Today we’d like to introduce you to Motus Theater. Them and their team share their story with us below:
Shocked by hate crimes in Boulder in 2005 & 2006, Kirsten Wilson developed ROCKS KARMA ARROWS (RKA), a multimedia contemporary theater piece exploring Boulder’s history through the lens of race and class, starting with the tragic relationship between Chief Niwot & colonial settlers (https://www.motustheater.org/rockskarmaarrows). The critically acclaimed production premiered as an official event of the Boulder Sesquicentennial in 2009.
In 2010, community leaders encouraged Wilson to bring back RKA to spark discussion to move Boulder toward equity and inclusion. In response, Motus was created to develop original theater on historical & social subjects, and to develop the 2012 ONE ACTION: NIWOT’S ARROW project. 18,000 people and 50 arts & civic organizations participated in the project. In 2016, Motus developed the ONE ACTION: ARTS + IMMIGRATION PROJECT. Over 55 leading arts, cultural, immigrant-serving, and educational organizations across BoCo participated, creating over 125 events, attended by over 60,000 people (https://www.motustheater.org/one-action-2016-arts-immigration).
For the past decade, Motus has worked with undocumented leaders with DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) status to present the autobiographical monologue performances: DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? (https://www.motustheater.org/do-you-know-who-i-am); SALSA LOTERÍA (https://www.motustheater.org/salsa-loteria); and UNDOCUAMERICA (https://www.motustheater.org/undocuamerica). These performances garnered Motus five major awards and reached over 400,000 people. Grammy-winning Yo-Yo Ma, Ozomatli, Judy Collins, and Arturo O’Farrill, along with regionally prominent musicians including Robert Johnson, Elisa Garcia, and Spirit of Grace, have offered musical responses to the monologues.
Motus also invites dominant cultural leaders to join undocumented monologists on stage to read their stories with them. Motus’ performance LAW ENFORCEMENT LEADERS READ DREAMer STORIES (2017) was featured in American Theater Mag., USA Today, NPR & more. 16,000 watched the performance live or online (https://www.motustheater.org/law-enforcement-leaders-read-dreamers-stories).
To increase the reach of our work, Motus created two podcasts sharing our monologues in 2019. In the SHOEBOX STORIES: UNDOCUAMERICA podcast, prominent Americans such as award-winning actor John Lithgow, feminist author Gloria Steinem, BLM Co-Founder Patrisse Cullors, World Kitchen founder José Andrés, Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo, and others read Motus Monologists’ stories (https://www.shoeboxstories.org/voices).
Since 2019, Motus has been collaborating with people who’ve experienced incarceration to create and present autobiographical monologues about racism and the injustice of the criminal legal system (https://www.motustheater.org/justus). JUSTUS monologues have been featured in national and international conferences and festivals, and have been read by U.S. religious, social justice, judicial, DOC, and law enforcement leaders.
Guest readers of JUSTUS monologues include the ED of the Colorado DOC, Dean Williams, and the DOC Deputy Director Ruth Coffman; eight DAs from counties in Colorado, Kansas, Illinois, Florida, North Carolina, and Georgia; multiple police officers, judges, university presidents, Colorado State legislators, business and nonprofit leaders. Motus is currently touring the JUSTUS monologues at offices of District Attorneys from across the country to encourage a national conversation about public safety and true justice.
In 2022, marking the 10th anniversary of DACA Motus presented “UndocuAmerica: 10 Years of DACA in Story & Song,” which included six performances (in English and Spanish), a national premiere broadcast with Rocky Mountain PBS (https://www.pbs.org/video/undocuamerica-monologues-10-years-of-daca-in-story-and-song-1qyitu/), and a public art component (https://www.motustheater.org/murals-eng). Readings of five UNDOCUAMERICA monologues were broadcast on CPR’s “Colorado Matters” leading up to the anniversary of DACA (June 15th).
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Motus completed a decade of programming in 2022 and the road has not been smooth at all! It has been a road of hard work, experimentation, and transformation. A journey of stabilizing the organization’s staff and budget; of affirming the need for skillful arts and social justice programming in our community – especially work focused on immigration, the criminal legal system, and dynamics of race & class.
Looking back at the past decade, Motus staff is filled with gratitude for the vision, resilience, and perseverance of our artistic director and founder, Kirsten Wilson, as well as the brilliance of Motus monologists, staff, musicians, artists, co-readers, board members, advisors, and funders who make Motus’ work possible, impactful, and strategic.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Motus Theater?
The mission of Motus Theater is to create original theater to facilitate dialogue 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.
Storytelling is at the heart of what makes us human. We focus on bringing marginalized voices or silenced histories to the stage. We support inclusion by expanding our audiences’ experiences of the variety of stories that make up our country. By using theater to learn and listen across the gaps of difference we weave tighter, stronger, and more connected communities. We hope you will gather around the fire with us: share your stories and learn new ones.
What matters most to you?
To disrupt dehumanizing policies and injustice by sharing powerful autobiographical monologues of people on the frontlines of violence in the U.S. woven with restorative music. And to create multimedia history performances that get at the root of racial and economic injustices.
Contact Info:
- Website: motustheater.org
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/motustheater
- Twitter: @MotusTheater
- Youtube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCI7vXjJF4bOeJofenRaPVBg
