José Torres-Tama is an award-wining multidisciplinary artist, and he received a prestigious MAP Fund Grant for his "Taco Truck Theater / Teatro Sin Fronteras" ensemble performance on wheels, which challenges the anti-immigrant hysteria. "This Taco Truck Kills Fascists" is the project’s documentary that won Best Louisiana Feature at the 2018 New Orleans Film Festival. "Aliens, Immigrants, & Other Evildoers” is “a sci-fi Latino noir” solo that exposes the rise in hate crimes against Latin American immigrants in a country that dehumanizes them while exploiting their labor. Northwestern University Press will publish the full “Aliens” script in the anthology titled “Encuentro: Latinx Performances for the New American Theater” due in May 2019. Vanderbilt, Duke, Cornell and others have presented his solos, and international presenters include Roehampton University in London, Bluecoat Arts Centre in Liverpool, and Centre for Performance Research in Wales. From 2006 to 2011, he contributed commentaries to NPR’s Latino USA, and exposed the human rights violations Latin American immigrant workers faced in post-Katrina New Orleans. (Top blog photo from “ALIENS” by Craig Morse, and bottom image by Ben Thompson.) www.torrestama.com

Thursday, September 23, 2010

ALIENS at The Shadowbox Theatre in New Orleans for a Three-week Run

Amigos and virtual community (distribute with cyber abandon):

ALIENS, IMMIGRANTS & OTHER EVILDOERS made its national debut at the Ashé Cultural Arts Center in New Orleans last weekend with four well-received performances, and we have moved the show to the Shadowbox Theatre at 2400 Saint Claude Avenue (corner of St. Roch) in the Marigny neighborhood. The Shadowbox is the latest arts jewel to line the developing Saint Claude Avenue arts corridor.

ALIENS Performances @ The Shadowbox Theatre
September 23-26, Sept. 30 - Oct. 3 & Oct. 7-10, 2010
All shows @ 8PM - $10 at the door & 2 for $15

Follow the link below for tickets and more information:
http://www.theshadowboxtheatre.com/Shadowbox/Blank_2.html

ALIENS is the interdisciplinary performance I have been developing since March of 2010, and the script is informed by interviews I have conducted of Latino immigrants in Houston, Washington, D.C., and New Orleans, the cites of the three commissioning theaters for the project.

ABOUT ALIENS: Through this Sci-fi Latino noir multimedia solo, I satirize the status of immigrants as "aliens" and explore the rise in hate crimes against Latinos across the U.S. ALIENS dares to asks the hard question about the immigration debate, “Since the Pilgrims arrived without papers and were the first illegals, why were they not deported?” Cultivating a hybrid sci-fi visceral stage look, I shape-shift into numerous Latino “extraterrestrials” who bilingually challenge the flaws of a country built by immigrants that vilifies the same people whose labor it exploits, ay caramba!

Go to the link below for more information on ALIENS:
http://www.torrestama.com/site/aliens.html

The key collaborators in ALIENS include the amazing John Grimsley of Dog & Pony Theatre Company, who has added his visual theatrical genius to a creative lighting design that brings out the sci-fi aesthetics. The spacey satirical film shorts are created by Bruce France of Mondo Bizarro (a.k.a. El Video Vato). Billy Atwell (a.k.a El Audio Dali Vato), a key collaborator from New York, has created an engaging original sci-fi music score that accompanies some vignettes. The classical recordings of opera vocalist Claudia Copeland will also be featured in the production.

ALIENS is a National Performance Network Creation Fund Project co-commissioned by MECA (Houston) in partnership with GALA Hispanic Theatre (D.C.), and the Ashé Cultural Arts Center. ALIENS has also been supported through a Community Arts Partnership grant award from Alternate ROOTS.
http://alternateroots.org

Make art that matters,
José Torres-Tama
ArteFuturo Productions
2426 Saint Claude Avenue
New Orleans, LA 70117
www.torrestama.com
504.232.2968

NEW ORLEANS FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR
OGDEN MUSEUM ART BOOK available at
http://www.torrestama.com/ogdenbook/index.html