EDITOR’S NOTE: The Utah Review is grateful to playwright Matthew Ivan Bennett for reviewing From the Borderlands to the Roots, presented by Punto de Inflexión as part of the ten-day Corriente Alterna festival, with PROArtes México.
In the opening of From the Borderlands to the Roots—an ambitious, cohesive, and moving fusion of dance and visual art by Stephanie García and Peter Hay—we see nothing but projected closeups of eyes, gently shut, a curl of lashes inviting us to wonder about the thoughts and feelings beyond them. We hear a welter of music. Tones that are almost chanting. Flute-like insinuations. Bird-like invitations.
The projection screen is a tall plastic drape, at first conjuring the idea of a construction site, but as figures approach from behind the drape, we see what it is: a veil. An amniotic barrier between us and them. A wall. These figures, call them seekers in silhouette, are pressing hopeful faces and hands to the veil. They are waiting to be born into new lives. The passage through the veil is slow and tentative, requiring the choreography of fear and grace, but gradually they pass under and around. Crawling. Squeezing. Then, as the eyes-in-closeup distort, our seekers are drawn and repelled by the veil’s power in so many waves.
It’s a striking start to the evening, featuring performances that are nothing less than plyometric. The dancers’ stomps could be felt through the floor like mini-earthquakes as the composition flipped out of tension and into harmony.
This piece by Punto de Inflexión, part of the ten-day Corriente Alterna festival, with PROArtes México, and presented in part by Repertory Dance Theatre’s (RDT) Link Series, marks one of the most ingenious uses of the Black Box space in downtown Salt Lake City’s Rose Wagner Center for Performing Arts. Coming into the room, you could be forgiven for finding the setup simple. There are two long rows of seating, arranged to face each other rather than the theatre’s back wall. Between the rows of seats lies a wide black runway. There is the tall plastic drape that later becomes the veil. Opposite the veil, is another lower drape, bunched against the retracted stadium seats like a covered arch, and it also lends the impression of visiting a construction site. But Punto de Inflexión’s use of the space is anything but simple. The installation by Peter Hays creates a deep playing space for the dancers that abolishes any sense of us and them.
García’s choreography, too, abolishes the sense of separation. Not so much because the dancers come close and sit amongst the audience at some points, but because the overall composition is rhythmically varied such that we never see the performers as this or that. Obviously, the piece is a visual paean to immigrants, but it doesn’t just tell a story of struggle. It tells stories of celebration, of overcoming, of failing down again, of getting up again.
The program note from Punto de Inflexión describes the piece as “a reflection of the impact of migrating (whether it is legal or undocumented, within the same country or abroad), and what immigrants have to let go of when going somewhere new. This work is an homage to the cultural heritage of those who make this country function and are undervalued and almost invisible.” In the spring of 2025, the timing of this piece could not be better. For centuries of American life, immigrants have been used as bogeymen by politicians, despite the fact that economists “generally agree that the effects of immigration on the U.S. economy are broadly positive” (see the University of Pennsylvania’s The Effects of Immigration on the United States Economy).
But don’t make the mistake of thinking that From the Borderlands to the Roots is a liberal polemic. On the contrary, its power lies in its refusal to be merely political. Borderlands may be about struggle, but it also insists, over and over, on being about celebration. Each darker harrowing sequence is followed by eruptions of joy blending folk and art pop, Latinx traditional dance with the feeling that we’ve dropped into a thumping night club. The music by Ryan Ross—featuring vocals by Nora Price, Juan Pablo Villa, Nortec and Rodrigo Gallardo + Fernando Milagros—is a Trickster character unto itself, always morphing, always escaping sentiment and hurtling us into upbeat, genre-bending, aural adventure.
The lights too are evocative for a theatre space that tends to be too bright regardless of how one designs. Partly, it’s the open stage plan that helps here, but the design by Ashton Pease—of Blackheart Lighting Design —certainly adds to the cohesion. Each sequence feels uniquely illuminated and Pease gets lots of precision of out their choices.
The highlight of Borderlands begins with a sequence that could be called The Labeled Man. Performers lay out multicolored Post-It notes in a great square around the stage. Meanwhile, we hear excepts of stand-up comedy about Latinx stereotypes. In the middle of this paper-made square is a man dressed in a white plastic jumpsuit. As the sequence builds steam, the dancers put labels on the man. Yellow and green and pink Post-Its flutter as he stumbles from the onslaught. Soon, he’s covered, no longer himself but choked in labels. This horror gives way to an equally horrible game of tug-of- war. The plastic sheeting comes down and gets twisted into ropes through an orbit of dancers. But it’s not a tug-of-war with two sides. It’s a face-off in which someone is always caught in the middle. Jerked. Thrown. Used. It’s a bold yet careful visual metaphor that leaves you tearful.
This entry into the Utah arts scene is full of tension, controlled wildness, and heart. The performances by Leslie Jara, Keily Tafiti, Zhenya Ragulin, Fasto Rivera, and Stephanie García are passionate and defiantly inexact while still showcasing their exactness. If you ever get a chance to see a piece by Punto de Inflexión, don’t pass it up.
Corriente Alterna events continue this week, including Wilma | Porta Teatro (MEX) (April 16-17, 7:30 p.m., Sugar Space; Performance Art Evening with José Villalobos (TX) and Jorge Rojas (UT) (April 18, 7:30 p.m., Black Box at The Sorensen Community Center and Primer Amor | A Poc A Poc (MEX) (April 19, 7:30 p.m., Studio Theatre, Rose Wagner Center for Performing Arts).