To celebrate Immigrant Heritage Month in Boulder, Motus Theater’s Women of Resolution returns to the Dairy Arts Center. Women of Resolution weaves the stories of four Colorado women — Ingrid Encalada Latorre, Sandra Lopez, Rosa Sabido, and Araceli Velasquez — who took sanctuary to prevent the separation of their families through deportation.
Special guests District Attorney Michael Dougherty, Boulder County Sheriff Curtis Johnson, and Longmont Police Chief Jeff Satur will read the stories of Ingrid Encalada Latorre, Sandra Lopez and Araceli Velasquez. Rosa Sabido will read her own story.
The performance features award-winning photos by Joel Dyer and musician Teresita Lozano. It will be followed by a discussion of the role of sanctuary, and the stakes in the current immigration debates with Joel Dyer and Boulder Mennonite Church Pastor Randy Spaulding.
This special performance is presented in collaboration with the Dairy Arts Center as part of the UndocuAmerica: Reclaiming Our Presence visual art exhibition in the McMahon Gallery and Joel Dyer’s exhibit of photos of immigrants in sanctuary.
This performance of “Women of Resolution” is part of Motus’ event series “There no THEM in U.S.”, a celebration of art and stories that help US in the U.S recognize our shared humanity through powerful personal stories at the intersections between immigrant rights, LGBTQIA+ rights, racial justice and criminal legal reform.
Featuring Award-Winning Photography from Joel Dyer
Also Part of The Event Series:
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Edica Pacha created the original murals featuring Motus Theater’s UndocuAmerica monologists. Pacha's love affair with creativity began with film photography, and long hours in the darkroom, at the age of 14. She took this gift and studied further at Rhode Island School of Design and Prescott College. During this time she expanded into video, installation, and performance art. Her studies took her deep into the power of creativity and how this impacted community. Pacha currently is focusing on large-scale photographic murals using a unique ‘layered in camera’ photographic style, that explores the mystical and mysterious sides of the feminine. She is interested in themes that deeply impact the human experience and uses the medium to address issues that we are currently facing such as immigration and indigenous rights.
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Sebastián Sifuentes (SEBSIRO) is a mixed media artist, graphic designer, and illustrator based in Boulder. Sifuentes was born in Lima, Peru, where he began his studies in graphic design. He studied traditional painting at Eastern Michigan University where he earned a BFA and a minor in sociology. Sifuentes' love for woodblock painting and textures has influenced his style and techniques as an illustrator and graphic designer. In his work, he plays with traditional media and digital means to achieve his unique hybrid, organic style, and details left slightly to chance. Sifuentes collaborated with Motus Theater's artistic executive director, Kirsten Wilson, to design the seven beautiful lotería cards that accompany Motus' SALSA Lotería Monologues (2015).
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Joel Dyer has been a documentary photographer, journalist and author for more than 35 years.
He worked under a corporate grant to photograph the farm crises and document the increasing rate of farm suicides in the 1980s. In the early 1990s, he traveled the United States photographing endangered species and protected lands for the Nature Conservancy. He served as staff photographer for Boulder Weekly for several years before becoming the editor of the paper in 1995.
His work has appeared in New York Times Sunday Magazine, Vanity Fair, U.S. News & World Report, Mother Jones, Utne Reader and numerous other publications.
His original reporting has put him in front of the camera on such programs as Today Show, Good Morning America, Fox News, 48 Hours, Nightline, ABC/NBC/CBS Nightly News, and The Editors.
Dyer worked with author Gore Vidal on a number of projects as both a writer and editor, including two of his pieces on domestic terrorism and Timothy McVeigh for Vanity Fair. Vidal has included excerpts of Dyer’s work in two of his books, and was instrumental in having his publisher translate and publish Dyer’s book Harvest of Rage in Italy.
Dyer’s investigative reporting on the antigovernment movement resulted in his being called to testify before the Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism in 1996.
Dyer has been a featured speaker at the national conference for Investigative Reporters and Editors.
He has won more than 60 national and regional journalism awards for his photography, reporting and books.
He has written two screenplays, including one with actor/author Peter Coyote.
Dyer has written two critically acclaimed books: Harvest of Rage: Why Oklahoma City is Only the Beginning (1998), published by Hachette Book Group; and Perpetual Prisoner Machine: How America Profits from Crime (2000), published by Hachette Book Group
Dyer’s books have been endorsed by Author/Historian Howard Zinn, filmmaker Michael Moore, Author Gore Vidal, Author Mark Dowie, and best-selling author and former Texas Secretary of Agriculture Jim Hightower.
In 2018, Dyer launched his Windows, Walls and Invisible Lines: Portraits of Life in Sanctuary project which has for the past four years been collecting the photographs and stories of undocumented immigrants who have been forced to take sanctuary in churches to avoid deportation back to their countries of origin. For many of these people, such an outcome would likely result in their own deaths and/or force them to decide between giving up their small children or taking them back to a world of poverty and violence.
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Kirsten Wilson (MFA) is responsible for Motus’ artistic executive direction. Founder of Motus Theater, she’s a narrative and multimedia artist, master teacher of autobiographical monologue work, and the editor of the Motus Monologues and Shoebox Stories podcasts. She collaborates with individuals living on the frontlines of violence to create compelling narratives aimed at opening hearts and minds. She has been collaborating with leaders who are undocumented since 2013, people who were formerly incarcerated since 2019, and transgender and nonbinary leaders since 2023.
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Motus Theater’s mission is to create original theater to support community conversation on critical issues of our time. We aim to use the power of art to build alliances across diverse segments of our community and country. Motus collaborates with people on the frontlines of violence in the U.S. to tell autobiographical monologues to create momentum for strategic policy change, and develop multimedia history performances through the lens of race and class.
Motus’ work on immigration, the UndocuAmerica project, started in 2012 when Motus began developing and presenting monologues with DACAmented leaders. Since then, the majority of Motus’ programs have focused on immigration. Performances center the experiences of undocumented immigrants and uplift their humanity to help dominant-culture audiences & leaders understand the impacts of aggressive policies on undocumented immigrants and families. Motus’ artistic work on immigration has reached over 420,000 people and has been featured in NPR, Washington Post, USA Today, CPR, Rocky Mountain PBS & others.
Tickets
Includes access to both exhibition & performance