Drawing from archival work from organizers, dancers, and farmers/gardeners as well as historical archival work of ceremonial dance forms (i.e. bomba, orisha dance, dabke, etc.), “The Land Alchemists” is a two hour immersive dance theater experience. As multi-media project it uses poetry, video, and live performance to explore how colonial logics within local non-profits and governmental entities perpetuate violence on the land and marginalized bodies in Philadelphia and in countries like the Congo and Palestine. Audience members are situated in the cast as light orbs who follow the  journey of Sunny, a recently laid off farm manager turning to ancestral veneration for guidance and dance as a form of spell casting for political resistance as they transmute powerlessness while witnessing multiple genocides.

Lead organizer: E Morales-Williams