WISEFOOL News:
SANTA FE — For more than 20 years Wise Fool has been sharing the magic of the circus arts with Northern New Mexico. Wise Fool’s new professional production, ReUnite, will be shared Sept. 2 at at PopeJoy Hall in Albuquerque.
The show successfully delighted and engaged audience members in Santa Fe in May when Wise Fool offered the show to the community four times in their very own studio. The show dazzles audience members with circus feats while engaging in an important conversion. This was Wise Fool’s first new production since the pandemic.
Tickets to the show are on earlybird sale now. Use code promocode “EARLYBIRD10” for $10 off.
The spectacle touches on indigenous issues, with the goal of contributing to the conversation about indigenous rights and rematriation. Rematriation is the process of reconnecting with our original mother, Mother Earth. It is a beautiful circus experience featuring a cast of 13 talented performers from Santa Fe and Albuquerque.
The hour-long show follows a journey from harmony to extraction, with a message based on community and rematriation. It features dance, aerial acrobatics, slackline, juggling stilt walking and New Mexico’s first Chinese Pole.
The show invites viewers to enter into an alternate reality where mycelium flourish in symbiotic relationality with the natural world and elements. This utopian existence was soon threatened with the arrival of the alluring, yet destructive atomic mushroom race and its penchant for greed, violence and extraction to fuel its insatiable appetite. The performance provided a stirring metaphor for Western colonialism and its ongoing detrimental impact the world over, particularly on Indigenous peoples and communities, with special emphasis on nuclear colonialism in New Mexico.
The show was seen in Santa Fe by over 400 arts-loving people of all ages.
Some audience comments about the show were:
- “It made me think more and appreciate the land we are on and the power of community.”
- “I learned about arts of movement and different cultures making part of the community I just moved into and I will seek to participate more!”
- “Diverse points of view make for more interesting conversations”
- “There are so many artists in SF with TOP talent and skills!”
- “I am filled with hope”
Wise Fool toured ReUnite throughout the state of New Mexico this summer, with Popejoy being the last stop. Wise Fool premiered the show in May 2023 and has had additional performances since then at the Children’s Theatre Festival with Theatre SF, at the Gallup Route 66 Fest and at Sol Sunday. The September show will be their last performance of the year. In addition to showcasing their talents through the arts of circus, theater and puppetry, Wise Fool hopes to continue to generate conversation around social justice issues, especially for their indigenous community members, across the state of New Mexico.
The show was directed by Dr. Christina M. Castro, PhD, who proudly represents the local pueblos of Taos and Jemez, along with Indigenous roots in California. She is also the co-founder of the Three Sisters Collective, an Indigenous women-led grassroots organization devoted to arts, education, activism and community building in O’ga Pogeh, Santa Fe.
The music used in the show uses no English and was created by a New Mexican and Indigenous artists named Kino Benally.
Since Fall of 2022, Wise Fool has been working on the production of this new Circus Show! Multiple funders supported its creation and continue to support this upcoming performance at Popejoy. They are the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), Century Bank, the Del Norte LOV Foundation, We.grow.eco, and the PNM Resources Foundation. The cast of professional artists worked collaboratively with the director to generate this performance. The production features stilt walking, acrobatics, juggling, slackline and aerial acrobatic feats while engaging audiences in discussions relevant to the local community.
