Grammar of the Imagination is an evening-length dance performance conceived and directed by claire barrera. It features an intergenerational cast of performers: youth Jordyn Kubernick, Nila Kwa and Paloma Barrera Rodriguez and adults Linda Austin, Allie Hankins, and Hannah Krafcik. The work uses traditional children’s games as a platform to explore how play can be a site of imagining radically new social relations, or of disciplining and re-enforcing social norms. This project will be a deep inquiry into the ways power, discipline, care, and transformation arise in interpersonal dynamics, which is a subject matter that has motivated barrera’s work for years.
Choreography and direction: claire barrera
Sound design: John Niekrasz
Language: Stephanie Adams-Santos and claire barrera
Lighting design: Dora Gaskill
ASL Interpretation (Sunday): Emily Sizemore
-an Alembic Co-Production
-created with the support of the Regional Arts & Culture Council, Oregon Arts Commission, and a residency at Greywood Arts.
As an activist and social worker who spends a lot of time with kids and parenting a child of my own, it has become clear to me how important play is to social movements, to healing, to creativity, and how play could serve us when we’re asking ourselves, how do we create something new in the world?
—director claire barrera
May 20-22, 2022
Fri & Sat at 7pm
Sunday at 2pm — ASL Interpreted
$10-$20 Friday/Saturday
$0-$20 on Sunday
Performance Works NW
4625 SE 67th Ave.
claire barrera is an artist, activist and educator based in Portland, Oregon. They are the author of the new zine el lenguaje nos gusta y nos confunde and the coeditor of When Language Runs Dry. Upcoming collaborations include work with Allie Hankins and Maya Dalinsky.
photos by Chelsea Petrakis
Performance Works NW || Linda Austin Dance 