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Aliens, Immigrants, & Other Evildoers, a bilingual multimedia solo show by José Torres Tama

Presented by MECA at MECA

October 15-October 16, 2010

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MECA presents the NPN Creation Project  Aliens, Immigrants, & Other Evildoers, a bilingual multimedia solo show by José Torres Tama, October 15 - 16 and 22 - 23, 2010. Co-commissioned by MECA, Gala Theatre in Washington D.C. and Ashé Cultural Arts Center in New Orleans.

Aliens, Immigrants, & Other Evildoers explores the current criminalization of immigrants and the rise in hate crimes against Latinos in the US. Using the sci-fi look of The Matrix movie, Jose transforms into numerous Latino "aliens" who challenge the flaws of a country built by immigrants that vilifies the same people whose labor it exploits, and he inventively fuses film interviews from a variety of people in the three commissioning cities of Houston, New Orleans and D.C. who respond to the questions: "If Columbus arrived without papers, why was he not immediately deported?"

New Orleans multidisciplinary visual and performance artist José Torres-Tama received a National Performance Network Creation Fund Award for the commissioning of a new performance theater solo called ALIENS, IMMIGRANTS & OTHER EVILDOERS, which explores the rise in hate crimes against Latinos and the criminalization of immigrants across the country.

The commissioning theatres were MECA in Houston, GALA Hispanic Theatre in Washington, D.C., and the Ashé Cultural Arts Center in New Orleans. From March 22 through April 30, Torres-Tama began the creation process, and he visited each city to research how the immigration debate is perceived. Working with a local filmmaker in all three cities, he interviewed members of the general public on the streets and asked the questions: "Since the Pilgrims arrived without papers, why were they not immediately deported, and where were was immigration then?” Some responses were then inventively fused into short film excerpts that drive the performance narrative.

Also, he interviewed immigrants and day laborers, immigration lawyers and activists, and immigrant social workers as part of the research. The final performance script are informed by these interviews, and he created the numerous characters he inhabits in ALIENS based on real-life individuals and their stories as immigrants.

ALIENS is performed with a sci-fi Latino noir aesthetic, bilingual texts, and multimedia staging strategies. Appropriating the sci-fi look of the film The Matrix, Torres-Tama transforms and shape-shifts into numerous Latino "aliens" who challenge the flaws of a country built by immigrants that vilifies the same people whose labor it exploits.

“Receiving the NPN Creation Fund Award is the highest honor I have received to for my performance work, and it marks the first time I have commissioning funds to assist with the creation of a new piece,” states Torres-Tama.

Since 1995, Jose Torres Tama has been touring across the country with solo shows that thrive on a fusion of spoken word prose, bilingual poetry, rituals of fire, symbolic movement, and exaggerated personae, creating spectacles that are visually dynamic and politically charged. Add to this cauldron a heady dose of hilariously absurd observations on consumer culture and you have a unique vision coming from a New Jersey/New York bred Ecuadorian-born brujo performance artist based in New Orleans.

The recipient of a Louisiana Theater Fellowship, he has also received a "Regional Artist Project" Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to develop $CASINOAMERICA$, his acclaimed piece examining a culture that glorifies greed. His performances have been presented in Mexico, Eastern Europe and extensively across the USA at venues such as Performance Space 122 in New York; El Centro Cultural de la Raza in San Diego, CA; DiverseWorks in Houston, TX; Tigertail Productions in Miami, FL; The Arts Exchange in Atlanta, GA; Cornell, Duke, Louisiana State, Dillard, Spelman, and Rutgers Universities. As an arts educator, he is dedicated to working in minority communities with Latino and African American teens through his Youth Performance Projects that introduce performance art and poetry as a means of self-empowerment.

These projects have been profiled on National Public Radio and supported through grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Performance Network, and the Philip Morris Foundation. Youth Performance Projects have been realized at centers such as MECA in Houston, TX; The Walker's Point Center for the Arts in Milwaukee, WI; and the Center for Cultural Exchange in Portland, ME. In addition, he is a contributing editor to ART PAPERS, a national arts magazine published in Atlanta for which he writes a column on performance art and politics, and he has written for the Chicago New Art Examiner, The Mexico City Times, and Urban Latino Magazine published in New York. His poetry has been published in From A Bend in The River, an anthology of 100 New Orleans poets and in the Mesechabe Surregional Press.

Locations:
October 15th – 16th, 2010 MECA Dow School Campus, 1900 Kane Street, Houston, TX 77007
October 22nd – 23rd, 2010 Neighborhood Centers, Inc. sites, To Be Announced