As we approach our showcase of all of the short devised pieces from Pace's graduating class of International Performance Ensemble students, we at CIRQUE have gone through a massive revelation and have created an entirely new show! Titled Me. You. Us., our new piece will take a documentary style twist and feature the stories of three victims of injustice - Aya Abdullah, an Iraqi refugee refused asylum in America, Emma Sulkowicz, a rape victim who was utterly failed by her university's justice system, and Sandra Bland, a victim of racial profiling who died in police custody, adding intense fuel to the Black Lives Matter movement. All of the stories are told in first person, each actor assuming the physicality and voice of the victim, as well as using source text directly from interviews, videos, and blog posts in which each person spoke of their experience. The first two stories, Aya and Emma, are told in an interspersed back and forth text with moments of shared experience, while the third actor writes key phrases and words on a large strip of paper attached to the back wall. After the first two stories are told, the actress playing Sandra Bland steps forward and performs a piece from Sandra’s vlog, “Sandy Speaks”. After this the first two actors describe the events leading to Sandra’s untimely death. In the end, all three actors shed their documentary style characters and offer a direct address to the audience that these people could have been any of us, and that we cannot fix our world until we actively seek to do so.

We are so incredibly excited about this change in direction and can't wait to share it with everyone! Check back here for an update and performance dates and times!

Maya Ferguson portraying Sandra Bland during a run through of Me. You. Us.