In This Bridge Called My Ass, six Latinx performers map an elusive choreography of obsessive and perverse action within an unstable terrain of bodies, materials and sound. A formal logic binds the group and propels them to create an ever-transforming world where they are at once autonomous and connected, complicating the idea of identity. Latin-American songs and the form of the telenovela are exploited to show how familiar structures contain absurdity that reveal and celebrate difference. The title is a play on This Bridge Called My Back (ed. Cherrie Morága and Gloria Anzaldua), a seminal 1981 anthology of Third Wave feminist essays that explores identity and critiques white feminism. Its calls for intersectional awareness and political resistance eerily resonate in our time now and also reveal the limitations of discourse to imagine new ways of being together.

Created by Miguel Gutierrez

in collaboration with the performers: Alvaro Gonzalez, John Gutierrez, Xandra Ibarra, nibia pastrana santiago, Evelyn Sanchez Narvaez

Dramaturg/Assistant Director: Stephanie Acosta
Lighting Design: Tuçe Yasak
Prop Design and Construction: Matthew Shalzi
Recording Engineer: Rosana Caban
Original music created by Miguel Gutierrez. In real time music by all the performers.

Original text written by Miguel Gutierrez with selections from: traditional trabalenguas (tongue twisters), and the following telenovelas: Amigas y Rivales, Rubi, Betty La Fea, La Esclava Isaura, Dueños del Paraiso, El Extraño Retorno de Diana Salazar, Marimar and Maria La Del Barrio.

This Bridge Called My Ass premiered in January 2019 at the Chocolate Factory Theater in Long Island City, New York, as part of American Realness.

This Bridge Called My Ass is co-commissioned by The Chocolate Factory Theater, Centre National du Danse in Pantin and Montpellier Danse. This Bridge Called My Ass is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation & Development Fund Project co-commissioned by PICA/TBA in partnership with the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio, Bates Dance Festival in Maine, Kelly Strayhorn Theater in Pittsburgh, PA and NPN. The Creation & Development Fund is supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). For more information: www.npnweb.org. Additional support comes from individual donors. The piece has been developed through Gibney’s Dance in Process (DiP) Residency program with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Freehand Fellowship x Bard Residency, and residencies at The Chocolate Factory and the Centre National de la Danse, Pantin.

Photos by Ian Douglas