Photo: Gabriel Aspee
Camino y despedida
(Walking farewells)
Camino y Despedida (Walking Farewells) is an interdisciplinary project that embraces culture, language, and identity while challenging colonial patterns rooted in the Latin American experiences of six artists from Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia. After two years of exploring these themes through solo, duet, and trio works, the project has evolved into a multilingual piece blending dance, video projection, live music (featuring original songs), and text.
Through the work, we reconnect with our roots while confronting the nuances of privilege that allow us to live on these unceded territories. We reflect on the struggles of erasure: Why must we sacrifice parts of our identity, language, and culture to survive? What does it mean to miss a home where we no longer belong or cannot return? We examine the questions we couldn’t ask before leaving, the micro- and macro-racisms we face and sometimes internalize, and the resilience found in shared stories. Amidst sorrow, there is laughter; amidst hardship, a rediscovery of joy and community.
Although deeply personal, the piece resonates universally as a reflection on the bittersweet journey of immigrants and refugees. Its themes are timely as immigration policies shift, mass deportations rise, and global conflicts intensify, fostering misunderstandings and division.
This multilingual work incorporates Spanish, Portuguese, and Nahuatl, interwoven with English for North American audiences, embodying the expanded contexts and cultural intersections migration creates. It explores the sensations of hope, sorrow, joy, nostalgia, and the aspiration for a better life while revealing the strength found in connection and resilience along the journey (Camino) and farewells (Despedida).
Co-created by a collective of equity-seeking Latin American artists,Camino y Despedidahighlights the power of interdisciplinary storytelling. As the director, I believe the combination of movement, music, words, and visuals can connect deeply with audiences and express the complex, multilayered realities of migration in deeper ways than the selection of one sole medium.
PITCH
TRAILER
Photo: Gabriel Aspee
Project Created by: This is a collaborative creation under the Artistic Direction of Marco Esccer in collaboration with Carla Alcántara, Carolina Silva, Ysadora Dias, RCHRDY, and Rodrigo Hervert, inspired in their conversations about their experiences as immigrants or refugees.
Key Artistic Collaborators:
Featuring Key Artists and Collaborators:
Marco Esccer (queer mexican dance artist, dance movement therapist and expanding skills in playwright and singing. Mexican immigrant)
Carla Alcantara (dancer/choreographer/ photographer/ film artist, looking to embrace her singing, Mexican immigrant)
Carolina SIlva (musician/singer. Looking to embrace her performance and dance. Colombian immigrant)
Ysadora Dias (Afro Brazilian artist proudly embracing her queer identity)
Rodrigo Hervert (Indigenous Mexican lgbtq+, refugee, emerging contemporary dancer)
RCHRDY (pronounced 'richardy', is a mexican emerging multidisciplinary artist interested in digging into the 'spaces in between'.)
Past mentors: Aryo Kakhpour, Isak Enquist, Ana Maria Canizales
Possible cultural advisors/playwright mentors if approved: Canadian Latinx Theatre Artist Coalition and Davey Calderon.
Marketing support offered as well by Vancouver Latin American Cultural Centre VLACC, if applicable.
Performance type: This work is built for theatre & adaptable to outdoors, or alternate venues/spaces
How do you define this work: Latinx interdisciplinary performance with live music | or Dance/theatre with live music
Length of performance: The 50 minutes show will prepare the space to invite the audience to reflect over their own stories of migration or relationship with immigrants experiences over a 20 minutes talk back/debrief after the performance.
Audience type: General Audience
General Technical Requirements:
3 wireless microphones for singing or condenser mics.
2 wireless connections plug ¼ inch for a guitar and a ukulele
Video Projector
Guitar & ukulele (brought by the company)
6 suitcases (brought by the company)
3 flags (Mexican, Colombian and Brazilian flag, brought by the company)
Alternative Venues/Spaces/Outdoors: Excerpts of the work had been performed outdoors, excerpts of the work can be offered in public spaces, such as an airport, skytrain station. While excerpts of the work might be adapted outdoors, the tech needs might make it difficult, if adapted music might not be live.
Required amount of time for tech set up: 1 tech day (min 6 hrs)
Number of Performers on tour (including choreographer): 6
Number of Support Staff on Tour: 1 production support
Availabilities: 2025 Spring Season (Mar - Jun), 2025/26 Season
Marco Esccer
Under the artistic direction of Marco Esccer, a versatile queer Mexican dance artist and embodiment facilitator, this project stands as a testament to the power of collaboration. Rooted in Marco's profound interest in creating spaces for awareness through motion, feelings, and thoughts, the work is enriched by the unique contributions of each key collaborator. Carla Alcántara, serving as Assistant Director, brings her multidisciplinary expertise as a dancer, choreographer, and visual artist, while RCHRDY, also Assistant Director, infuses the project with a rich tapestry of multidisciplinary artistry. Co-creators and performers Ysadora Dias, Carolina Silva, and Rodrigo Flores each lend their distinct cultural and artistic perspectives, creating a diverse and dynamic ensemble. Carolina Silva, alongside RCHRDY, crafts the live music and musical arrangements that weave through the work, with original music by Carolina and recorded music from various artists further enhancing the sonic landscape.
This collaboration exemplifies the merging of diverse artistic voices, guided by Marco's leadership, to explore the intersection of movement, music, and visual art. The result is a poignant and immersive experience, offering audiences a reflection on the common threads of humanity through a compassionate and intercultural lens.
Performance History & Upcoming Performances
The premiere of this mixed program will be presented at STAND Festival 2024, at the Scotiabank Dance Centre in Vancouver, on November 3, 2024.
Excerpts or iterations of the process had been presented before, and those excerpts and residencies had led to the dream of a full length program.
Past presentations:
2024
Passportless Butterfly [15-30 min excerpts] with Marco Esccer & Ysadora Dias. Tech Residency at Venables Theatre, Oliver, June 2024.
Rice & Beans Theatre has joined to support the full-length work 2025/26.
Agridulce (Bittersweet) [10 min piece], collaboration with Carla Alcantara, Marco Esccer and Carolina Silva, with original music by Carolina Silva. Presented at IndieFest Fox Cabaret, Opera Reborn. November 2023. And at Vines Festival, Trout Lake, August 2024.
2023
Airports filled with hope [15 dancers, 5 min excerpt] June 9, 2023. With Pacific Dance Arts and Coastal CIty Ballet
Airports filled with hope [4 min solo version] August 14, 2023. North Vancouver Shipyards. Outdoor Stage. Mixed program presenting with Coastal City Ballet
In Cars we dare to love [8 min monologue excerpt], The Paralell Project, Playwright residency, Summer 2023. Written by Marco Esccer, performed by Veronica Dias and with dramaturgical support by Davey Calderon.
2022
Airports filled with hope [15 dancers, 15 min piece] Premiere. Dec 4, 2022. With Coastal City Ballet.
Project Details
Airports filled with hope [A Creative Hub] is a series of 3-8 embodiment sessions to explore the creative metaphors of migration through embodied practices and interdisciplinary approaches. Culminating in an open sharing where participants will be able to have an artist-audience conversation about their process. This is an open call to emerging and established artists with migration or refugee experiences interested in interdisciplinary arts up to 25 participants.
We gather as artists with migration and/or refugee experiences to share the vulnerabilities of our stories and translate them into poetic storytelling through interdisciplinary perspectives: resilient grief, strength and hope. This aims to be a safe container for immigrant artists to explore the nuances of their journeys through a reflective and embodied creative hub. Empowering participants into creative collaboration to gather insight, connection, and inspiration through community.
Through embodiment practices and improvisation we will play with the ever-changing body, tapping into its inherent culture and movement; giving space for the stories within our skin to be recognized, witnessed and embraced.
(Led by Carla & Marco, with the option of Live music $300-450 per session, depending on the scale this can be done 3-8 sessions)
Outreach Activities
Master class: Embodied storytelling through improvisation with live music. Open to intermediate-advance dance artists. ($400, includes 1 facilitator and 1 live musician)
Lecture-demonstration: a 10-15 live excerpt of the work + a conversation about interdisciplinary collaboration from conception to creation. ($500-600, includes 3-4 artist within the panel and the excerpt of the performance, if the excerpt is recorded and not live this can be done only with one of the artist for $200)
Community-level workshops
Embodied Storytelling is a workshop led by interdisciplinary artists Marco Esccer and Carla Alcantara, aimed at exploring the rich tapestry of migration through embodied practices and interdisciplinary artistic approaches. It extends an inclusive invitation to individuals, regardless of their proficiency in the arts, encouraging them to delve into their narratives through a creative lens. This initiative serves as a platform for those with migration or refugee experiences, fostering a sense of belonging and expression.
(led by Carla and Marco $450-700, depending if including a live musician or not)
All offers are geared towards ages 16+, however we could tailor a workshop for 9+ or family friendly if necessary.