A collection of work(s) with collaborator Virginia Grise

I met Virginia Grise in the Fall of 2022 at a performance lecture of her work in progress, Riding the Currents of the Wilding Wind, where the audience was seated directly on the stage of the Bass Concert Hall. With musician and artivista Martha Gonzalez, In front of a wall projected with helicopters and flying voladores, they read excerpts from the novel Their Dogs Came with Them, told stories, and sang songs. I had never seen anything like it. Later that evening, we gathered in a donor's house in west Austin, and Vicki (Virginia) spoke about her life, her work, and her deep commitment to practicing in San Antonio, Texas. As a San Antonio native, myself, I have rarely met theater artists who come from the neighborhoods Vicki and I grew up in. I knew that evening that I had met a comadre - a colleague, a collaborator, a friend, a sister. 

Since that first meeting in 2022, Virginia Grise and I have committed to making performance work together that explores a decolonial process. The work is slow. It is embodied. It is intentional. It releases traditional structures and practices of Western theater and democratizes design and performance.  We gather, often over food, to share research and plan projects that speak to the land and communities that literally and figuratively raised us. In partnership with her producing organization, A Todo Dar, and collaborators from all genres of performance and art-making, we have begun to build a history of work together. This growing collection of work(s) is presented here as a singular entry, and highlights the breadth of impact to the field and to communities that can be made  through a reexamination of what it means to make theatre.