Tessie Herrasti

Tessie Herrasti was born in Mexico City. Actress, singer, writer and songwriter. Her great grandfather was the famous Cuban composer Mario Alvarez, known for the Cuban and Latin Bolero Era, other of her roots include French and Basque Spanish. At 19, she moved to Paris, France and lived there for 8 years, today, she lives in Los Angeles, California. Tessie began with Ballet classes and singing at a very young age. She began to appear regularly in local theater and school plays. At 14, she went to the National Institute of Fine Arts Highschool in Mexico, where she graduated with a Theater Degree. During that period, she also began writing her first novel, about a Japanese Kabuki actor who struggles between honor and being homosexual. This novel would reward her with an honor prize 10 years later, from the Shinkabukiza Theater in Japan. Later, she studied in The National Dramatic Arts School in Mexico, where she completed a Master Degree in Dramatic Arts studying with teachers like Carlos Corona, Alejandro Velis, Adam Guevara and Jesús Díaz. She starts working then, in several Shorts and Theater Productions that were selected in many Festivals. In 2007, she creates the Theater Company "El Gallinero Culeko" with classmates from her MA Theater and together, they participated in the International Theater Festival of Siglo de Oro in El Paso, Texas. The Company also performed the play "Cero No Ser" and "El Peatón del Aire", both absurd plays directed by Jesús Díaz with more than 70 sold out shows and over 30 presentations with social activism purposes. Later, she moved to Paris, France and was accepted in both Masters: Drama Therapy and Armed Conflict Resolution in the Sorbonne University where she studied Theater and acting as a form of therapy as well as the strategies of using Art to overcome violence and global conflicts. She was then offered to teach Hispanic Theater and Literature at the University of Nanterre. She continued working in Theater and took a year Tour with the Koalako Company in France by teaching English through Theater, she also had the Lead role as Flore in the Short-film: Les Oiseaux Chantent à 6:05 (Birds sing at 6:05) which took one year of production, including research of the acting and filming style of the famous French actor, Pierre Étaix. In Paris, she met the composer Florent Nagel and began a Spanish adaptation of his musical composition of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, which toured in Mexico and France. In 2015 she moved back to Mexico and continued to work on several Independent Short-Films and Theater Plays such as "Un Propósito Claro": Winner of the National Playwright Award 2010 and of the National Stimuli for Production 2015. She continued writing essays, poems, memoirs and a big Thesis about Creativity and Madness with the generous collaboration of both National Institutes of Neurophysiology and Psychiatry in Mexico. Now, in California, she joined the efforts with Ping Ho, head of the UCLA Department of Healing Arts to translate material from the SEA (Social Emotional Arts) Workshops and Certifications to Spanish. She completed the MEDSEA (Medical Social Emotional Arts Certification) and the full SEA Certification Program. In 2018 she starts working as a Drama teacher with special populations such as the Autism spectrum, anger management groups and children recovering from suicide attempts. She works actively with youth at risk as well as with youth in-out of prison. She is the head of a Creativity Workshop Group in Mid-city, Los Angeles called "Creative Oracle". She speaks Fluent English, Spanish and French and has a good conversational level of German, Danish and Italian. She wrote the original Theater play Matilde and Lula and participates in the Short+Sweet Hollywood Festival as well on The Hollywood Fringe Festival 2019.