Welcome to imagi*Nation asks the audience to participate in deciding what happens next (photo by Julia Discenza)
WELCOME TO IMAGI*NATION: THE TRILOGY
Sanctuary Space at the Center at West Park
165 West Eighty-Sixth St.
October 27-29, $25, 7:30
www.eventbrite.com
www.carmencaceres.com
Audiences get to choose their own adventure in the world premiere of New York-based Argentinian choreographer Carmen Caceres and DanceAction’s Welcome to imagi*Nation, taking place October 27-29 at the Sanctuary Space at the Center at West Park. The three-part work focuses on the the battle over natural resources, labor shortages, and immigration policy, inspired by Caceres’s own story as well as Eduardo Galeano’s 1971 tome Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent. “The book flows with the grace of a tale,” Isabel Allende writes in the introduction. “His arguments, his rage, and his passion would be overwhelming if they were not expressed with such superb style, with such masterful timing and suspense. Galeano denounces exploitation with uncompromising ferocity, yet this book is almost poetic in its description of solidarity and human capacity for survival in the midst of the worst kind of despoliation.”
Welcome to imagi*Nation is performed by Caceres (who also designed the costumes), Israel Harris, Jenna Purcell, Lydia Perakis, Mallory Markham-Miller, Mar Orozco Arango, and Sofia Baeta, playing multiple characters, with video by Daniel Hess and music by Emilio Teubal and others. “From the very beginning of the process, this has been an extremely personal project,” Caceres said in a statement. “Having moved to the US as an immigrant over a decade ago, I’ve been thrown right into a whirlpool of issues that are rarely considered in the policymaking arena but dramatically affect everyone who needs to adapt to a new reality, language, and identity. I learned that for every choice you make, you leave something behind. This work — drawing from my own life and those of my collaborators/performers and inspired by Galeano’s seminal study of the struggle over power, resources, and access between the US and the South American countries — is an invitation for the audience to experience this firsthand, by engaging with potentially life-changing decisions on behalf of my characters.”