In a year of minimal mobility, migration is on the mind of Uruguayan choreographer and visual artist Tamara Cubas, who launched an international research process for Sculpting Silence/Womyn body (Esculpir el Silencio/Mujer cuerpo), her new work on women who cross borders alone, in Chicago. “What interests me is potential and desire,” says Cubas. “In February, I heard a testimony by a Dominican Republic woman on her journey to the US. That particular story was dramatic and completely overwhelmed by an absolute determination she had—determination, desire, and drive.” In a residency at High Concept Labs November 6-12, Cubas conducted daily workshops with undocumented women now living in Pilsen and Little Village. Through a process of storytelling, mapmaking, drawing, writing, and movement, Cubas guided participants through a shared reconstruction of individual histories of journeying from Mexico to the United States.
Cubas first developed these techniques for recollection as she worked with her own family to unearth their history of living under the Uruguayan civic-military dictatorship of 1973-1985. The project, La Patria Personal, resulted in two exhibitions, 2002’s El Dia Más Hermoso (The Most Beautiful Day) and 2015’s Formas de la Ausencia (The Place of Absence), and a 2011 staged work, Actos de Amor Perdidos (Acts of Lost Love).
Note: High Concept Labs artistic director Yolanda Cesta Cursach Montilla provided Spanish translation for this interview.
