Hemispheric Performance Creation – A Case Study

Co-Investigator and Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies Natalie Alvarez initiated a multi-year case study on production strategies that nurture Panamerican interculturalidad and transnational co-creation of knowledge. The first step was to invite a small group of theatre companies from across the Americas (including our partners Aluna Theatre in Toronto and Teatro Ciego in Mexico City) to engage in a series of four intimate conversations on cross-border collaborative creation on Zoom during the 2021 Caminos and Weesageechak festivals. Caminos (Aluna Theatre) is a works-in-progress festival supporting diasporic communities in the Americas. Weesageechak (Native Earth Performing Arts) is a works in progress festival showcasing the work of Indigenous artists in Canada. The goal of the “conversatorios,” organized in Fall 2021, was to bring together a select group of artists from across the Americas to exchange ideas and share practices on how to engage in collaborative processes that transcend borders, both geographically and metaphorically. Some of the questions that guided these conversations were: How can we form creative alliances for collaborative work that transcends borders? How do we establish relationships and protocols for creative work? How do we start? These conversatorios will continue at the October 2022 RUTAS Festival organized by Aluna Theatre (and our Collaborators Bea Pizano and Trevor Schwellnus). To sustain the conversation until their next meeting at RUTAS, the artists have created a “living document,” which they are treating as a virtual “rehearsal space” on the page for correspondence, musings, and exchanges, to share images, ideas, sketches, and photographs, and learn more about each other’s intentions, desires, and ways of working.