Aluna Theatre drops 2024 RUTAS Festival lineup
iPhoto caption: Festival image of Jessica Zepeda by Ana Higuera, poster design Victor Terzis
Aluna Theatre has announced the lineup for this year’s iteration of the RUTAS International Performing Arts Festival, running from September 26 until October 6 at Theatre Passe Muraille and Factory Theatre.
RUTAS 2024 will include an array of performances, installations, and workshops. The festival showcases a lineup of interdisciplinary talent from across the Americas, with programming connected around the theme of “personal cartographies.”
“We are inspired by the concept of cartography,” said Aluna artistic director Beatriz Pizano in a press release. “Rather than thinking of it as a mapping of a geographical area, personal cartographies are a way of tracing our personal experiences within the historical and socio-political contexts we inhabit. Where the archives of our histories meet our repertoire of experiences, we find the tools to begin imagining better futures.”
The full RUTAS lineup is listed below. For more information, visit Aluna’s website.
2024 RUTAS Festival lineup
Wilma (Porta Teatro, Mexico)
Factory Theatre Mainspace
September 26-29
In this dance-theatre solo show, a girl grows up as a foreigner on her own land. She’s isolated by the racism and classism imposed by her Irish grandmother, who forbids her to learn Mayan. Because she doesn’t know the language, she misses a cyclone alert and ends up stranded in a hurricane.
Camino a casa | Way Home (Ximena Berecochea, Canada/Mexico)
Factory Theatre Glass Box
September 26-October 6
This photo exhibition by Ximena Berecochea continues the artist’s reflections on how we connect with our surroundings and others. It’s part of a three-year project called Difference, which explores displacement and geographic mobility, as well as the ways we perceive and are perceived.
Coyuntura (CALTAC, Canada)
Factory Theatre Studio
September 27-29
The Canadian Latinx Theatre Artist Coalition (CALTAC) is partnering with Aluna to produce the third iteration of Coyuntura, a vibrant national Latinx theatre gathering that will be held outside of its origin city of Vancouver for the first time since its inception.
Gringas (First Born Theatre Company, Canada)
Theatre Passe Muraille Mainspace
September 28
Recently seen at the Toronto Fringe Festival, Gringas, here presented as a staged reading, takes place under the Muskoka sun, where seven Latina teenagers from across the Latin American diaspora are at language camp, learning Spanish for the first time.
Keeoukaywin (Rihkee Strapp, Canada)
Theatre Passe Muraille Studio
September 28-29
Rihkee Strapp’s installation Keeoukaywin places its audience in a room with a circus tent, on whose cloth walls Miskwa the MAD clown is projected from dream and digital spaces in order to deliver a prophecy to the community.
Documents Perform (New York City Players’ Incoming Theatre Division, Hemispheric Encounters, and Aluna Theatre; multinational)
Factory Theatre Studio
October 1
Co-created by Natalie Álvarez, Richard Maxwell, and Katiana Gonçales Rangel, Documents Perform (or Documentos Realizan) gives the stage to an online cast of artists, activists, and community leaders who want to ratify meaningful policy between regions in the Americas.
Joining from localities throughout the Americas, the cast will collectively reimagine the existing initiatives laid out in Canada’s joint declaration on the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity to make it speak to the need for policy supporting sustained artistic co-creation and collaboration in the Americas.
Reminiscencia (Malicho Vaca Valenzuela, Chile)
Theatre Passe Muraille Mainspace
October 3-5
Through a gentle use of digital technologies, Malicho digs deep into his biography and the recent history of Santiago as well as its painful scars. With a narrative built through Google Earth, photographs, and online videos, Reminiscencia focuses on magical and unique places that speak to the emotional topography of the city.
Sandwich Board Hall (Lorena Torres Loaiza, Canada/Colombia)
Theatre Passe Muraille Studio
October 3-5
In an era where physical spaces are becoming unaffordable, artists face a critical question: Where can they showcase their work? In turn, this installation is a digital showcase of an imaginary, surreal arts venue — a way to brainstorm how future artists may adopt new technologies in the face of the loss of urban spaces.
Rosa (Carlos Rivera, Abra Projects, and Ondinnok; Canada/Mexico)
Factory Theatre Studio
October 4-6
Co-presented by RUTAS and Factory Theatre, this dance-theatre piece is an ode to women’s power and their ability to move mountains.
A peasant Indigenous woman from Ixtacamaxtitlan, Rosa flees her community with her six small children on her back. As she escapes a life of abuse at the hands of her husband and in-laws, she crosses valleys, climbs mountains, and faces enormous challenges, before arriving in Mexico City and facing brutal discrimination.
RUTAS runs at Factory Theatre and Theatre Passe Muraille from September 26 to October 6. More information is available here.
Liam Donovan
Liam is Intermission’s senior editor. He lives in Toronto. His Substack newsletter is available at loamdonovan.substack.com.
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