MIGRACIONES / MIGRATIONS follows a photojournalist’s journey to learn the story of refugees migrating across sand, water, and shadows.

Informed by the increasing border conflicts between the Paradox Teatro co-founders’ home countries, the United States and Mexico. This performance creates a unique layering of hybrid body puppets, sand drawings, and shadow puppetry projections to reveal each character’s search for a new home. These visual mediums are scored by live music and poetry in English and Spanish to communicate with audiences across languages and cultures.

MIGRACIONES / MIGRATIONS is performed on stage by two multidisciplinary puppeteers, Sofía Padilla and Davey T Steinman. The photojournalist protagonist, Rubén, is a human-size hybrid body puppet made of thermoplastic, built and performed by Padilla.

Rubén, who is both a puppet and a puppeteer of live multimedia projections, uses his camera to take photos on stage that appear as projections, offering a lens for the audience to see Rubén’s migrant subjects. The special effects are described by Greg Cook in Wonderland as “Dazzling… As she sketches with her fingers in the sandy material, a man appears on the screen, crossing a desert speckled with a few cacti, under a blazing sun. Then Padilla draws in a border wall. The feeling is as if it’s being erected right before our eyes.” Rubén puppeteers elemental forms of sand, water, and shadows on the light box as mediums to examine the relationship between the materials of puppetry and the migrant experiences in deserts, oceans, and labyrinthine darkness.

Intended for Adults and Youth 10 years and older. The suitability of younger audiences depends on individual maturity level handling complex topics and attention span.