“Cuerpos en Transito” Performance

Galería de la Raza is proud to present a preview of Migratory Identities Series: Bodies in Transit by actress and performance artist Violeta Luna.

Migratory Identities Series: Bodies in Transit/Cuerpos en Transito is a work-in-progress collage of actions, focused on the complex subject of immigration from the southern border of the U.S., its extreme politicization, and gender and institutional violence.

These issues are illuminated with testimonies of women who have had to leave their places of origin in Latin America to migrate to the North to reinvent themselves and make this country their new home.

Women are the fastest growing demographic of displaced peoples. However, they remain largely invisible, or attacked by an extremely dehumanizing misogynistic and anti-immigrant rhetoric, unprecedented in our contemporary times, evoking the worst of the Hitlerian discourse of the 20th century.

Bodies in Transit proposes actions to articulate a response to this toxic rhetoric broadcasted by central power with a poetics of resistance from the peripheries, seeking to affirm collective solidarity, and our deep and shared humanity.

Come experience this timely performance and get a sneak peek of this body of work.

Please note: the performance begins at Balmy Alley off of 24th Street and is followed by a short procession up to Galería’s Studio 24. 

Entrance Fee: To support the ongoing work of this project, suggested donations can be made to the Mujeres Unidas y Activas

Creative Team

Concept/performer: Violeta Luna

Dramaturgy: Roberto Varea

Music and Sound design: David R. Molina 

Video: Vania Muñoz

Visual art: Juana Inés Luna

Percussionist: Edwin Ayala

Acknowledgements:

We would like to thank all the women from the Mujeres Unidas y Activas (MUA) organization, and Casa Refugiados (CDMX), who with their testimonies have contributed to and inspired the creation of these actions.

Mujeres Unidas y Activas (MUA) is a grassroots organization of Latina immigrant women with the dual mission of promoting personal transformation and building community power for social and economic justice. Since 1989, MUA has created a safe haven for Latina immigrant women experiencing domestic violence, poverty, and exploitation. With offices in San Francisco and Oakland and a satellite program in Union City, MUA provides a safe space where women can address basic needs and dismantle barriers of low self-esteem, domestic violence, and economic hardship that prevent them from recognizing their own potential to improve their living conditions and circumstances.

Casa Refugiados A.C. is a secular, non-partisan, non-profit civil society organization based in Mexico City, whose mission is to promote the rights of People on the Move (PEM in its Spanish acronym) displaced by violence (refugees, asylum seekers, displaced persons and migrants) with an emphasis on supporting better local integration through humanitarian programs and the animation of respectful and supportive environments, within the framework of the dissemination of a culture of peace based on respect for Human Rights.