Looking for 2-3 dancers (any gender) who are willing to engage in the process, are comfortable with improvisation and contemporary/modern movement. Dancers with acting experience is a plus but not mandatory. Immigrants encouraged to apply as this work centers around one immigrant's voyage from her home in Tegucigalpa, Honduras through Guatemala and Mexico and into the desert of the USA, looking for a better life. This project is supported by The International Human Rights Arts Festival & The Culture Project. 

Final performance at The International Human Rights Arts Festival, November 2018 with an additional informal showing in June/July 2018.

Rehearsals will be in Long Island City, Queens on Tuesdays mornings with Choreographer Jacqueline Dugal of Dugal Dance Projects. One additional weekday evening or weekeend rehearsal may be added based on dancer's availability. Stipend provided for rehearsal and potential opportunities for more work with Dugal Dance Projects and/or Tom Block beyond and during the La Bestia process. 

Audition Workshop: 
Sunday, December 10th 5:30PM 
Spaceworks LIC, 33-02 Skillman Ave (enter on 34th St) LIC, NY  

Please email jacquimdugal@gmail.com your resume and headshot to RSVP. 

More info on the project & Playwright below. 

La Bestia short description: Sweet Mother is a multi-media theatrical exploration of one immigrant's voyage from her home in Tegucigalpa, Honduras through Guatemala and Mexico and into the desert of the USA, looking for a better life. The piece utilizes performance to raise social justice concerns, and, more importantly, humanize the individuals behind this central political concern of our time.  It combines theatre with a new cello score, dance, visual art and a narrative libretto.  The piece is presented somewhere between myth and the news, a story within a story within a story, with echoes of humanity's earliest creation myths -- showing how little we have travelled (psychically) since humanity's earliest stories.  Now, however, we live these violent myths in real-time, instead of celebrating them on feast days.

La Bestia Sweet Mother was originally developed as a one-act play as a LABA Fellow (2013-14, 14th Street Y Theater, NY), and then this one-act version was produced at Theater for the New City's "Dream Up Festival" (September 2014) and the Downtown Urban Theatre Festival at HERE Arts Center (Maya??2015). After these productions, I expanded the piece to a full-length multi-media piece, and this had readings at the Dramatists Guild Mary Rodgers Room (September 2016) and the Drama League (December 2016). The dance/theatre aspect of this project has never been produced.

Tom Block is a playwright, author of five books, 20-year visual artist and producer of the International Human Rights Art Festival. His plays have been developed and produced at such venues as the Ensemble Studio Theater, HERE Arts Center, Dixon Place, Theater for the New City, IRT Theater, Theater at the 14th Street Y, Athena Theatre Company, Theater Row, A.R.T.-NY and many others.  He was the founding producer of the International Human Rights Art Festival (Dixon Place, NY, 2017), the Amnesty International Human Rights Art Festival (2010) and a Research Fellow at DePaul University (2010). He has spoken about his ideas throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Turkey and the Middle East. For more information about his work, visit www.tomblock.com.
 

Jacqueline Dugal is a Queens based dancer, choreographer, and educator originally from West Palm Beach, Florida. She received her BFA in Dance Performance and Choreography from The University of South Florida in Tampa, moved to NYC in 2015 and launched Dugal Dance Projects in 2016. Jacqui has studied and performed abroad in France, Italy, Trinidad & Tobago, and Mexico. In New York, she has performed with The Von Howard Project, Roschman Dance Company, Michiyaya Dance, and Impact Movement Collective. Her choreographic work has been showcased in France, Florida, New York, North Carolina, and Trinidad in various festivals and showcases including the COCO International Dance Festival. Jacqui has been commissioned by the Steffi Nossen Dance Foundation, The International Human Rights Arts Festival, and awarded Director’s Choice at Spoke The Hub’s Winter Follies 2016. Selected for Mare Nostrum Elements Emerging Choreographer’s Series as a 2016 participant and selected as the Returning Choreographer in 2017 and is a Queens Council on the Arts 2017 grant awardee. She is also currently choreographing for an original immersive theatre production, Prettiest Boy in the USA.   DugalDance.com