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THE BLOCK IS TALKING ABOUT YOLEROS

11/21/2015

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di·as·po·ra  - noun: the dispersion of any people from their original homeland.

​"We are all yoleros… looking for that new beginning. " – Alex Vásquez Escaño
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YOLEROS
Thursday, December 17 - 8pm
Friday, December 18 - 8pm
Saturday, December 19 - 8pm


The Bushwick Starr Theatre
(207 Starr Street - BK, NY)
Tickets are $18.00 at the door and $15 in advance atwww.thebushwickstarr.org

HOLA-award winning Spanish-language play is coming to The Bushwick Starr

Right now, immigration is the hot-button issue in America. All day long, talking heads spew out rhetoric on TV. Politicians argue for our votes. News programs flash out-of-focus pictures of border crossings and weave boogey-man narratives about foreigners coming to take American jobs and destroy our way of life. More often than not, the immigrant is portrayed as a faceless character – the Rorschach manifestation of America’s xenophobic imagination. ​
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Left-wing pundits respond with the cliché, “We are a nation of immigrants.” While perhaps well intentioned, this phrase is both inaccurate and equally dehumanizing. More accurately, we are a nation of diasporic peoples. Referring to America as “a nation of immigrants” disrespects those who came to this country because they had no other choice. Slaves and their descendants are not immigrants. Political and religious refugees are not immigrants. Victims of extreme poverty and global inequality are not immigrants. These are people who have been displaced – for many different reasons. Fetishizing the immigrant experience strips these individuals of their humanity and the power of their individual stories.
Growing up in the Dominican Republic, writer Alex Vásquez Escaño heard about people taking “yolas” -- tiny boats used to ferry Dominicans across the Mona Passage to Puerto Rico. This dangerous journey became the inspiration for Yoleros. Yoleros tells the story of three Dominicans, Maximo, Demecio, and Dinora who risk their lives to sail for America in order to escape a reality with no future. Vásquez Escaño explains, “I was trying to write an honest story about people who go through these challenges…. I feel that many times we dismiss them because of how they go about looking for this new beginning without understanding the factors that push them in the first place.” For director, Martin Balmaceda, Yoleros "is very important, especially for those who decide to emigrate and leave their countries to find a new beginning."
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Fresh off winning a 2015 HOLA Award for Best Ensemble Cast, audiences eagerly await Yoleros’ return December 17-19 at The Bushwick Starr Theater.  Supporters of Latino theatre are excited to see such a relevant project coming to Brooklyn’s Spanish-speaking diasporic community. However, Yoleros needs your help. Vásquez Escaño produced Yoleros independently in March of this year through his production company Teatrica without the support of a grant or theatre organization. ​
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NOW it’s OUR turn and Brooklyn Gypsies and The Bushwick Starr are bringing it to BUSHWICK BROOKLYN.  Without proper funding for props, costumes, set-design, promotion, and technical equipment Yoleros cannot happen. In the words of Vásquez Escaño, “We are all yoleros. We all, at some point of our lives, look for that new beginning.” This is your chance to help Latino artists achieve a new beginning by bringing truth to their stories and our diasporic community.  WATCH OUR VIDEO and support  both by contributing online and in the audience December 17-19 at The Bushwick Starr. See you there!

GYPSY SPOTLIGHT

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Olander
"BIG O." Wilson
Follow Big O on social media HERE

Olander “Big O” Wilson is a actor, stand up comedian, and stage manager from Lake City, South Carolina. Big O graduated from USC with a Bachelor's in Theatre and Public Relations. His favorite credits include Yellowman, The Lost and Blue Bloods. In May 2014, he took his talents to NYC with $50 in his pocket and a dream. After his side-splitting performance in Ghetto Hors D'oeuvres: Borders Collide, Big O joined the Brooklyn Gypsies family as full-time team member. Working both on and off-stage for the company, in 2016, Big O will stage manage Nick E Finn’s debut one-man-show “The Last Hipster in Brooklyn” and BG’s Conversation Part 2: Latino.

COMING UP SOON ON THE BLOCK

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CATCH FESTIVAL
"The Last Hipster in Brooklyn"
by Nick E Finn

JOIN US HERE

CATCH FESTIVAL  - Saturday November 21 - Brooklyn Gypsy Nick E Finn showcases a selection from his one-man-show “The Last Hipster in Brooklyn,” alongside performances by 600 Highwaymen, Laura Bartczak, Allison Brainard, Charlotte Brathwaite, and many more!

Catch is the Brooklyn-based, Obie award-winning, hydra-headed, series of performance events curated with reckless delicacy by Jeff Larson, Caleb Hammons and Andrew Dinwiddie.

The Invisible Dog Art Center  (51 Bergen St, Brooklyn, New York 11201) -  8PM - $15 at the door ​
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BORDERS COLLIDE: Let's Start The Conversation

11/4/2015

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gyp·sy
ˈjipsē/ a nomadic or free-spirited person.
​“We are never going to survive if we do not talk to each other”
-Modesto “Flako” Jimenez
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In 2015, Brooklyn is topsy-turvy - on its head – in the middle of what some might call an identity crisis. Gentrification in New York City and in other urban areas all over America is being waged at the expense of local communities. There’s a war going on no Brooklynite with a conscious is safe from. And in the words of the great Greek philosopher Aeschylus, “When war is declared, truth is always the first casualty.”
 
As artists, we are Brooklyn’s first line of defense. Artists are the keepers of truth. Pablo Picasso famously said, “We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand.” Let us start painting the truth about our beloved borough instead of living in the oversimplified narratives that we have been given. We have to tell our own stories. 
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Nationally, the discourse about Brooklyn would have us believe one of two things: Brooklyn is either a twenty-first century utopia of urban living or Brooklyn is as a soulless zombie with a shattered identity. Neither is the case. The injustices and challenges Brooklyn faces in the age of gentrification are tremendous and urgent. But we are not dead. We are not rolling over. Brooklyn’s heart is still beating. Now is the time we must start the conversation – about who we are, what is really going on, and as a community, where we want to go. 
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Ghetto Hors D’oeuvres is an annual Brooklyn Gypsies festival in which up-and-coming poets and rappers share a stage to bare their truth around a unifying subject. This year’s topic: Borders Collide. Last month, in front of three packed crowds at JACK Performing Arts Center, 20+ NYC poets and rappers, both native and immigrant, took the stage. In between catered Hors D'oeurves and a live DJ set by Andre Mayes, each artist shared their personal truth about Brooklyn’s colliding borders. The spectacle that followed was nothing short of breathtaking.
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As the final artist of the evening Nick E Finn concluded his performance, all of the show’s participants returned to the stage and stood together. Brooklyn Gypsies founder Modesto “Flako” Jimenez joined the performers in a symbol of unity and closed the show with a call for dialogue. Flako reminded all the performers and audience members in attendance, “We are never going to survive if we do not talk to each other.”
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While the history of Brooklyn is as turbulent as it is storied, the future of our beloved borough is far from written. It rests squarely in the hands of those who are willing fight for its truth. Webster defines gypsy as: a nomadic or free-spirited person. As Brooklyn Gypsies, as artists, we are inherently nomads. We are inherently free-spirited. We are obligated to open our minds and reach out across lines of difference to initiate conversation. Without dialogue, without truth, without justice, and voice, we abdicate our power to others who will tell our story for us. Ghetto Hors D’oeuvres 2015 was an amazing step forward in reclaiming that power.

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2015 Borders Collide Performers: Thomas Fucaloro, Price PreemO, 730 Jim, Cindy "Black Angel" Peralta, MINISKIRT, Jason Koo, Starr Bubsy, Joel, Raven Jackson, Duece Blahka, Amber West, Parker, Mariela Regalado, Big O, Billionz, Nick E Finn, and Escher
 The next Ghetto Hors D’oeuvres, GHETTO HORS D’OEUVRES: ODETTA RAICES will take place June 3-5, 2016 at The Bushwick Starr. 
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    GYPSY:  A free-spirited or nomadic person

    Here is what the Brooklyn Gypsies are talking about on the block!

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