Lengua me traba.../Twist My Tongue... was a dance and theater piece based on the play Kaspar (1967) written by Austrian playwright Peter Handke that I adapted into a Puerto Rican socio-political context to explore the relationship between institutional violence and the process of language acquisition. After working in several after-school programs and collaborating with students of the public educational system in Puerto Rico for years, I developed a multimedia performance piece with my students when I worked as a teaching artist in CREARTE, a non-profit institution dedicated to promote the social and educational development of youths and children living in the so called "high-risk" communities. After a two years working there, I developed with my students a short film and a dance-theater play to reflect on how power structures operates within our educational system. Later, I extended this investigation with my own performance work creating a solo performance that I transformed later into an ensemble piece with professional actors and dancers.

 

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