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Thursday, October 17, 2019
Barcelona Dance Company Speaks Out On Being Barred From Performing At The Los Angeles Theatre Center By Immigration Officers
www.broadwayworld.com: A year ago, José Luis Valenzuela put his plans in motion to bring the award-winning performance artist, Marta Carrasco and her acclaimed political dance-theatre production Perra de Nadie (Nobody's Bitch) to Los Angeles. The trip, Carrasco's third as an artist produced by Valenzuela, was meant to be her farewell performance.
This article highlights an outrageous and sad occurrence that unfortunately has become the norm for anyone entering the US. Not only has the political climate turned against immigrants and those who come to the US from other countries, but now it is attacking personal speech of artists. Marta Carrasco and her dance company should not have been detained and deported back to Amsterdam without an explanation from US Customs. The fact that they felt like they were terrorists and had their personal phones taken, seems like the current political climate has made American seem unfriendly to those outside of it. The icing on the cake was with Facebook's censorship of the cancellation post that Valenzuela attempted to post to alert the patrons about the cancellation of the production. I know Facebook is still working out the kinks of what to censor and what not, but to me, it seems like it is getting what to censor wrong more times than right. I am saddened by this article and the way the artists in it were treated. All they wanted to do was complete a farewell tour, and now they cannot due to the US.
To be completely honest, I'm not even sure what exactly I want to say about this article or where I want to start. I'm left speechless by the way US customs and immigration officers handled the entire situation. The most upsetting part is that events like this happen all over the country for many immigrants or visitors trying to enter the US. What I didn't understand about the whole situation was how Marta Carrasca and the three dancers had the proper valid paperwork, validated by the United States embassy in Barcelona, but were still turned around. It's also incredibly frustrating for Valenzuela not to be able to get in contact with immigration for them to explain the reasoning for why Carrasca and the dancers were sent back to Barcelona. The second point I'd like to touch on is how the four artists were treated during the whole process. For them to describe themselves as being mistreated and humiliated is infuriating to me. I don't believe that anybody legally coming into America to work with valid paperwork should ever be humiliated or denied explanation when things like this happen. I'm so glad that Valenzuela continues to push for answers and fight to improve the system that continues to mistreat immigrants.
This is wrong on so many levels. America was founded on the idea of new possibility and freedom for Everyone. It seems that we are losing this, and this is evidential proof. I want to know WHY these artists were sent away upon arrival in in the United States of America. If their visas are in order than they have every right to be here. Among other things, they shouldn’t have even been detained to begin with. Even if they are detained they definitely should not be treated like prisoners, there has to be a human rights violation there as well as the fact that it appears they were deemed guilty of something when we inherently believe and prosecute on the idea of innocence till proven guilty. Sadly all of this is becoming more and more frequent which is unacceptable but the real kicker is the fact that posts and freedom of speech and press were stricken from the digital space immediately despite it being simple updates rather than any form of protest or political speech as which was stated.
This is just wrong and wrong on oh so many levels. There is no reason for anything like this to be happening in the world and especially in any countries that deem themselves as free or that support free speech. Detaining and taking people off to be all on their own preventing them from meeting a lawyer or even talking with their contact in the united states is absolutely ridiculous. Artists aren’t threats to our society they aren’t criminals or prisoners there is no reason to treat them as such. The censorship of things like this and the ideas that are suppressed by our government and companies not willing to share stories like this is terrifying. Everyday it seems there are more and more stories coming out about how some part of our country. It’s entirely on the principles against everything that our country stands for and what we were built around.
This news is, on the one hand, absolutely astonishing. On the other, it is a relatively minor event in the grand scheme of immigration horror stories we are currently battling. International touring is always risky in that sense--no matter how well everything has been planned, the government might decide to shut it down without explanation. There is no way we can plan for events like these; there is nothing we can do except try to force our immigration (etc.) systems back into the world of sense. I can only imagine the feeling of helplessness the presenter felt when he received the messages from the company. And then, he was faced by the subsequent perplexing shutdown by Facebook, a platform which claims it cannot stem hate speech or misinformation, but evidently can mysteriously blockade information about an injustice that occurred. Finally, I can only imagine the fear that the company felt when they were abruptly and without explanation ripped from their trajectory.
5 comments:
This article highlights an outrageous and sad occurrence that unfortunately has become the norm for anyone entering the US. Not only has the political climate turned against immigrants and those who come to the US from other countries, but now it is attacking personal speech of artists. Marta Carrasco and her dance company should not have been detained and deported back to Amsterdam without an explanation from US Customs. The fact that they felt like they were terrorists and had their personal phones taken, seems like the current political climate has made American seem unfriendly to those outside of it. The icing on the cake was with Facebook's censorship of the cancellation post that Valenzuela attempted to post to alert the patrons about the cancellation of the production. I know Facebook is still working out the kinks of what to censor and what not, but to me, it seems like it is getting what to censor wrong more times than right. I am saddened by this article and the way the artists in it were treated. All they wanted to do was complete a farewell tour, and now they cannot due to the US.
To be completely honest, I'm not even sure what exactly I want to say about this article or where I want to start. I'm left speechless by the way US customs and immigration officers handled the entire situation. The most upsetting part is that events like this happen all over the country for many immigrants or visitors trying to enter the US. What I didn't understand about the whole situation was how Marta Carrasca and the three dancers had the proper valid paperwork, validated by the United States embassy in Barcelona, but were still turned around. It's also incredibly frustrating for Valenzuela not to be able to get in contact with immigration for them to explain the reasoning for why Carrasca and the dancers were sent back to Barcelona. The second point I'd like to touch on is how the four artists were treated during the whole process. For them to describe themselves as being mistreated and humiliated is infuriating to me. I don't believe that anybody legally coming into America to work with valid paperwork should ever be humiliated or denied explanation when things like this happen. I'm so glad that Valenzuela continues to push for answers and fight to improve the system that continues to mistreat immigrants.
This is wrong on so many levels. America was founded on the idea of new possibility and freedom for Everyone. It seems that we are losing this, and this is evidential proof. I want to know WHY these artists were sent away upon arrival in in the United States of America. If their visas are in order than they have every right to be here. Among other things, they shouldn’t have even been detained to begin with. Even if they are detained they definitely should not be treated like prisoners, there has to be a human rights violation there as well as the fact that it appears they were deemed guilty of something when we inherently believe and prosecute on the idea of innocence till proven guilty. Sadly all of this is becoming more and more frequent which is unacceptable but the real kicker is the fact that posts and freedom of speech and press were stricken from the digital space immediately despite it being simple updates rather than any form of protest or political speech as which was stated.
This is just wrong and wrong on oh so many levels. There is no reason for anything like this to be happening in the world and especially in any countries that deem themselves as free or that support free speech. Detaining and taking people off to be all on their own preventing them from meeting a lawyer or even talking with their contact in the united states is absolutely ridiculous. Artists aren’t threats to our society they aren’t criminals or prisoners there is no reason to treat them as such. The censorship of things like this and the ideas that are suppressed by our government and companies not willing to share stories like this is terrifying. Everyday it seems there are more and more stories coming out about how some part of our country. It’s entirely on the principles against everything that our country stands for and what we were built around.
This news is, on the one hand, absolutely astonishing. On the other, it is a relatively minor event in the grand scheme of immigration horror stories we are currently battling. International touring is always risky in that sense--no matter how well everything has been planned, the government might decide to shut it down without explanation. There is no way we can plan for events like these; there is nothing we can do except try to force our immigration (etc.) systems back into the world of sense. I can only imagine the feeling of helplessness the presenter felt when he received the messages from the company. And then, he was faced by the subsequent perplexing shutdown by Facebook, a platform which claims it cannot stem hate speech or misinformation, but evidently can mysteriously blockade information about an injustice that occurred. Finally, I can only imagine the fear that the company felt when they were abruptly and without explanation ripped from their trajectory.
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