Social Justice & Theater Making: A Panel Roundtable on Curious Theatre’s new play Refuge: Part One

"Todos somos ilegales aqui [We are all illegal here]” growls the Wolf who is half human and half intricate puppet. It is opening night at Curious Theatre for the play Refuge, Co-Created by Satya Jnani Chávez & Andrew Rosendorf with Transcreation by Mari Meza-Burgos. The play is bilingual and uses magical realism, puppetry, and music to tell the story of a Honduran teenage girl, as she journeys through the desert between the border of Mexico and Texas. Along the way, she encounters a Texas rancher, animals, and spirits of the desert, all searching for humanity and trying to survive.

Three months earlier, three University of Denver graduate students attended a Curious Theatre staff meeting. We had been connected to Curious Theatre through our Social Justice and Music Making class which is an interdisciplinary class between the Lamont School of Music and the Graduate School of Social Work, co-taught by Dr. Marquisha Scott and Dr. Aleysia Whitmore. Our group was made up of two cellists and a social worker. Our assignment? Explore community music and social justice while creating a group project in collaboration with a community partner. During the timeframe of our class, rehearsals were starting for Refuge at Curious Theatre. The play explores the inhumanity of the U.S. immigration system, immigration rights, and empathy. When we first met with Curious Theatre, they were interested in engaging with the community and immigration rights organizations to bridge the gap between art and social justice. The pandemic had hit the theater industry very hard, however, and Curious Theatre needed to prioritize ticket sales. We brainstormed how to both engage and create space for the Latino and Latinx communities while promoting ticket sales.

Curious Theatre connected us with two organizations that had previously reached out to create a partnership around Refuge: Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network (RMIAN), a nonprofit organization that serves low-income men, women, and children in immigration proceedings, and Spring Institute, a nonprofit, community-based organization, and provider of intercultural learning programs and services.

Our group met with Curious Theatre, RMIAN, and Spring Institute to understand the needs of the organizations. We continued to reimagine ways to engage the community and produce a call to action for Curious Theatre’s audience. We were able to utilize funding from our class to meet some immediate needs. We secured funding for Spring Institute to obtain the necessary transportation to take their youth program to see Refuge, and have been working on fostering more connections between Spring Institute and the University of Denver. We also reached out to our DU networks for assistance with outreach to promote the play and generate increased ticket sales.

The early stages of planning were quite challenging, as we had a lot of ideas with a short amount of time and capacity. We were given a list of organizations and names for potential panelists but had difficulty managing our end goal and project timeline. We needed to decide what our focus was, and what angle our audience and community would benefit from the most. We aimed to create a project with longevity and a long-lasting community impact after the play ends. Our Professors suggested reaching out to IRISE, and this changed our trajectory of the entire project. We were met with immediate support and everything started falling into place after that first meeting. They provided us with the resources, and guidance that we needed to bring this project to fruition. We settled on a panel roundtable for our group project to explore the intersections between social justice and theater.

 

We worked with Ryan Torres, a Development & Communications Specialist at RMIAN, to identify potential panelists and consultants at RMIAN: Legal Advocate, Ashley Bianch; Children's Program Attorney, Sabrina Sameshima; Social Worker, Jessy K. Pérez; and Children's Program Attorney, Alicia Conrad. Then, we consulted with Dr. Tom Romero and Dr. Marinka Swift at IRISE, contacting their suggestions of University of Denver scholars to add to the panel. Two professors agreed to round out our panel: Professor Tania Valdez at Sturm College of Law in the Immigration Law & Policy Clinic, and Dr. Rebecca Galemba, Associate Professor at Josef Korbel School of International Studies and Co-Director of DU's Center on Immigration and Policy Research. The goal of the panel discussion is to amplify voices in the community, educate the audience and provide concrete action to promote advocacy in immigration policy.

Curious Theatre remarks, “Refuge is an exploration of empathy and of America – who we are and who we say we are.” Throughout this process we have asked ourselves, what happens after empathy and how can we create empathy with accuracy and authenticity? How can theater be the connection point between social injustice and social change? Refuge creates an empathic gateway to social change. Our panel can offer an opportunity to understand the connections and the differences between the play and what our immigrant and refugee communities are experiencing.

Refuge is a bi-lingual ensemble play that uses magical realism, puppetry, and music to tell the story. As a group, we have explored how this can relate to language justice and if music and art can be the universal language that connects us and creates empathy. Theater can be an accessible way to introduce an audience to social injustice. The art form can create empathy, as a mechanism to involve audiences in social change. As for language, we can understand a story in theater based on context without understanding every word. By alternating languages the audience gets a small taste of what language barriers non-English speaking people experience in the United States.

Within communities, music can be used to create empathy and connect, but different cultures have different music. We have discussed emotional reactions to music in our class looking at several different cultures. Each community’s relationship with music and cultural norms changes how audiences engage with performance and react emotionally (McConnell, 2019).

One of our goals for the panel was to invite the audience and community members to be advocates for immigrant and refugee rights. Both in the context of disrupting systems and injustices that drive or force migration and in the context of ensuring justice for those who are in the United States. We want to provide solutions to make the road to citizenship safer and more accessible. Early on in our panel meetings, however, we addressed how white saviorism enters into the space of social movements and within the play. We want to tackle the difference between allyship and white saviorism and how to address white saviorism when advocating for immigration and refugee rights. As a group, we committed to listening to the people and organizations in the community and creating a safe space for their voices on the panel.

During our partnership, Russia invaded Ukraine and there are currently one million refugees who have fled Ukraine. People around the world are showing their support for the Ukrainian people. At the same time, Ukraine’s refugees of color are being stopped and turned away from neighboring nations. There has also been problematic and racist coverage in the media:

“But this isn't a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan that has seen conflict raging for decades. This is a relatively civilized, relatively European — I have to choose those carefully, too — city where you wouldn't expect that or hope that it's going to happen.” - CBS News, correspondent Charlie D’Agata

"It's very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blonde hair being killed — children being killed — every day with Putin's missiles." - David Sakvarelidze, Ukraine’s deputy chief prosecutor, BBC News

 

We are asking our panel to dissect what we are collectively learning about immigration and refugees from the war in Ukraine. What role does race, racism, and socioeconomic status play in immigration policy and how the world views refugees?

There are child and adult immigration detention centers in Colorado, and many residents are unaware they exist. Refuge emits empathy from every corner of the play, from the intricate puppetry to the aching music to the magnificent voice of Mari Meza-Burgos. The play closes with a reprise of the song Saguaros:

 

“Paso a paso

Se cruzaron por El Paso

Paso a paso

The saguaros of all ages

Caravan their rank and file

The little ones locked in cages

While our country is in denial

Who’s put ink to all these pages

That divide mother and child”

 

We aim to educate the community on immigration policy and explore what happens after the curtain call and the audience leaves the theater. How can theater engage the audience after the show ends and produce long-lasting social action?

 

A panel discussion at Curious Theatre with experts surrounding the U.S. Immigration System. Moderated by Tania Valdez - Visiting Assistant Professor, Sturm College of Law.

Panelists include:

• Ashley Bianchi, Legal Advocate, RMIAN

• Jessy K. Pérez, Social Worker, RMIAN

• Sabrina Sameshima, Children's Program Attorney, RMIAN

• Dr. Rebecca Galemba, Associate Professor, Josef Korbel School of International Studies and Co-Director of DU's Center on Immigration and Policy Research

This panel was recorded and can be accessed on Curious Theater’s YouTube page.

 

Refuge is running through April 9th, 2022. Purchase tickets here!

 

References:

McConnell, B. (2019). To bring peace that stays: Music, conflict and conciliation in the Gambia. International Journal of Community Music, 12(3), 349–366. https://doi-org.du.idm.oclc.org/10.1386/ijcm_00005_1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Todos somos ilegales aqui [We are all illegal here]” growls the Wolf who is half human and half intricate puppet. It is opening night at Curious Theatre for the play Refuge, Co-Created by Satya Jnani Chávez & Andrew Rosendorf with Transcreation by Mari Meza-Burgos. The play is bilingual and uses magical realism, puppetry, and music to tell the story of a Honduran teenage girl, as she journeys through the desert between the border of Mexico and Texas. Along the way, she encounters a Texas rancher, animals, and spirits of the desert, all searching for humanity and trying to survive.

Three months earlier, three University of Denver graduate students attended a Curious Theatre staff meeting. We had been connected to Curious Theatre through our Social Justice and Music Making class which is an interdisciplinary class between the Lamont School of Music and the Graduate School of Social Work, co-taught by Dr. Marquisha Scott and Dr. Aleysia Whitmore. Our group was made up of two cellists and a social worker. Our assignment? Explore community music and social justice while creating a group project in collaboration with a community partner. During the timeframe of our class, rehearsals were starting for Refuge at Curious Theatre. The play explores the inhumanity of the U.S. immigration system, immigration rights, and empathy. When we first met with Curious Theatre, they were interested in engaging with the community and immigration rights organizations to bridge the gap between art and social justice. The pandemic had hit the theater industry very hard, however, and Curious Theatre needed to prioritize ticket sales. We brainstormed how to both engage and create space for the Latino and Latinx communities while promoting ticket sales.

Curious Theatre connected us with two organizations that had previously reached out to create a partnership around Refuge: Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network (RMIAN), a nonprofit organization that serves low-income men, women, and children in immigration proceedings, and Spring Institute, a nonprofit, community-based organization, and provider of intercultural learning programs and services.

Our group met with Curious Theatre, RMIAN, and Spring Institute to understand the needs of the organizations. We continued to reimagine ways to engage the community and produce a call to action for Curious Theatre’s audience. We were able to utilize funding from our class to meet some immediate needs. We secured funding for Spring Institute to obtain the necessary transportation to take their youth program to see Refuge, and have been working on fostering more connections between Spring Institute and the University of Denver. We also reached out to our DU networks for assistance with outreach to promote the play and generate increased ticket sales.

The early stages of planning were quite challenging, as we had a lot of ideas with a short amount of time and capacity. We were given a list of organizations and names for potential panelists but had difficulty managing our end goal and project timeline. We needed to decide what our focus was, and what angle our audience and community would benefit from the most. We aimed to create a project with longevity and a long-lasting community impact after the play ends. Our Professors suggested reaching out to IRISE, and this changed our trajectory of the entire project. We were met with immediate support and everything started falling into place after that first meeting. They provided us with the resources, and guidance that we needed to bring this project to fruition. We settled on a panel roundtable for our group project to explore the intersections between social justice and theater.

 

We worked with Ryan Torres, a Development & Communications Specialist at RMIAN, to identify potential panelists and consultants at RMIAN: Legal Advocate, Ashley Bianch; Children's Program Attorney, Sabrina Sameshima; Social Worker, Jessy K. Pérez; and Children's Program Attorney, Alicia Conrad. Then, we consulted with Dr. Tom Romero and Dr. Marinka Swift at IRISE, contacting their suggestions of University of Denver scholars to add to the panel. Two professors agreed to round out our panel: Professor Tania Valdez at Sturm College of Law in the Immigration Law & Policy Clinic, and Dr. Rebecca Galemba, Associate Professor at Josef Korbel School of International Studies and Co-Director of DU's Center on Immigration and Policy Research. The goal of the panel discussion is to amplify voices in the community, educate the audience and provide concrete action to promote advocacy in immigration policy.

Curious Theatre remarks, “Refuge is an exploration of empathy and of America – who we are and who we say we are.” Throughout this process we have asked ourselves, what happens after empathy and how can we create empathy with accuracy and authenticity? How can theater be the connection point between social injustice and social change? Refuge creates an empathic gateway to social change. Our panel can offer an opportunity to understand the connections and the differences between the play and what our immigrant and refugee communities are experiencing.

Refuge is a bi-lingual ensemble play that uses magical realism, puppetry, and music to tell the story. As a group, we have explored how this can relate to language justice and if music and art can be the universal language that connects us and creates empathy. Theater can be an accessible way to introduce an audience to social injustice. The art form can create empathy, as a mechanism to involve audiences in social change. As for language, we can understand a story in theater based on context without understanding every word. By alternating languages the audience gets a small taste of what language barriers non-English speaking people experience in the United States.

Within communities, music can be used to create empathy and connect, but different cultures have different music. We have discussed emotional reactions to music in our class looking at several different cultures. Each community’s relationship with music and cultural norms changes how audiences engage with performance and react emotionally (McConnell, 2019).

One of our goals for the panel was to invite the audience and community members to be advocates for immigrant and refugee rights. Both in the context of disrupting systems and injustices that drive or force migration and in the context of ensuring justice for those who are in the United States. We want to provide solutions to make the road to citizenship safer and more accessible. Early on in our panel meetings, however, we addressed how white saviorism enters into the space of social movements and within the play. We want to tackle the difference between allyship and white saviorism and how to address white saviorism when advocating for immigration and refugee rights. As a group, we committed to listening to the people and organizations in the community and creating a safe space for their voices on the panel.

During our partnership, Russia invaded Ukraine and there are currently one million refugees who have fled Ukraine. People around the world are showing their support for the Ukrainian people. At the same time, Ukraine’s refugees of color are being stopped and turned away from neighboring nations. There has also been problematic and racist coverage in the media:

“But this isn't a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan that has seen conflict raging for decades. This is a relatively civilized, relatively European — I have to choose those carefully, too — city where you wouldn't expect that or hope that it's going to happen.” - CBS News, correspondent Charlie D’Agata

"It's very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blonde hair being killed — children being killed — every day with Putin's missiles." - David Sakvarelidze, Ukraine’s deputy chief prosecutor, BBC News

 

We are asking our panel to dissect what we are collectively learning about immigration and refugees from the war in Ukraine. What role does race, racism, and socioeconomic status play in immigration policy and how the world views refugees?

There are child and adult immigration detention centers in Colorado, and many residents are unaware they exist. Refuge emits empathy from every corner of the play, from the intricate puppetry to the aching music to the magnificent voice of Mari Meza-Burgos. The play closes with a reprise of the song Saguaros:

 

“Paso a paso

Se cruzaron por El Paso

Paso a paso

The saguaros of all ages

Caravan their rank and file

The little ones locked in cages

While our country is in denial

Who’s put ink to all these pages

That divide mother and child”

 

We aim to educate the community on immigration policy and explore what happens after the curtain call and the audience leaves the theater. How can theater engage the audience after the show ends and produce long-lasting social action?

 

A panel discussion at Curious Theatre with experts surrounding the U.S. Immigration System. Moderated by Tania Valdez - Visiting Assistant Professor, Sturm College of Law.

Panelists include:

• Ashley Bianchi, Legal Advocate, RMIAN

• Jessy K. Pérez, Social Worker, RMIAN

• Sabrina Sameshima, Children's Program Attorney, RMIAN

• Dr. Rebecca Galemba, Associate Professor, Josef Korbel School of International Studies and Co-Director of DU's Center on Immigration and Policy Research

This panel was recorded and can be accessed on Curious Theater’s YouTube page.

 

Refuge is running through April 9th, 2022. Purchase tickets here!

 

References:

McConnell, B. (2019). To bring peace that stays: Music, conflict and conciliation in the Gambia. International Journal of Community Music, 12(3), 349–366. https://doi-org.du.idm.oclc.org/10.1386/ijcm_00005_1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Todos somos ilegales aqui [We are all illegal here]” growls the Wolf who is half human and half intricate puppet. It is opening night at Curious Theatre for the play Refuge, Co-Created by Satya Jnani Chávez & Andrew Rosendorf with Transcreation by Mari Meza-Burgos. The play is bilingual and uses magical realism, puppetry, and music to tell the story of a Honduran teenage girl, as she journeys through the desert between the border of Mexico and Texas. Along the way, she encounters a Texas rancher, animals, and spirits of the desert, all searching for humanity and trying to survive.

Three months earlier, three University of Denver graduate students attended a Curious Theatre staff meeting. We had been connected to Curious Theatre through our Social Justice and Music Making class which is an interdisciplinary class between the Lamont School of Music and the Graduate School of Social Work, co-taught by Dr. Marquisha Scott and Dr. Aleysia Whitmore. Our group was made up of two cellists and a social worker. Our assignment? Explore community music and social justice while creating a group project in collaboration with a community partner. During the timeframe of our class, rehearsals were starting for Refuge at Curious Theatre. The play explores the inhumanity of the U.S. immigration system, immigration rights, and empathy. When we first met with Curious Theatre, they were interested in engaging with the community and immigration rights organizations to bridge the gap between art and social justice. The pandemic had hit the theater industry very hard, however, and Curious Theatre needed to prioritize ticket sales. We brainstormed how to both engage and create space for the Latino and Latinx communities while promoting ticket sales.

Curious Theatre connected us with two organizations that had previously reached out to create a partnership around Refuge: Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network (RMIAN), a nonprofit organization that serves low-income men, women, and children in immigration proceedings, and Spring Institute, a nonprofit, community-based organization, and provider of intercultural learning programs and services.

Our group met with Curious Theatre, RMIAN, and Spring Institute to understand the needs of the organizations. We continued to reimagine ways to engage the community and produce a call to action for Curious Theatre’s audience. We were able to utilize funding from our class to meet some immediate needs. We secured funding for Spring Institute to obtain the necessary transportation to take their youth program to see Refuge, and have been working on fostering more connections between Spring Institute and the University of Denver. We also reached out to our DU networks for assistance with outreach to promote the play and generate increased ticket sales.

The early stages of planning were quite challenging, as we had a lot of ideas with a short amount of time and capacity. We were given a list of organizations and names for potential panelists but had difficulty managing our end goal and project timeline. We needed to decide what our focus was, and what angle our audience and community would benefit from the most. We aimed to create a project with longevity and a long-lasting community impact after the play ends. Our Professors suggested reaching out to IRISE, and this changed our trajectory of the entire project. We were met with immediate support and everything started falling into place after that first meeting. They provided us with the resources, and guidance that we needed to bring this project to fruition. We settled on a panel roundtable for our group project to explore the intersections between social justice and theater.

 

We worked with Ryan Torres, a Development & Communications Specialist at RMIAN, to identify potential panelists and consultants at RMIAN: Legal Advocate, Ashley Bianch; Children's Program Attorney, Sabrina Sameshima; Social Worker, Jessy K. Pérez; and Children's Program Attorney, Alicia Conrad. Then, we consulted with Dr. Tom Romero and Dr. Marinka Swift at IRISE, contacting their suggestions of University of Denver scholars to add to the panel. Two professors agreed to round out our panel: Professor Tania Valdez at Sturm College of Law in the Immigration Law & Policy Clinic, and Dr. Rebecca Galemba, Associate Professor at Josef Korbel School of International Studies and Co-Director of DU's Center on Immigration and Policy Research. The goal of the panel discussion is to amplify voices in the community, educate the audience and provide concrete action to promote advocacy in immigration policy.

Curious Theatre remarks, “Refuge is an exploration of empathy and of America – who we are and who we say we are.” Throughout this process we have asked ourselves, what happens after empathy and how can we create empathy with accuracy and authenticity? How can theater be the connection point between social injustice and social change? Refuge creates an empathic gateway to social change. Our panel can offer an opportunity to understand the connections and the differences between the play and what our immigrant and refugee communities are experiencing.

Refuge is a bi-lingual ensemble play that uses magical realism, puppetry, and music to tell the story. As a group, we have explored how this can relate to language justice and if music and art can be the universal language that connects us and creates empathy. Theater can be an accessible way to introduce an audience to social injustice. The art form can create empathy, as a mechanism to involve audiences in social change. As for language, we can understand a story in theater based on context without understanding every word. By alternating languages the audience gets a small taste of what language barriers non-English speaking people experience in the United States.

Within communities, music can be used to create empathy and connect, but different cultures have different music. We have discussed emotional reactions to music in our class looking at several different cultures. Each community’s relationship with music and cultural norms changes how audiences engage with performance and react emotionally (McConnell, 2019).

One of our goals for the panel was to invite the audience and community members to be advocates for immigrant and refugee rights. Both in the context of disrupting systems and injustices that drive or force migration and in the context of ensuring justice for those who are in the United States. We want to provide solutions to make the road to citizenship safer and more accessible. Early on in our panel meetings, however, we addressed how white saviorism enters into the space of social movements and within the play. We want to tackle the difference between allyship and white saviorism and how to address white saviorism when advocating for immigration and refugee rights. As a group, we committed to listening to the people and organizations in the community and creating a safe space for their voices on the panel.

During our partnership, Russia invaded Ukraine and there are currently one million refugees who have fled Ukraine. People around the world are showing their support for the Ukrainian people. At the same time, Ukraine’s refugees of color are being stopped and turned away from neighboring nations. There has also been problematic and racist coverage in the media:

“But this isn't a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan that has seen conflict raging for decades. This is a relatively civilized, relatively European — I have to choose those carefully, too — city where you wouldn't expect that or hope that it's going to happen.” - CBS News, correspondent Charlie D’Agata

"It's very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blonde hair being killed — children being killed — every day with Putin's missiles." - David Sakvarelidze, Ukraine’s deputy chief prosecutor, BBC News

 

We are asking our panel to dissect what we are collectively learning about immigration and refugees from the war in Ukraine. What role does race, racism, and socioeconomic status play in immigration policy and how the world views refugees?

There are child and adult immigration detention centers in Colorado, and many residents are unaware they exist. Refuge emits empathy from every corner of the play, from the intricate puppetry to the aching music to the magnificent voice of Mari Meza-Burgos. The play closes with a reprise of the song Saguaros:

 

“Paso a paso

Se cruzaron por El Paso

Paso a paso

The saguaros of all ages

Caravan their rank and file

The little ones locked in cages

While our country is in denial

Who’s put ink to all these pages

That divide mother and child”

 

We aim to educate the community on immigration policy and explore what happens after the curtain call and the audience leaves the theater. How can theater engage the audience after the show ends and produce long-lasting social action?

 

A panel discussion at Curious Theatre with experts surrounding the U.S. Immigration System. Moderated by Tania Valdez - Visiting Assistant Professor, Sturm College of Law.

Panelists include:

• Ashley Bianchi, Legal Advocate, RMIAN

• Jessy K. Pérez, Social Worker, RMIAN

• Sabrina Sameshima, Children's Program Attorney, RMIAN

• Dr. Rebecca Galemba, Associate Professor, Josef Korbel School of International Studies and Co-Director of DU's Center on Immigration and Policy Research

This panel was recorded and can be accessed on Curious Theater’s YouTube page.

 

Refuge is running through April 9th, 2022. Purchase tickets here!

 

References:

McConnell, B. (2019). To bring peace that stays: Music, conflict and conciliation in the Gambia. International Journal of Community Music, 12(3), 349–366. https://doi-org.du.idm.oclc.org/10.1386/ijcm_00005_1