TAXILANDIA
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March 8 - May 3, 2021
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TAXILANDIA » March 8 - May 3, 2021 »
Presented by Oye Group, New York Theatre Workshop and The Bushwick Starr
In association with The Tank
By Modesto Flako Jimenez
Taxilandia is a site-specific play-within-a-ride around the city. The piece immerses its audience in the flavors, sounds, sights and dynamic history of a neighborhood confronting social stigmas and the realities of gentrification. Weaving a dramatic, performative ‘tapestry’ that interconnects generations, social classes, races and cultures, Taxilandia complicates our notion of what it means to be a local, an immigrant or a resident of a place, challenging us to answer: “What is my personal roadmap of home?”
Originally developed in Jimenez’s own neighborhood of Bushwick, Brooklyn, the piece was inspired and drawn from his nine years driving a taxicab and his documentation of conversations with passengers, residents, locals, and immigrants to the neighborhood. The Oye Group now works with companies all over the country to develop local versions of the piece specific to each city.
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Modesto Flako Jimenez
Writer and Performer
Modesto Flako Jimenez is a Dominican-born, Bushwick-raised theater maker, producer, and educator. He is the creator and curator of three festivals— Ghetto Hors D’Oeuvres, One Catches Light, and Oye! Avant Garde Night!—and his work has been profiled in the NY Times and the Wall Street Journal. As a performer, he has toured internationally with the Wooster Group, Richard Maxwell, and Kaneza Schaal. Modesto received the 2016 Princess Grace Award Honorarium in Theater, and his own work as been featured in the Public Theater’s Under The Radar Festival, TEDx, Sundance, and universities across the United States.