West End Best Friend

View Original

Modesto Flako Jimenez’s site-specific play-within-a-tour of the city TAXILANDIA runs in NYC from next month

Oye Group, New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) & The Bushwick Starr, in association with The Tank, have announced their site-specific play-within-a-tour of the city, Taxilandia by Modesto Flako Jimenez, will run from 8 March.

Taxilandia immerses its audience in the flavours, sounds, sights and dynamic history of a neighbourhood confronting social stigmas and the realities of gentrification. Weaving a dramatic, performative ‘tapestry’ that interconnects generations, social classes, races and cultures, Taxilandia complicates our notion of what it means to be a local, an immigrant or a resident of a place, challenging us to answer: “What is my personal roadmap of home?”

Originally developed in Bushwick, Brooklyn where Jimenez lives, the piece is inspired and drawn from his nine years driving a taxi and his documentation of conversations with passengers, residents, locals, and immigrants to the neighborhood. The Oye Group is now working with companies all over the country to develop local versions of the piece specific to each city.

Taxilandia will offer three experiences for the New York City run: virtual salons; an interactive solo walking tour, Textilandia with Flako; and Taxi Tours with Flako whereby up to three people become passengers in his taxi for a personal tour of Bushwick.

The virtual salons will be held on 8, 11, 16 and 20 March and tickets are available here, with tickets to the Taxilandia taxi and text tours in Bushwick, Brooklyn available soon.