (Cuba 1972) internationally recognized as an authentic master of drawing, painter, illustrator and writer, Gólgota (Cuba 1970), who brings to his painting, with elegant taste and great perfection the world of dance and music, Caridad Ramos Mosquera (Cuba 1955), one of the most talented contemporary sculptors of Cuba and Annia Alonso, recognized visual artist in Cuba and in many countries; and other relevant names such as Ernesto González Litvinov, Deborah Nofret Marrero, Max Delgado Corteguera, Elisa Merino C, Eduardo Rosales Ruiz, Nadia María García Porras, Mizraim Cárdenas, Tai Ma Campos, Michel Mirabal Martínez, Luis Garzón Masabó, Julia E. Valdés Borrero, Orlando Silvio Silvera Hernández, Yuri González Litvinov, Martha Castro, Ghislaine Loyré-de Hauteclocque, Nagy Niké, Ulises González and Roberto Martínez.

She also promotes a Letter of Support for Cuban artist Agustín Bejarano signed by prestigious artists and intellectuals from various parts of the world and conducts interviews in Cuba with different personalities of culture, friends, neighbors and family members as part of the campaign in support of the painter.

In 2012 her poems are part of the Anthology A Thousand Poems to Miguel Hernández, a work convened from Isla Negra, Chile, by Alfred Asís in collaboration with Poets of the World.

This year Orisel Gaspar wins the "Adria Santana" Female Acting Award for her work in the short film "The Second Dawn of Blindness" at the 10th International Film Festival of Poor Cinema in Gibara, likewise her acting work is highlighted by the Fiction Jury made up of Australian director Michael Rowe, Spanish Luis Eduardo Aute, Argentine Ramiro García Bogliano, and Cuban Rafael Solís.

She stars in Madrid in the short film "15 years," under the direction of Colombian Gonzalo Perdomo, a film project with significant Latin American presence where she shares scenes with Venezuelan actor Alejandro Arroyo. The filming crew of this project includes professionals such as Mauricio Franco Tosso (The Second Dawn of Blindness), Hugo Carmona (Quechua Films), Gorka León and José Veiga (The House of films), Alicia Inglés, Flavia Burelli, Araceli Roldán.

Towards the end of 2012 and beginning of 2013 she begins to develop the project "From 3 to 6" for children at the Infantil Rúa Aragón School in Vigo, aimed at children between three and six years old, consisting of bringing theater to school, a one hundred percent altruistic proposal that materializes in productions such as "I Don't Fear You," "Diversions," among others.

In March 2013 she is invited by Madres Latinas de Vigo to present her film Seven Days Seven Nights at the Video Forum Café Colloquium "Latin American Cycle" within the framework of the Latin American Cinema cycle organized this year by this association and in which 14 countries from Latin America participate.