Andrés Martínez

After a short vacation, Esther and Leonardo recall moments from their youth and their relationship before they became parents. As they get closer to the city, the coexistence becomes tense and Esther makes the decision to confess to Leonardo that she regrets being a mother.

For the three-channel video Salidas y Entradas Exits and Entrances, artists Jessica Hankey and Erin Johnson worked with applied theatre facilitator Gina Sandi Diaz to offer performance workshops at public daytime senior centers managed by the city of El Paso’s Parks and Recreation Department. With the senior center as a stage, the elders who participated in the workshops enacted social, political and geographical imaginaries for the camera. Through improvisation and performance exercises drawn from the work of Viola Spolin and Augusto Boal, themes emerge: the dynamics of the U.S.- Mexico border, the desire to be seen, the role of musical storytelling as a soundtrack to daily life, power dynamics, and gender as performance. As the boundaries between rehearsal, improvisation, and performance blur, the ways in which individual lives and sociopolitical realities merge together are foregrounded.

A dying man arrives at a hospital where the chaos of the health system is remarkable. As he waits in line, a newscast announces violent incidents and police officers search the hospital for the possible perpetrator.