Season 2019/2020 Place keeping with Site Specific Theatre!
Their Dogs Came with Them
by Helena Maria Viramontes
adapted for the stage by Virginia Grise
Directed by Kendra Ware
Buy Tickets HERE!
What happens to a community, and the people that live there, when a series of four intersecting freeways are built right through the heart of their neighborhood?
From the award-winning writer of Your Healing is Killing Me, blu, The Panza Monologues and Barrio Stories, Virginia Grise returns to Tucson with a new play about the destruction and displacement of a Mexican-American community, roaming dogs, quarantines, earthmovers and ancient voladores: Their Dogs Came with Them. Adapted from the novel by Helena María Viramontes, the play ascribes new meanings to gang life dramas, gender queer identities, and Chicana/o/x coming of age barrio tales. Much like the structure of a freeway, the lives of four youth intersect and intertwine, unearthing stories about the effects and aftereffects of the Vietnam War, displacement, and state violence. Tucson, where the most diverse and densely populated neighborhoods were destroyed to create the Convention Center in the late 1960s, is an ideal site for a play that asks its community to consider how decisions around city planning and urban development impact everyone. Borderlands Theater, in collaboration with a todo dar productions, is producing this site-specific performance October 18-20, aptly staged underneath the I-19 freeway in South Tucson.
Barrio Stories Nogales
by Borderlands Theater Ensemble
A celebration of Nogalense history and heritage featuring:
Performances, Oral Histories, & Consultation by over 100 Nogalenses!
Giant Puppets
Shadow Theatre
Video Projections
Kids Activities
Farmers Market
Live bands: La Coyota (Friday), Vox Urbana (Saturday)
April 24-25, 2020
7pm- 10pm / Audio tour pre event starts at 6:15pm
Historic Morley Ave in Downtown Nogales, AZ
Free (donations accepted)
Barrio Stories Nogales re-inhabits Morley Avenue in downtown Nogales. Experience this choose your own adventure theatrical festival!
Borderlands Ensemble: playwright, Milta Ortiz; project director/shadow puppetry, Marc David Pinate;digital media projections, Adam Cooper-Terán; giant puppet maker, Zarco Guerrero; Giant puppet director, Jonathan Heras; lighting designer, Domino Mannheim; production assistant, Veronica Conran;video installation artist. Community liaison/on-site producer, Cesar Lopez.
Barrio Stories is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. To find out more about how National Endowment for the Arts grants impact individuals and communities, visit www.arts.gov; a grant from Arizona Humanities; Southwest Folklife Alliance as partner and sponsor through a grant from ArtPlace America; the University of Arizona Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry through The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fronteridades project; Homero Torralba, Esq & Foley & Torralba, PLC.
Thanks to our collaborating partners City of Nogales, Nogales Community Development and La Linea Gallery.
For more information and for a list of our funders and partners click here.
In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, Barrio Stories Nogales is postponed until further notice. Borderlands Theater and its ensemble were very much looking forward to sharing our work with you but this is not the time. We understand the necessity of physical distancing and social solidarity in doing our part to keep our most vulnerable community members safe. Barrio Stories Nogales is about community engagement and it’s not possible to engage in the way we would like at this time. Thankfully we were able to pay ensemble members for the work they have done up to this point, but there will be a loss of income. Please consider donating to local artists, organizations, and vendors. We will remount the event at a later time and your financial support is greatly appreciated.
Lunada!
A virtual new moon literary lounge.
Wednesday April 22 @ 6 pm!
Livestreamed on Borderlands Theater Facebook and Youtube page! And on Galeria de La Raza’s Instagram page!
For two decades Lunadas have fortified Bay Area communities on the full moon. During this time of the Covid19 crisis Lunadas go virtual and move to the new moon, a time for intention setting and realignment. Recognizing the need to pull together Galería de la Raza joins forces with Borderlands Theater and lunada founder Marc David Pinate, in a historic collaboration presenting an evening of truth telling and testimonials on the dark side of the moon. Featuring the best Latinx poets in the country the virtual Lunada promises an evening of medicine for the heart and spirit.