Infinitas Peripécias: Tour Overview
Infinitas Peripécias is a web series collaboration between Clowns Without Borders Brazil and USA. It explores issues of displacement through seven short films featuring Latin American folktales. An activity designed to promote the emotional/social wellbeing of migrant children will accompany each video.
This is a continuation of a 2020 project by Clowns Without Borders Brazil, which focused on welcoming displaced children to Brazil and Brazilian culture. In this season of Infinitas Peripécias, CWB takes a broader approach to migration in the Western Hemisphere. This project celebrates the connective power of folktales, honoring how stories and storytelling transcend political boundaries.
Tour Context
Economic insecurity, natural disaster, political instability, and gang violence have resulted in skyrocketing displacement throughout Latin America. Each year, thousands of asylum-seekers and migrants travel to Brazil and the United States in search of safety and dignity.
Displaced people are often held apart from their host community. They may be denied documentation, prevented from accessing education or employment, or scapegoated—all in violation of their human rights. They are intensely vulnerable to exploitation, trafficking, and being “disappeared.” The United States is currently presiding over a total breakdown of human rights at its southern border, leveraging racism and fear to expel individuals, refuse asylum to adults, and detain children, all during a global pandemic.
In contrast, folktales are a time-honored way to find commonality, and preserve cultural values. They reflect the passage of time and the movement of peoples across the Americas. They generate a shared language of imagination and metaphor, counteracting the rhetorical flattening of entire groups of people. Storytelling creates community.
Tour Partners and Team
Clowns Without Borders USA and Palhaços sem Fronteiras Brasil are partnering with ASBRAD and the City Hall of São Paulo. Clowns Without Borders – Brazil (PSF) has institutional support from ASBRAD. ASBRAD’s mission is “to defend women’s human rights, fighting and denouncing cases of violence against women, including trafficking in women, children and transgender people, for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and labour exploitation.”
Past collaborations between CWB – USA and CWB – Brazil include tours in El Salvador, Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil.
The artist team includes Aline Moreno, Ester Monteiro, Eric de Oliveira, Lily Curcio, Loi Lima, Naomi Shafer, Paúl Gomex, Painé Santamaria, Renato Ribeiro, and Robert Gomez, with artistic direction by Aline Moreno and Renato Ribeiro.
