A choreographic response to the universal, enduring impulse to demonize immigrants, Border of Lights explores through movement the violent rejection of the “other” and the physical origins of this repulsion.   Orchestrating a complex range of gestures, patterns, and steps based on human interactions, animal behavior, and classical technique, Border of Lights examines prejudices against specific groups of people and highlights intense moments of conflict and protest.  It looks at the crudest dehumanization of immigrant children, kept like livestock in cages.  It shows the desperation of Latin American women, their bodies violated or their lives sacrificed during their tragic northward journeys. It calls attention to leaders of nations, false idols who foment hate and disturb communities and cultures through colonization.  With its depictions of persecution and judgment and evocations of the anger and disgust felt both toward immigrants and among them, Border of Lights proposes that xenophobia is a rejection of civilization.  The dance piece envisions immigrants as shooting stars, traveling through their own constellations, illuminating pathways in the dark. 

 

Artistic director Felipe Escalante, along with the entire Tabula Rasa Dance Theater company, invites audiences to contemplate their own biases and to help dismantle the obsolete walls and artificial boundaries that divide us.