PREVIEW: Dancing Undocumented

By Lisa Traiger

Artist activist, choreographer, educator and performer Gabriel Mata moves in sweeping arcs. Diving to the floor, fanning a leg into a cartwheel, dipping into a deep and generous lunge, he divvies up the space to trace his life’s trajectory. Lanky and lean, with a shock of black hair, Mata moves with an unrestrained sense of athleticism that toggles between virtuosic and casually off the cuff. His latest piece, This is where/I Begin …, a meditation on creativity and living an undocumented life, opens at the Intersections Festival. Mata, an MFA candidate at University of Maryland College Park, speaks with arts journalist Lisa Traiger about his background, his inspiration and hopes for his work. Their conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

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PREVIEW: This is where/I Begin …

Gabriel Mata Movements
Feb. 21, 2020, 8:00 p.m.
Atlas Intersections Festival 2020, Atlas Performing Arts, 1333 H St. NE, Washington, DC https://www.atlasarts.org/events/this-is-where-i-begin/

Lisa Traiger: Your newest solo This is where/I Begin … incorporates a great deal of your background. What can you tell us about yourself.

Gabriel Mata: I was born in Huitzuco de los Figueroa, which is a small town in the state of Guerrero in Mexico. That's where my mom as well as my grandmother and great grandmother were. My mom decided to immigrate, obviously for a better life for herself and her children, and also to be able to help her family. I had just turned five when we immigrated in 1996. The first city we lived in, and the city that I lived in the longest, was Santa Ana in Southern California.

We lived there most of my childhood. That’s where I went to high school.

L.T.: When did you begin to dance?

G.M.: I started to dance at Santa Ana High School. Initially it was just to meet the high school arts requirement, but I really got into it. Our instructor at the time taught us dance history and nutrition and production and choreography; it wasn't just about moving in the space. It was really about engaging through all other forms of the arts, narrative and story. I wanted more.

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When I graduated, I received several scholarships to the local community college, Santa Ana College, which had a really good program. I was very fortunate to get my ballet and modern training there. Within the Western American culture, I experienced modern and ballet training that exemplified what it means to be a good, developed American. So there I was trying to transition from this immigrant status into somehow realizing that I would become a citizen through dance. But this notion of a melting pot is really an illusion … it really ends up [projecting us] into the culture and demands of white Anglo America.

L.T.: You were undocumented?

G.M.: I still am. Currently I have DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). I’m a Dreamer. Since I turned 21 in 2013, I applied for back action for DACA, which was enacted under the Obama Administration. That allowed me to access higher education, get a driver’s license, and to work legally … which is very important.

I was very fortunate to get a scholarship that paid for my tuition for my undergraduate studies at San Jose State University.

L.T.: This is where/I Begin … contains multiple layers of meaning that you peel away in the piece. You literally map your life on stage. Can you tell us about that?

G.M.: In the piece I look into where my body has been in the past, where I grew up, the space that I grew up in. That’s where I start. The beginning is the past, the ending is the future, in the middle I create a space where I’m navigating and forming something choreographic as an extension of my life. I repeat often that “I am making something.” I want there to be a duality between the dance and my life, between where I am and where I want to be in the future.

I look at future as being definite, securing my place in the space, saying this is where I’ll wake up in the morning, next to my husband and we’ll walk our dog. I always imagine myself and how I will continue living in the space, however that’s not definite. I’m showing my dreams and aspirations and hoping to cement them by beginning with my thoughts and just sending that out into the world.

When I repeat, “I am making something,” I interject with the type of interpretation the audience can take in.

L.T.: I love that moment because of the duality of meaning: You’re both making or building your life, but you’re also making something artistic. We see your creative process at work in the work. The piece deals with beginnings and trajectories, in life and in art.

G.M.: The last thing I say [in the piece] is, “I am making something and no one should ever be able to take that away from me.” I’ve been here for 23 years of my life and for someone to just be able to take that away from me …. I have the hardest time imagining that all of this can be taken away from me because I’m still not a citizen. I can tell you, as an active artist in the grant and funding process in the U.S., I would have no idea about how to access that in Mexico.

L.T.: How do you mark your identity and navigate this duality of two countries, two cultures?

G.M.: While I don’t have citizenship and this is the only country I know, I’m noticing that that doesn’t make me feel like I’m any less Mexican either because there’s such a dynamic way of identity. I’ve always been Mexican through the way I grew up, through the other language I speak, through my cultural inheritance and the ways I’ve been able to fully engage being Mexican without being in Mexico.

L.T.: Where do you want to see this work go?

G.M.: I would like to have provocative conversations [because of this work. Questions are constantly being generated by me. I write [them] down. I articulate [them], but [the questions] also end up coming out in my own performing body. It is part of my creative well. I'm in constant motion through thinking and through movement. Within my practice I try to surprise both of those spaces. I am a critical thinker within the theory, but also I want to give that shape and form and body.

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While D.C. is my home now, it’s a Democratic [city]. I also would like to present this work to spaces that don’t accommodate that as well. I want to bring up questions and, as my piece does, question citizenship. We should also question who gets to say what citizenship is. It’s not a singular thing. As someone who doesn’t have citizenship yet in the only country I know, I would argue to someone who says, “Go back to your country.” I would say, “This in my country. It’s the only country I know.”

As for the piece, I feel like within the choreographic components, it could help facilitate artists who are not just dancers, but maybe writers or musicians …. I feel that there is a process within it that allows us to reflect on citizenship … and can also serve as a model for self-care and self-reflection.

Photos: courtesy Gabriel Mata, by Robert Woofter