The Motus Theater – a grantee of the Community Foundation – creates original theater that facilitates dialogue on critical community issues of our time, immigration in particular.
The Motus Theater – a grantee of the Community Foundation – creates original theater that facilitates dialogue on critical community issues of our time, immigration in particular.
“We aim to use the power of art to build alliances across diverse segments of our community,” explains Executive Director Kirsten Wilson. “We’re listening to our community, and responding creatively by using the power of storytelling to help people enter into a conversation with their heads and their hearts.
“We create spaces that not only offer deep emotional experiences, but also room for community-building through reflection and conversation.”
Indeed, for her latest scripted work – “Do You Know Who I Am?” – Kirsten and the writer/performers received the Person of the Year Award from the Boulder Weekly, and Peacemaker of the Year from the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center. Kirsten’s script for the production is based on monologues written by young undocumented Americans living in Boulder County. The intent of the show, including talkbacks after each performance, is to help people understand current immigration law and its real, everyday impact on the local immigrant community.
“Too often, people are afraid to talk about challenging subjects like race, class or immigration,” says Kirsten. “But not talking about issues only makes them worse.
“If you can enter into the experience of another human being, you not only learn from it, you’re also haunted by it in the best possible way. You’re forced to confront your experience of the world opposite the experience being presented on stage.”
The Motus Theater is also currently engaged in One Action/One Boulder – an arts-based, cross-cultural collaboration focused on immigration. “The goal is to use the arts to encourage people to learn about our history of immigration, talk about real-time immigration issues, and take action to strengthen our community,” Kirsten says.
According to the Community Foundation’s Boulder County TRENDS Report, only 43% of people surveyed said that our county is open or very open to immigrants from other countries. Motus Theater’s One Action/One Boulder project directly addresses the need to create a more welcoming, inclusive community.
“We’re committed to featuring community voices that are generally marginalized,” she continues. “We help individuals learn to write and perform their own stories – stories you don’t read in the papers, or see on film. We believe it’s our job to amplify voices that aren’t being heard, and support new and honest ways of seeing our country and the world. Only then can we make things better.
“In the United States, many of us don’t really know the history of our country – in particular, a history of racism and genocide. No country likes to highlight what it hasn’t done well, that’s not unusual – but if you don’t know and understand the problems, you can’t create solutions.
“The better we understand the past and all that’s woven into our history, the more skillfully we can show up in our present. And when people experience others’ stories, they begin to make different choices.”
