Aluna Theatre presents its 6th edition of the RUTAS International Performing Arts Festival this month. For two weeks, RUTAS will present a variety of theatre and dance performances, installations, workshops, and a three day gathering in partnership with Factory Theatre, Theatre Passe Muraille, York University, Hemispheric Encounters, and the Canadian Latinx Theatre Artist Coalition (CALTAC).
The 2024 edition of RUTAS Festival showcases an exciting lineup of interdisciplinary talent from across the Americas, including work by: Mariana Blanco and Alicia Laguna (Uruguay & Mexico); Itzhel Razo (Mexico); Malicho Vaca Valenzuela (Chile); Carlos Rivera (Mexico/Canada); Rihkee Strapp (Northern Ontario); Lorena Torres Loaiza (Colombia/Canada).
This year’s programming revolves around the theme of Personal Cartographies. Inspiring performances, national and international artists create their own paths through stories of family, displacement, privilege, racism, women’s labour, and the body as a map of resistance.
RUTAS 2024 Picks
WEEK 1
RUTAS Residency Showcase
GRINGAS | Canada | First Born Theatre
Staged Reading | Theatre Passe Muraille, September 28, 5:00PM
Under the Muskoka sun, 7 Latina-teenagers from across the Latin American diaspora are at language camp, learning Spanish for the first time. A beautiful and hilarious bi-lingual coming-of-age story, covered in cigarette smoke, that promises to resonate with anyone who has experienced girlhood or the struggles of being a first or second-generation immigrant.
KEEOUKAYWIN (Canada)
Conceived and created by Rihkee Strapp
Theatre Passe Muraille, September 26-28
Our collective dreams are woven into the stories we tell—around campfires, within our communities, and increasingly on Social Media. Keeoukaywin, the michif word for Visiting, places us in a room with a circus tent, on whose cloth walls Miskwa the MAD clown is projected from dream and digital spaces to our reality, to deliver the prophecy of the White Lodge to the community.
WEEK 2
REMINISCENCIA
Chile | Malicho Vaca Valenzuela
Theatre Passe Muraille, October 3-5
Spanish with English surtitles
With a narrative built through Google Earth, photographs, and videos published on different sites, this experience focuses on magical and unique places that reveal an emotional topography. Reminiscencia is a personal story, as much as it is a reflection on Chile half a century after the coup détat.
ROSA
Canada/Mexico | Carlos Rivera, Abra Projects, Ondinnok
Co-Presented by RUTAS International Performing Arts Festival and Factory Theatre
Factory Theatre, October 4-6
Spanish with English surtitles
Rosa is a peasant Indigenous woman from Ixtacamaxtitlan, located in the highlands of Puebla State, who flees her community with her six small children on her back. Through movement, theatre and documentary, Rosa highlights the female body, its relationship to the land, and its capacity to resist, survive, and transform.
The Aluna Cabaret
Theatre Passe Muraille, October 5, 9:00PM
A night of music, dancing, and fun. A celebration with a bite to eat or a drink while you enjoy the line-up. The Aluna cabaret is always free and open to every one.
This year’s RUTAS Festival invites all of us to experience deeply personal creations and to dream of a better world in community. Aluna Theatre is happy to return to Theatre Passe Muraille and Factory Theatre as RUTAS Festival’s venue partners from September 26 to October 6.
Tickets for RUTAS 2024 are available now at rutas.ca. The festival runs on a pay-what-you-can-afford ticketing model with three price point. For more information about Aluna Theatre’s RUTAS 2024 Festival and order your tickets in advance, please visit rutas.ca
