In this monthly work-in-progress showing, renowned performance artist and activist Sanchez will develop his upcoming production, XIV, which premieres at Dixon Place in June 2019. The show melds autobiography and history to convey the injustices racialized communities face as they fight for ‘equal protection of the laws’. Revolving around a 1946 class action lawsuit by 5 Mexican-American families to have their children enrolled in Orange County, CA public schools by applying the 14th Amendment, XIV serves as a creative counterpoint to the current events surrounding the realities of undocumented ‘dreamers’ and the vitriolic calls for building a Wall. This month’s showing features a guest appearance by Jimmie Briggs.
With humor and spoken word testimony as poetic-protest, Sanchez embodies a response to what we are seeing unfold before us as marginalized people struggle to survive within a broken landscape, pitting constitutional ideals against their experience being treated as unequal and inferior. This courageous new work exposes the country’s long history of conflicting narratives that fall to one side of the color line.