Jasmine Orpilla

JASMINE ORPILLA is happy to have been introduced to Asher Hartman in 2010 thanks to the late great Haruko Tanaka, who heard Jasmine screaming at register C6 in tap shoes while at a soundscape event and was subsequently ‘scouted’ for Annie Okay! (HAMMER). Since then, Jasmine has had the pleasure of performing in many of Asher Hartman’s Gawdafful productions particularly of epic Machine Project era, including Purple Electric Play PEP! (2014) See What Love the Father Has Given Us (2012) and more. She has also since fused her music/sound weaponry voices into The Dope Elf (2022-23, JOAN) Mommy Leaks the Floor (2025, New Theater Hollywood) and most recently in the internationally toured, collaboratively channeled solo performance and 3-channel film, Blessed with Switch (2024-25 ICA/LA, Centre Pompidou, Paris, PICA Portland).

As a solo interdisciplinary multilingual singer, musician and composer, Jasmine Orpilla is the recipient of the 2023 Creative Capital award, the 2022/2023 City of Los Angeles Individual Master Artist Project grant, the California Arts Council Creative Partners Fellowship, with support from Alliance for California Traditional Arts, Foundation for Contemporary Art and more. Orpilla has performed her work at the MOCA Geffen Los Angeles, Hau Hebbel am Ufer Berlin, REDCAT, the Hammer Museum, LACMA, LA Philharmonic and the Ford Theatre, Théâtre de la Villette and Centre Pompidou, Paris, among many others.

Productions (as Cast):

“Annie Okay”, “Blessed with Switch”, “Purple Electric Play”, “Gawdafful Films”, “See What Love the Father Has Given Us”, “Kay Whale”

Productions (as Creative):

The Mommy Leaks the Floor, Purple Electric Play, It's Better to Start Out Ugly, The All Stars of Non-Violet Communication, The Glass Bang, See What Love the Father Has Given Us

Jasmine Orpilla, performer, composer, singer, and pre-colonial martial artist, plays Chet, a duende, a slayer of hidden folk in one of a six-part short film series about the psychological effects of white supremacy. In interviews, actions, and written text, Orpilla describes the spirit of the times where those who must avenge injustice prepare.

Writer, director, interviewer: Asher Hartman. Featuring: Jasmine Orpilla, in their own words and performing written text. Shot by: Jasmine Orpilla under the direction of Asher Hartman and lighting director Chu-Hsuan Chang. Outdoor-indoor photography by Ian Byers-Gamber. Father sculpture by Brian Getnick. Handcrafted masks by Joe Seely. Titles by Jinha Song.

→ "Gawdafful Films", Asher Hartman, Brian Getnick, Chu-Hsuan Chang, Ian Byers-Gamber, Jinha Song, Joe Seely

“Jasmine Orpilla is an aural alchemist, enlisting a junk drawer of sonic devices to expand the sparse black box theater into a wormhole.”

— Dorothy Dubrule 🔗

→ "The Mommy Leaks the Floor"

This clip features moments from Blessed with Switch, written and directed by Asher Hartman and performed by Jasmine Orpilla.

In this work, Jasmine Orpilla and Asher Hartman investigate the use of language as. it hacks at and tears apart the feminine internal imaginary.

→ "Blessed with Switch", Asher Hartman

Two actors in theatrical scene: bald figure in black robe holds tattered doll; woman in red gown grips dark post

Two actors in red "circuit city" shirts sit on a wooden floor beside a floral arrangement, one reaching affectionately toward the other's shoulder, the other turning away.

Two actors in matching red "circuit city" employee shirts embrace provocatively on a red-sheeted surface in a wooden-walled stage set

Actor emerging through a stage trapdoor, looking upward with a wide-eyed expression, surrounded by wooden floorboards and greenery

Two actors lit by green light in darkness, both gazing upward with tense expressions, wearing black with white strips

Two actors' faces emerge from darkness against a black backdrop, framed by red theater curtains

Three actors in black-and-white costumes stand in front of a red curtain, hands clasped, gazing upward with intense expressions

Three actors wearing colorful and regal artistic robes featuring appliqué shapes. — Photo by Deanna Hubartt