9:00am

LOCATION: Childsplay (900 S Mitchell Drive, Tempe, AZ 85281)

PRE-CONFERENCE SESSION**

Poetic/Justice: Activism, Aesthetics & Co-Creation
for Poets & Storytellers

**Separate registration:
$15 general / $5 local (AZ resident) -REGISTER HERE

LOCATION: Childsplay—The Schilling 
(900 S Mitchell Drive, Tempe, AZ 85281)

LEAD PARTICIPANTS: Claudia Alick, Executive Producer, Calling Up; Board Co-President, NET. Jonathan Clark (aka Courageous), Executive Support Manager, The Carpetbag Theatre. Leah Marche, Co-Founder, BlackPoet Ventures; Founder, L!VE POET!C. Marc David Pinate, Artistic Director, Borderlands Theater. Billy "Issim" Ramsey, Creative/Artistic Activist/Co-Founder, AZ Talking Drum Performance Network. Rashaad Thomas, Engagement Manager, Central Arts Alliance; Phoenix Center for the Arts; Thunderbird Arts Center; Arizona Art Mobile.

This participatory skillshare brings together local, national, youth, and adult poets and storytellers for intergenerational sharing and peer exchange. Facilitated by lead participants from the NET community—including performance poetry veterans Claudia Alick (digital nomad, currently based in Oakland, CA), Courageous (Knoxville, TN), Leah Marche (Phoenix, AZ), Marc David Pinate (Tucson, AZ), and Billy "Issim" Ramsey (Phoenix, AZ)—the session will include strategies and techniques for: writing from truth; hearing and witnessing; using your work to start conversations and support resistance and liberation movements; and amplifying your impact through co-creation, collaboration, and collective action.

NEW TO NET MEETUP

LOCATION: Childsplay—The Sonja 
(900 S Mitchell Drive, Tempe, AZ 85281)

PRESENTER: Park Cofield, Field Resources Manager, NET.

Join NET staff, Board members, and recent NET/TEN grantees for an informal conversation about NET’s history, current activities, and the Network of Ensemble Theaters’ Travel & Exchange Network (NET/TEN) grant program. Perfect for those who are new to NET, thinking about joining, or curious about applying for funding!

OPENING CIRCLE PLENARY

Navigating re:ROUTES

LOCATION: Childsplay—The Schilling
(900 S Mitchell Drive, Tempe, AZ 85281)

WELCOME REMARKS: Dwayne Hartford, Artistic Director, Childsplay. Tiffany Ana López, PhD, Director and Foundation Professor, School of Film, Dance and Theatre, Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, Arizona State University. Alisha Tonsic, Executive Director, NET.

Gather with fellow re:ROUTES attendees and local community members to kick off the 2018 NET National Gathering & Symposium.

• Part 1 - Politics of Place

  PRESENTERS: Ashley Hare, Founding Partner, InSite Consultants; Reframe Youth Arts Center. Joseph Larios, Founder, Center for Neighborhood Leadership. Reyna Montoya, Dancer; Founder & Executive Director, Aliento. Mary Stephens, Producing Director, ASU Performance in the Borderlands. Patty Talahongva (Hopi), Journalist; Curator, Native American Connections.

  We’ll open the event with a panel discussion between ASU Performance in the Borderlands, InSite Consulting, and other local leaders about the Politics of Place in Tempe/Phoenix (our first host community), the state of Arizona, and the Southwest region, as we recognize and honor the Indigenous inhabitants and stewards of these lands.

• Part 2 - Charting Our Course: A Roadmap for the Journey

  FACILITATORS: Claudia Alick, Executive Producer, Calling Up; Board Co-President, NET. Rebecca Mwase, Creative Instigator, Desired Evolutions; Board Member, NET. Leslie Tamaribuchi, Independent Consultant; Board Co-President, NET.

  After the panel, NET Board members will lead us in setting context to ground our conversations and guide our explorations together over the days ahead.

6:30pm-8:00pm

OPENING RECEPTION

LOCATION: Graduate Hotel Tempe—Rooftop
(225 E Apache Boulevard, Tempe, AZ 85281)

As night falls, connect with old friends and meet new ones under the Arizona sky at this rooftop opening party. Appetizers; cash bar.

MORNING PLENARY

LOCATION: Arizona State University (ASU)—Lyceum Theatre
(901 S Forest Mall, Tempe, AZ 85281)

From DIY to DIT: Artists Building Community, Weaving
Networks & Sharing Resources

• Part 1 - Dance in the Desert: Latinx Artists
  Co-Creating Community Across Distance

  PRESENTERS: Erin Donohue, Dancer; Producer/Collaborator, Dance in the Desert; Project Manager, Ensemble Lab, Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, Arizona State University. Adriana Harris, Studio Owner/Director/Manager/ Instructor, BB Danceur Academy. Reyna Montoya, Dancer, Safos Dance Theatre; Founder & Executive Director, Aliento. Yvonne Montoya, Choreographer; Conceiver/Organizer, Dance in the Desert; Founding Artistic/Executive Director, Safos Dance Theatre. Ruby Morales, Choreographer; Community Facilitator; Dancer, Safos Dance Theatre. Gabriela Muñoz, Interdisciplinary Artist; Artist Programs Manager, Arizona Commission on the Arts.

  This plenary highlights Dance in the Desert as a case study in connecting Latinx dancemakers across communities and geographies. The panel is comprised of and co-moderated by Dance in the Desert participants from Douglas (US)/Agua Prieta (MEX), Tucson, and Phoenix. Presenters will highlight how partners used horizontal leadership to intentionally convene and create community among previously disconnected artists. Additionally, the panel will address issues of decolonial dance practices and aesthetic equity from a Latinx lens. The plenary will close with small group work, in which participants will engage in peer-to-peer co-development of projects that reflect healthy modes of collaboration rooted in resource and power sharing.

• Part 2 - Success in Succession: Next Generation Leaders Sharing Stories, Struggles & Strategies

  PRESENTERS: Shoshana Bass, Associate Producer & Artist, Sandglass Theater. Jonathan Clark (aka Courageous), Executive Support Manager, The Carpetbag Theatre. Cariel Klein, Associate Producer, Double Edge Theatre.

  Listen in on this casual conversation between three young professionals who’ve grown up in NET companies, come of age as rising leaders, and are now bringing the storied legacies of the artists and ensembles that raised them into the next generation. Shoshana Bass (Sandglass Theater, Putney, VT), Jonathan Clark (The Carpetbag Theatre, Knoxville, TN), and Cariel Klein (Double Edge Theatre, Ashfield, MA) share their parallel struggles and successes, and how they’re guided and supported by the relationships they’ve built with each other, their colleagues, and professional networks such as NET in navigating the generational gaps that exist in the field and preparing for the next steps in their careers.

• Part 3 - Into Our Own Hands: A Sneak Peek
  at NET's New Connector App

  PRESENTERS: Park Cofield, Field Resources Manager, NET. Mark Mangoba, Web & Data Manager, NET.

  Over three years in the making through extensive field research and direct input from the NET community, the pilot version of Connector is about to launch!  Get a special advance look at this exciting new web and mobile app, designed by NET to support DIY artist-to-artist U.S. tours and residencies by matching up NET members to make connections, host each other, and share resources. In the spirit of “ensemble dating app” meets “AirBnB,” Connector offers an innovative and intimate way for ensembles and performing artists to interact, engage, and find each other from home, the rehearsal room, or while on the road. By shifting to a community-based model that prioritizes generosity, relationships, and paid/trade/in-kind resource sharing, NET aims to level the playing field and radically change the way U.S. ensembles tour and develop their work. Connector increases artists’ agency by putting opportunities literally in the palm of your hand.

  Park Cofield will talk about NET’s co-creation process for Connector, show a sneak peek of the app, and demo its features and benefits. NET members attending the session will be invited to download the beta app to their phones and participate in the final testing period prior to Connector’s upcoming full public launch. Connector is supported in part by lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

BREAKOUT SESSIONS A - choose one

• A1. Between the Worlds:
  Queer Theatre and Site-Responsive Ritual

  LOCATION: Childsplay—Room 6
  (900 S Mitchell Drive, Tempe, AZ 85281)

  PRESENTERS: Seth Eisen, Artistic Director, Eye Zen Presents. Walken Schweigert, Artistic Director, Open Flame Theatre. Elisa Sugar, Lead Designer, Open Flame Theatre. 

  Queer Theatre as Liminal Space: Open Flame Theatre (Minneapolis, MN) and Eye Zen Presents (San Francisco Bay Area, CA) are two queer ensemble theater companies that create from queer culture for queer community—with regenerative results. Open Flame’s Artistic Director Walken Schweigert and Designer Elisa Sugar share about The Wastelands, the company’s surrealist opera about ecological grief. Eye Zen’s writer/director/ producer Seth Eisen gives an inside look into the making of OUT of Site—a project about queer ancestors that spans 266 years of San Francisco‘s LGBTQI2 history. Both companies show excerpts, then engage in a discussion about DIY-style site-responsive work, and what makes queer theatre.

• A2. Soundpainting: A Tool for Democratizing Art

  LOCATION: Childsplay—Room 5
  (900 S Mitchell Drive, Tempe, AZ 85281)

  PRESENTERS: Amanda Hinkle-Wallace, Strike Anywhere Performance Ensemble, Director of Education and Partnerships. Leese Walker, Strike Anywhere Performance Ensemble, Founder/Artistic Director.

  Strike Anywhere Performance Ensemble (New York, NY) creates community-based, site-responsive work that engages audiences on topical issues. A prime tool is Soundpainting, the universal sign-language for live composition. Soundpainting is comprised of 1500+ signs, allowing a conductor to sculpt performances in real-time with improvisers of any discipline. Strike Anywhere uses soundpainting to unite disparate groups, shatter divides between audience and performer, and transcend language with international artists. This 90-minute master class shares the basic tenets of Soundpainting, while highlighting past and current applications. Participants will devise short material "palettes," learn fundamental signs, and soundpaint with peers. The workshop is 80% experiential and 20% lecture.

• A3. The Magic of Myth: How Stories Shape
  Our Society

  LOCATION: Childsplay—Room 7
  (900 S Mitchell Drive, Tempe, AZ 85281)

  PRESENTER: Calvin Worthen, Master Storyteller, AZ Talking Drum Studios; Vice President, Desert Soul Media.

  "Street Corner" storytelling can explain the history of a people, the purpose of phenomenon, and the purpose of communal celebrations. This session will expose the art and discipline of this style of performance. Through the practice of storytelling exegesis, we will take the journey towards helping to identify prejudices that lead to marginalization in today's society.

• A4. Progressive Performance Feast

  LOCATION: Childsplay—Black Box,
  then moves to The Sonja and The Schilling
  (900 S Mitchell Drive, Tempe, AZ 85281)

  In the spirit of a progressive dinner party, join us for this four-course performance feast. Moving from room to room, we’ll experience three original excerpts that represent a range of aesthetics, genres, and contemporary performance styles, then gather to discuss the work with its creators in a peer response session.

  • 1st Course -
    yokomeshi: a meal eaten sideways

    PRESENTERS: Dorothy Melander-Dayton, Creator & Performer; Independent Artist; Designer, A Host of People. Renee Willoughby, Independent Artist; Collaborator, A Host of People.

    "Yokomeshi" is a Japanese phrase describing the peculiar stress of speaking a foreign language. Additionally, it can describe a meal eaten while speaking a foreign language. yokomeshi: a meal eaten sideways is a live performance-lecture-meets-puppet-show that explores the complicated and intricate relationship between Japan and the United States from historical and contemporary perspectives. More specifically, it is an investigation of cultural exchange which has been predicated on imperialism and capitalism. yokomeshi asks if it is possible to have meaningful cultural exchange that is rooted in these global systems, and what that looks like.

  • 2nd Course -
    Like A Mother Bear: Reproductive Justice in a Toxic World

    PRESENTER: Helen Stoltzfus, Performer/Creator; Co-Artistic Director, Black Swan Arts & Media.

    Like A Mother Bear is a solo play based on one woman’s journey to healing, in which she discovers the Great Bear Mother of the imagination, the intimate connection between her illness and the environment, and the very real endangered grizzly bear that she encounters in the Alaskan wilds. In this enviro-medical whodunit and urgent call to action, the welfare of future generations is inextricably entwined with the protection of the natural world.

  • 3rd Course -
    Ready Aim Fire, and Other Survival Strategies for the 21st Century

    PRESENTERS: Gayle Fekete, Performer; Co-Collaborator, FEKETEprojects. Manuel Macias, Performer; Co-Collaborator, FEKETEprojects.

    Ready Aim Fire, and Other Survival Strategies for the 21st Century explores the challenges and shifting politics of our current platform in the U.S. under the present administration. Inspired by the book On Tyranny (written by Timothy Snyder), the work is theatrical/contact-based, driven by narrative and concepts, whimsical, satirical, and sometimes humorous. It is designed to provoke thought, and is influenced by audience talk back and response.

  • 4th Course -
    Artist Talkback & Peer Response

    FACILITATOR: Carrie J. Cole, Associate Professor, Integrative Theater Studies, Department of Theater and Dance, Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

BREAKOUT SESSIONS B – choose one  

• B1. Reclaiming Dance for All Bodies

  LOCATION: Childsplay—The Schilling
  (900 S Mitchell Drive, Tempe, AZ 85281)

  PRESENTERS: Eric Kupers, Director/Performer/Professor, CSUEB Inclusive Interdisciplinary Ensemble (IIE); Co-Director, Dandelion Dancetheater; Director/Choreographer, Bandelion. Jacob Goldstein, Ina Gonzales-Valenzuela, Mariela Guerra, Sylvia Lam, Elijah Rel, Tatyanna Robles, Colleen Swafford, Performers/Collaborators/Co-Teachers, CSUEB Inclusive Interdisciplinary Ensemble (IIE).

  Dance is a birthright. In this session, the Inclusive Interdisciplinary Ensemble from California State University East Bay will share methods of training, improvising, exploring, and composing dance that is inclusive of all body sizes, shapes, abilities/ disabilities, cultural backgrounds, genders, ages, and body-identities. We will reclaim the power of dance through with our bodies exactly as they are, in this  very moment, with all of our quirks, feelings, limitations, gifts, and uncertainties. The dance forms we offer will all be adaptable to every single body that shows up. Those that want to can then be part of a mini-performance that we’ll develop during the workshop and share in the evening plenary.

• B2. Devising Postdramatic Theater:
  Collaboration on the Edges of Discipline

  LOCATION: Childsplay—Room 7
  (900 S Mitchell Drive, Tempe, AZ 85281)

  PRESENTERS: Stephen Christensen, Technical Director/Resident Sound Designer, Orange Theatre. Katrina Donaldson, Ensemble Member, Orange Theatre. Joya Scott, Dramaturg/Producer, Orange Theatre. Matthew Watkins, Artistic Director, Orange Theatre.

  Members of Orange Theatre (Phoenix, AZ) will introduce the concept of postdramatic theater and tools they’ve developed for working in this style, which upends the disciplined relationship between story and performance. The workshop will look at three foundational techniques that can be used on scripted or devised projects. All are welcome; participants will have the option to work on their feet or to observe as we explore this challenging work where discipline—in terms of institutional boundaries, structured creative process, and apparatus of social control—threatens to collapse.

• B3. The Power of Performance: Creating Theatre
  in Conflict Zones

  LOCATION: Childsplay—Room 6
  (900 S Mitchell Drive, Tempe, AZ 85281)

  PRESENTERS: Michael McGuigan, Managing Director, Bond Street Theatre. Joanna Sherman, Artistic Director, Bond Street Theatre.

  For the last 30 years, Bond Street Theatre (New York, NY) has worked in countries in crisis—post-war, displacement, disaster, poverty—using theatre as a voice for social justice. Collaborating with local artists, activists and organizations, the company uses theatre to inform, engage, and heal, with viable calls to action. In this presentation with audience participation, session leaders illustrate their experiences working with marginalized communities and offer practical applications and advice in response to the growing movement of artists seeking meaningful work that adds value in global environments. Creative and practical information about how skills can be applied toward social improvement, with attention to transparency, language, and inclusivity, will be provided.

• B4. Vessels: an Experiment in Black Feminist Ritual Performance Process

  LOCATION: Childsplay—Room 5
  (900 S Mitchell Drive, Tempe, AZ 85281)

  PRESENTER: Rebecca Mwase, Co-Shaper & Instigator of Vessels; Creative Instigator, Desired Evolutions; Board Member, NET.

  Vessels is a seven-woman harmonic meditation on the transcendental possibilities of song during the Middle Passage. This session will feature a presentation and participatory conversation about Vessels’ creation and development process from a Black Feminist perspective. Together we will ask and tackle the following questions: What does it mean to have a process that centers Black women? To be anti-capitalist? To have a process that is healing and not productivity-driven? Where did we make mistakes and succeed? What are guiding principles?
   

5:15pm-6:45pm

EVENING WORKSHOPS - choose one  

• W1. How and When I Enter: Decolonizing Our Work

  LOCATION: Childsplay—The Schilling
  (900 S Mitchell Drive, Tempe, AZ 85281)

  PRESENTERS: Dipankar Mukherjee, Artistic Director, Pangea World Theater. Meena Natarajan, Executive/Literary Director, Pangea World Theater.

  We are in a space where social justice movements have led to a strong effort to decolonize. How do we, as artists and cultural workers who are invested in practices of equity, enter multiple spaces? How do we build genuine inter- and intra-cultural spaces? How do our practices help us to become better allies to each other and genuinely provide a space of listening? How can people of color, immigrants, and settlers build mindful theatre practices and processes that acknowledge indigenous land and past and current injustices toward people of color, and build sustained relationships?  Using the best practices collected over two decades of work in Pangea World Theater (Minneapolis, MN), Dipankar Mukherjee and Meena Natarajan will lead this practice-based workshop that explores these questions. Participatory workshop; wear loose clothes.

• W2. Creative Exploration of Cultural Equity

  LOCATION: Childsplay—Black Box
  (900 S Mitchell Drive, Tempe, AZ 85281)

  PRESENTERS: Jonathan Clark (aka Courageous), Multidisciplinary Artist; Activist; Executive Support Manager, The Carpetbag Theatre. Joe Tolbert, Jr., Minister; Writer; Cultural Organizer; Interim Director, Parris-Bennett Digital Story House; Communications and Community Engagement Director, The Carpetbag Theatre.

  Everything begins with the imagination. All that is, and all that will be, is first a vision, a dream that is acted upon to make it real. In a time where there are increasing calls for justice, what is the role of artists in movements for cultural equity? As artists, what are our freedom dreams? Through story, poetry, and conversation, this participatory workshop (led by artists from The Carpetbag Theatre in Knoxville, TN) will explore what cultural equity is, how the strategic use of art can become a tool to disrupt the normalizing forces of the dominant group, and how our practices can be allied with cultural equity movements.

EVENING MINI-PERFORMANCES

LOCATION: Childsplay—The Schilling
(900 S Mitchell Drive, Tempe, AZ 85281)

MC: Claudia Alick, Executive Producer, Calling Up; Board
Co-President, NET.

Wrap up the day’s programming, grab a beverage and some snacks, and settle in for this informal sharing of short pieces and performance excerpts. Highlighting re:ROUTES attendees and NET members from near and far, the lineup includes:

• Fool Me Once…Fool Me Twice
  Grey Box Collective (Tempe, AZ)
   
• Reclaiming Dance for All Bodies
  CSU East Bay Inclusive Interdisciplinary Ensemble and re:ROUTES workshop participants (Hayward, CA; various)
   
• Unarmed v. United—States
  Rashaad Thomas (Phoenix, AZ)
   
• Braceros
  Safos Dance Theatre (Tucson, AZ)
   
• Your Healing is Killing Me
  Virginia Grise (Cedar Park, TX)
   
• Summer of Love 
  Independent Eye (Sepastopol, CA)
   
• The Talking Drum: Songs, Poems, and Stories 
  Talking Drum (Phoenix, AZ)

BREAKOUT SESSIONS C – choose one 

• C1. 3-Dimensional Dramaturgy: Balancing Ensemble Engagement with Aesthetic Excellence

  LOCATION: Arizona State University (ASU)—Lyceum Theatre (901 S Forest Mall, Tempe, AZ 85281)

  PRESENTERS: Natalie Greene, Artistic Director, Mugwumpin; Adjunct Professor of Dance, University of San Francisco. Christine Young, Freelance Director; Chair of Performing Arts & Social Justice, University of San Francisco. 

  ADDITIONAL PANELISTS: Carrie J. Cole, Associate Professor, Integrative Theater Studies, Department of Theater and Dance, Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Joya Scott, Director; Dramaturg/ Producer, Orange Theatre; Lecturer, ASU School of Film, Dance, and Theatre.

  This session will explore dramaturgical and creative process discoveries made by the presenters as they collaborated on the creation of two devised works in the same year. Navigating a collective quest for agency with a simultaneous desire for aesthetic excellence, their approach to power-sharing in the rehearsal room is influenced by feminist principles, and emphasizes the inclusion of multiple voices and viewpoints. Greene and Young will offer details about this conceptual model, as well as practical tools and strategies for devising work that seeks to be both creatively inclusive and aesthetically rigorous. This session will conclude with a 30-minute roundtable discussion on dramaturgy in ensemble practice through a feminist lens.

• C2. Centering Youth Leadership and Power Sharing in an Artistic Process

  LOCATION: ASU—Nelson Fine Arts Center, Black Box, Room 133 (51 E 10th Street, Tempe, AZ 85281)

  PRESENTERS: Trinity Lugo, Ty Muhammad,
  Paula Ortega, Quinn Pursell, Apprentice Artists, Rising Youth Theatre. Julio-Cesar Sauceda, General Manager, Rising Youth Theatre. Sarah Sullivan,
  Co-Founder and Artistic Director, Rising Youth Theatre. Xanthia Walker, Co-Founder and Artistic Director, Rising Youth Theatre.

  Youth and adult artists from Rising Youth Theatre (Phoenix, AZ) will demonstrate the company's model for creating original work with youth and adults. This participatory session will offer tangible strategies for sharing power across participants of all ages and centering youth voices in programming.

• C3. This is a Manifesto! - Writing Workshop

  LOCATION: ASU—Nelson Fine Arts Center (FAC), Room 233 (51 E 10th Street, Tempe, AZ 85281)

  PRESENTER: Viriginia Grise, Playwright; Theatre Maker.

  Led by award-winning playwright and theatre maker Virginia Grise (Cedar Park, TX), this participatory writing workshop invites artists and/or cultural workers, soulsisters and homeboys, and those trans to gender and/or genre who want to explore manifesto writing rooted in the politics of imagining a better world.

  From panzas to prisons, from street theatre to large-scale multimedia performances, from princess to chafa – Virginia writes plays that are set in bars without windows, barrio rooftops, and lesbian bedrooms. She has taught writing for performance at the university level, as a public school teacher, in community centers, women’s prisons, and in the juvenile correction system. As a curator, artist, and activist, she has facilitated organizing efforts among women, immigrant, Chicano, working class, and queer youth. Her most recent work is the performance manifesto Your Healing is Killing Me (Plays Inverse Press).

MORNING PLENARY / TEMPE WRAP-UP

In Conversation: Liz Lerman & Michael Rohd

LOCATION: ASU—Lyceum Theatre
(901 S Forest Mall, Tempe, AZ 85281)

PRESENTERS: Liz Lerman, Institute Professor, Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, Arizona State University; Founder, Liz Lerman Dance Exchange. Michael Rohd, Institute Professor, Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, Arizona State University; Lead Artist for Civic Imagination, Center for Performance & Civic Practice; Founding Artistic Director, Sojourn Theatre; Board Member, NET.

Liz Lerman and Michael Rohd both moved to Arizona two and a half years ago as Institute Professors at the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University. They’ll talk with each other about their current creative projects and the impact that the region and their relationship to the university is having on their work, and engage with NET attendees in conversation about the the changing dynamics of ensemble practice in relation to place and contemporary justice movements.

12:15pm-1:45pm

Load bus & depart for Tucson

LOCATION: Graduate Hotel Tempe
(225 E Apache Boulevard, Tempe, AZ 85281)

TRAVEL: TEMPE > TUCSON

AFTERNOON PLENARY/WORKSHOP (en route)

Standing with Saguaros

LOCATION: Saguaro National Park

PRESENTERS: Kimi Eisele, Multi-disciplinary Artist; Performer/Director, Standing with Saguaros; Communications Manager, Southwest Folklife Alliance. Tanisha Tucker, Bahidaj Educator and Preservationist; Member, Tohono O'odham Nation.

Befriend the beloved Sonoran Desert iconic cactus through an immersive, performative experience and conversation with Kimi Eisele and Tanisha Tucker. We’ll visit Saguaro National Park near a Tohono O’odham saguaro fruit harvesting camp, and learn about Eisele’s year-long project Standing with Saguaros that used site-responsive dance and theater, participatory activities, and innovative storytelling to celebrate the cactus and the National Park Centennial. The workshop borrows the central activities of that project: standing with saguaros in meditative silence and reflecting on the experience and what it reveals about stewardship, cross-species collaboration, and expanded definitions of community.

Bus arrives in Tucson

LOCATION: Ramada Tucson
(777 W Cushing Street, Tucson, AZ 85745)

TUCSON WELCOME RECEPTION

LOCATION: Ramada Tucson
(777 W Cushing Street, Tucson, AZ 85745)

Dinner provided; cash bar. Check-in/info table open. 

EVENING PLENARY/PERFORMANCE

LOCATION: CITY Center for Collaborative Learning
(37 East Pennington Street, Tucson, AZ 85701)

WELCOME REMARKS & RECAP: Claudia Alick, Executive Producer, Calling Up; Board Co-President, NET. Rebecca Mwase, Creative Instigator, Desired Evolutions; Board Member, NET. Leslie Tamaribuchi, Independent Consultant; Board Co-President, NET.

Indigeneity, Sovereignty & Liberation

• Act 1 - Shooting Columbus:
  Radical Indigenous Time Travel & Sovereignty

  DOWNLOAD ARTICLE 1
  DOWNLOAD ARTICLE 2

  PRESENTERS: Fifth World Collective. Lead Artists: Rachel Bowditch, Director; Adam Cooper-Terán, Visualist and Sound Designer; T Loving, Performer; Ryan Pinto, Performer; Denise Uyehara, Playwright/Dramaturg.

  The Fifth World Collective (Tucson, AZ) presents a performance excerpt, presentation, and discussion about Shooting Columbus, an original site-specific work exploring Indigenous sovereignty and time travel. Featuring interviews with members of Southwest tribal communities, the piece includes stories highlighting voices from O'odham, Yaqui and Hopi and Dineh (Navajo) nations as they struggle against coal mining, the U.S. militarization of its border with Mexico, and the government's Native American Boarding Schools. The work premiered last spring at La Pilita Cultural Center in Tucson (Borderlands Theater, producer), and was supported by NET/TEN Travel and Exchange Grants, and the MAP Fund; research for the project was supported by the Arizona Commission on the Arts and Arizona State University.

  The Fifth World Collective is comprised of Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists—Adam Cooper-Terán (Yaqui/Chicano/White), Rachel Bowditch (European American), Ryan Pinto (Hopi, Dineh, Northern Ute), T Loving (Black/Cherokee), and Denise Uyehara (Japanese and Okinawan American)—and the Shooting Columbus premiere involved a cast of 17 people, including two children and an elder.

• Act 2 - Music as a Solidarity Practice:
  Challenging Borders & Empire through Transnational Cultural Collaboration 

  PRESENTERS: Afro Yaqui Music Collective: Benjamin Barson, Baritone Saxophonist; Co-Composer, Migrant Liberation Movement Suite; PhD Candidate in Jazz Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. Ruth Margraff, Librettist. Trevor Miles, Dancer. Nejma Nefertiti, Actor/Vocalist. Gizelxanath Rodriguez (Yaqui), Vocalist; Electric Cellist; Activist (Indigenous rights and water access).

  Gizelxanath Rodriguez (Yaqui) and Benjamin Barson will present their experiences working with Zapatista and Yaqui communities in Mexico, and how music and dramaturgical collaboration has impacted their own practice. Both Zapatista Mayan communities and the Yaqui nation are combatting extractive and colonial industries, led by an alliance of the Mexican state with powerful Transnational corporations. Barson and Rodriguez will discuss engaging civil society via the arts as a practice to challenge the Mexican state’s erasure and oppression of Indigenous nations, and how performing arts can be meaningful tools in the struggle for indigenous autonomy and ecological justice.

  Afterwards, excerpts of the Migrant Liberation Movement Suite—a work constructed in collaboration with activists in Mexico, Kurdistan and Tanzania—will be presented by members of the Afro Yaqui Music Collective (Pittsburgh, PA).

ASW Community Event (Recommended Add-On)

El Tambó

**See El Tambó on Facebook or Instagram for more information.** 

LOCATION: Hotel Congress Plaza
(311 Congress Street, Tucson, AZ 85701)

A special All Souls Weekend edition of El Tambó, a late-night dance party on the plaza at Tucson’s iconic and historic Hotel Congress. Featuring BEMBONA (DJ, Vibras NYC); hosted by DJ Dirtyverbs (Sonido Tambó), with live percussion by Quiahuitl (Sonido Tambó). 

BEMBONA is a Puerto Rican-Panamanian DJ, Multi-Platform Artist, and Activist, born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. Her work represents and pushes forward the Afro-Diasporadical movement, Latinx/Indigenous/Caribbean/African, with the purpose of empowering and bridging the gap between POC communities, generations, activist work, and beyond.

21 and over; free to attend.

MORNING PLENARY

A Place-Based Primer

LOCATION: The Historic Y—The Scoundrel & Scamp Theatre
(738 N 5th Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85705)

WECOME REMARKS: Bryan Falcón, Artistic Director, The Scoundrel & Scamp Theatre; Board Chair, Southwest Folklife Alliance. Alisha Tonsic, Executive Director, NET.

A chorus of local voices provides this place-based welcome and introduction to Southern Arizona. Hear from artists, scholars, and community members about life and work in Tucson; the border regions and support for migrants; and the All Souls Procession
as a homegrown community ceremony and incarnation of festal culture. 

• Part 1 - Migrants & the Border Regions

  PRESENTERS: Leah Bishop, Community Engagement Coordinator, Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project. Ben Clark, Coordinador de la Red de Familiares/Family Network Coordinator, Colibrí Center for Human Rights.

• Part 2 - Tucson & All Souls Procession

MODERATOR: Gerard Stropnicky, Theatre Artist; Writer; Director; Founding Member Emeritus, Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble; Board Member, ArtSpot Productions; Board Member, NET.

PRESENTERS: Maribel Alvarez, Ph.D., Anthropologist; Folklorist; Associate Dean for Community Engagement, Jim Griffith Chair in Public Folklore (Southwest Center/School of Anthropology), College of Social & Behavioral Sciences, University of Arizona; Executive Director, Southwest Folklife Alliance. Rachel Bowditch, PhD., Associate Professor, Head of MFA in Performance, Director of Graduate Studies, School of Film, Dance, and Theatre, Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, Arizona State University. J. Sarah Gonzales, Director, Spoken Futures, Inc. Debi Chess Mabie, Community Impact Fellow, School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, University of Arizona; The Dunbar Pavilion - An African American Center for Art and Culture. Adam Cooper-Terán, Artistic Director, Ancestors Project/All Souls Procession; Technical Co-Director, Borderlands Theater; Magus, Church ov Coyotel. 

BREAKOUT SESSIONS D - choose one

• D1. Art as Creative Resistance: Waging ART WAR

  LOCATION: CITY Center for Collaborative Learning
  (37 East Pennington Street, Tucson, AZ 85701)

  PRESENTER: Adam Cooper-Terán, Artistic Director, Ancestors Project/All Souls Procession; Technical Co-Director, Borderlands Theater; Magus, Church ov Coyotel.

  Adam Cooper-Terán (Tucson, AZ) presents an overview of his work and strategies concerning "Art War," or Creative Resistance. Beginning with his personal history concerning the wrongful arrest of his father in 1986, Cooper-Terán will show how this experience sowed the seeds for a foundation to challenge and upend various systems of control as an artist. Covering nearly two decades of history with collaborations and artistic practices in opposition to "the powers that be," the session will share examples of interventions and public spectacles, and how projects can be devised by other creatives to become Art Warriors for the 21st Century.

• D2. FIERCE PLAY PHYSICAL THEATER:
  Artistic Agility with Ragged Wing Ensemble

  LOCATION: Floor Polish Studio
  (408 N 4th Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85705)

  PRESENTERS:  Amy Sass, Artistic Director, Ragged Wing Ensemble. Anna Shneiderman, Executive Director, Ragged Wing Ensemble.

  Fierce Play is the holistic training practicum of Ragged Wing Ensemble (Oakland, CA); it weaves together elements from music, dance, writing and visual art to create riveting results. It focuses on developing a heightened physical awareness, multidisciplinary cross-training, and powerful content generation. In this participatory workshop, the company will demonstrate how they develop power, levity, and creative game through interdisciplinary play, group composition sketches, and fast writing exercises. The techniques taught are easily utilized as a jumping-off point to develop story, character, and design elements. Methodology is derived from Viewpoints, Suzuki, Butoh, Laban, Installation Art, Dance, and Contact Improv, among others.

• D3. Re:Work—Risk, Consent, and the
  Collaborative Process

  LOCATION: CITY Center for Collaborative Learning
  (37 East Pennington Street, Tucson, AZ 85701)

  PRESENTERS: Taiga Christie, Founding Ensemble Member, Faultline Ensemble. Walken Schweigert, Artistic Director, Open Flame Theatre. Christine Suarez, Choreographer; Artistic Director, SuarezDanceTheater.

  Taiga Christie/Faultline Ensemble (New Haven, CT), Christine Suarez/SuarezDanceTheater (Los Angeles, CA) and Walken Schweigert/Open Flame Theatre (Minneapolis, MN) will facilitate an interactive conversation about community rehearsal processes. We will look at creative processes with collaborators who possess diverse experiences of trauma; discuss occupational health and building safe creative spaces; and explore increasing accessibility of our ensembles. Together we will examine the skills needed to facilitate consent, physical safety, and accessibility of spaces, with the aim of shining light on ways to decolonize our artistic practice.
   

ASW Community Event (Recommended Add-On)

Procession of Little Angels & Personal Altars Vigil

**See website for more information.**

LOCATION: Armory Park (221 S 6th Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85701)

For this small procession that takes place the day before the larger All Souls Procession, children and families gather to create wings and paper flowers, get their faces painted, dress in costumes (created earlier at kids’ costuming workshops), and approach grief from a child-friendly, child-driven place.

Local arts organization Stories that Soar! and students from Tucson Circus Arts team up to perform local children’s stories about death and grief, and as the sun sets, those assembled process around Armory Park. Shrines to remember the dead are set up by people who want to memorialize someone, as the Personal Altars Vigil takes place in conjunction with Little Angels. Everyone is welcome to place a remembrance of a child on the Children’s Altar.

All ages event; free to attend.

EVENING PERFORMANCE

Barrio Stories Barrio Fiesta

LOCATION: Davis Bilingual Elementary Magnet School Community Garden, Barrio Anita (500 W St. Mary’s Road, Tucson, AZ 85701)

PRESENTERS: Borderlands Theater

NET member Borderlands Theater brings us Barrio Stories Barrio Fiesta (conceived and directed by Marc David Pinate). Staged outdoors in Tucson's historic Barrio Anita, this community-based, immersive extravaganza tells the story of the neighborhood through large-scale video projections, live music, performed poetry, historical reenactment, heritage foods, and audio tours.

Dinner available for purchase.

10:00am-11:30am

MORNING PLENARY

Barrio Stories in Barrio Anita: A Case Study
in Revitalizing the Present through Honoring the Past

LOCATION: CITY Center for Collaborative Learning
(37 East Pennington Street, Tucson, AZ 85701)

PRESENTERS:  Steve Arnquist, Chief of Staff, Tucson City Council Ward 1. Adam Cooper-Terán, Lead Artist, Barrio Stories; Artistic Director, Ancestors Project / All Souls Procession; Technical Co-Director, Borderlands Theater; Magus, Church ov Coyotel. Tanya Moreno, Resident, Barrio Anita. Marc David Pinate, Director/Lead Artist, Barrio Stories; Artistic Director, Borderlands Theater.

In April 2018, Borderlands Theater artists—in partnership with Barrio Anita residents, city officials, and other partners—collaborated to produce Barrio Stories in Barrio Anita, a heritage preservation and civic practice project. The year-long process and culminating event played a key role in re-establishing the Barrio Anita Neighborhood Association, increasing feelings of neighborhood pride and civic engagement among residents, and the scheduled reopening of the neighborhood public pool after years of closure. This session offers a case study on the project; panelists (including project artists, a Barrio Anita resident, and a city council staff member) will discuss the experience and how these community development achievements came about. 

CLOSING CIRCLE PLENARY

LOCATION: CITY Center for Collaborative Learning
(37 East Pennington Street, Tucson, AZ 85701)

PERFORMERS: Yasmin Meza-Zazueta, Jissel Martinez, 
Mariana Rivera

FACILITATORS: Claudia Alick, Executive Producer, Calling Up; Board Co-President, NET. Rebecca Mwase, Creative Instigator, Desired Evolutions; Board Member, NET.  Leslie Tamaribuchi, Independent Consultant; Board Co-President, NET.

We'll wrap up our time together with this final NET-only session before heading into the evening's community-wide All Souls activities. Performances from three Tucson youth poets will provide a prelude; NET Board members will lead us in this participatory closing circle, as we share final thoughts, reflect on our re:ROUTES journey, and identify next steps for ourselves and the NET community.

ASW Community Event (Recommended Add-On)

29th Annual All Souls Procession & Grand Finale

**See the All Souls Weekend website for additional information, including map of procession route & finale location.**

Approximate timeline:

4:00pm-6:00pm   
Gathering and lining up for Procession begins
Gateway Stage with DJ Dirty Verbs - music & dedications          
(N Grande Avenue & W Delaware Avenue)

6:00pm
Procession begins

8:00pm
Finale ceremony begins

Organized and produced by NET member Flam Chen/Many Mouths One Stomach, the All Souls Procession is a large-scale, community-generated, non-commercial public ceremony that creatively honors and celebrates our dead. Open to all people, cultures, traditions, and art forms, this free, all-ages annual event forms a remarkable human flow of over 150,000 participants through Westside Tucson
in living dedication to the memory of all those who have passed. 

The Procession culminates in a massive Finale celebration with performances by professional and community groups including 
Flam Chen and Tucson's hometown-hero musical guest XIXA. It is a community-created artistic collaboration intended to explore themes of death and grief and to culminate in the release of our shared hopes, loves, losses, prayers, messages, and remembrances during the burning of the Urn.

NOTE: At the finale ceremony, NET will have reserved tables and seating in the VIP section near the front for re:ROUTES attendees to gather. Buffet reception included.

ASW Community Event (Recommended Add-On)

After Party

LOCATION: MSA Annex and Mercado San Agustin
(100 & 267 S Avenida Del Convento, Tucson, AZ 85745)

Music and libations after the main event.

ASW Community Event (Recommended Add-On)

Community Clean Up

LOCATION: All Souls Procession route & finale site

If your travel plans allow, join fellow re:ROUTES attendees and Tucson community members in the post-Procession volunteer
clean-up effort at the Finale site on Monday morning.

**See the All Souls Weekend website for additional information**