personalities Mary Stephens in downtown Phoenix in front of the Bird Mural, commissioned in 2007 by monOrchid Gallery owner Wayne Rainey. Additional murals by various artists
E
ven when people can’t cross borders, art can,” says Mary Stephens, program director and curator of Arizona State University’s Performance in the Borderlands since 2012. One way art can cross borders is through the Bi-National Arts Residency, a program of the Borderlands initiative, a collaborative effort between artists from Phoenix and Sonora, Mexico. Cultural, theatrical and dance events hosted on the border bring these two communities together. The final show is staged on both sides of the fence,
“ Art is first and foremost disruptive.”
The Program Director Text by Anita Sheih * Photo by Tina Celle
where people can see through to – and communicate with – the other side. With an educational background in theater and international peace and conflict resolution, Stephens decided to address the political tension she felt in 2009, and still feels, by combining
her two passions. Her goal was to create a safe space for people to discuss relevant and controversial issues. Her method was to use art. Performance in the Borderlands “fuses the arts with social issues in public spaces to foster dialogue,” Stephens says. The initiative began in 2005 as a small group, performing for audiences of 10 or so people in nontraditional spaces. Today, Borderlands hosts six theatrical performances a year and incorporates other types of art, including visual media, projections, poetry, murals and dance. Stephens says these art forms have the “ability to push us outside of what we see every day, to make us see things in a new way and care about things we didn’t know to care about. “Art has the power to break us out of the monotony of our lives, and in that tiny space of creativity, we can imagine a new possibility, a future we may not have known. It is first and foremost disruptive. Art should disrupt our daily lives.” September 2017 / 37