TULSA, Okla. USA — Featured as part of Living Arts of Tulsa’s Artcar Weekend XXII, visiting guest performance artist, New Orleans-based José Torres-Tama, a native of Ecuador, presents dynamic aspects of a “work in process,” Saturday, May 21, during the Artcar Burning Car celebration at 8:30 p.m., at 532 N. 72nd West Avenue in Tulsa. For Jose, immigration themes prevail. 

The annual Artcar events now feature some 27 zany artcars on display around Tulsa. Burning Car festivities include  the Gorilla Flow Tribe fire spinners, a Design You ‘repurposed’ materials fashion show, bonfire, effigy car burn, DJ and cash bar.  Tickets, sold online or at the event, are $10.  Gates open at 8 p.m. Additional details available at  http://livingarts.org/tulsa-artcar-weekend-xii .

Torres-Tama will be joined in the Saturday evening performance by workshop participants who have been coached and directed by him during the past week as part of his ongoing Taco Truck Theater/Teatro Sin Frontera project designed to reach non-traditional theater audiences across the United States.

“Workshops have been going really well, with some amazing local poets and performers,” says José, a gifted humanitarian and creative genius. His  four-hour workshop tomorrow, Saturday, May 21, is scheduled from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Liggett Studio in Tulsa.

***To read more about Torres-Tama and the ‘backstory,’ please view the article, Aliens Taco Truck Theater comes to Tulsa with socially-conscious Themes, published October 20, 2015 on this website. 

José Torres-Tama’s “No Guacamole for Immigrant Haters” t-shires are available at:http://torrestama.com/guac.html

See more related details of his work at:

Updates from Jose Torres-Tama

The Taco Truck Theater / Teatro Sin Frontera and José Torres-Tama & ArteFuturo Productions, his producing entity, and Living Arts of Tulsa have received a 2016 National Performance Network Forth Fund to return to work with the Latina/no immigrant community. They will work with participants to engage them to perform their own stories on the Immigration Crisis.

All three awards support the Taco Truck Theater / Teatro Sin Fronteras and its goal to transform a food vehicle into a mobile stage to reach non-traditional theater audiences—traversing economical, geographical, and racial borders to address the anti-immigrant hysteria gripping the United States post-9/11.

Living Arts of Tulsa is the lead commissioning arts organization for the Taco Truck Theater, and is also a recipient of the MAP Fund Award & the NPN Fort Fund, serving as the arts supporter for the project.

The performance is inspired by “documenting the stores of undocumented” people, and honoring their epic challenges in a time of immigrant persecution in the USA.

José Torres-Tama and national collaborator Rose Simons return to Tulsa to work with Latina/no immigrant community members, and cultivate their stories into a performance that will explore the lingering trauma of Oklahoma’s 2007 anti-immigrant law.

Both the NPN Fort Fund and the MAP Fund awards will help to support this residency. The aim in Tulsa is to have members of the Latina/no immigrant community perform their own stories alongside the ArteFuturo Ensemble, and the one-week residency will culminate in a work-in-process performance as part of Living Arts’ ArtCar Festival on Saturday, May 21.

The Taco Truck Theater / Teatro Sin Fronteras is also a National Performance Network Creation Fund project, and it’s being co-commissioned by Living Arts of Tulsa in Oklahoma and Pangea World Theater in Minneapolis.

In each city, the key collaborating artists will engage a local ensemble to explore a particular aspect of the Immigration Crisis in the respective cities of Tulsa, Minneapolis, and New Orleans.

 The Taco Truck Theater is the 2nd creative endeavor of an Immigration Trilogy performance artist José Torres-Tama is developing to explore this dark era of anti-immigrant hysteria gripping the country post9/11.

(Banner photo and insert image courtesy of performance artist Jose Torres-Tama).

# # # # #(c)Glenda Rice Collins 5-20-16 All Rights Reserved.  Updated 7-13-16.