Salvage Vanguard Theater (SVT) announces A Second Look at Casta by playwright Adrienne Dawes. Directed by Jenny Larson and in collaboration with visual artist, Beth Consetta Rubel, and composer Graham Reynolds, Casta is a new performance piece inspired by the casta paintings of Nueva España (Mexico).

This series of portraits grew in popularity over the 18th century, and were a unique genre of portraiture, depicting different racial mixtures arranged according to a hierarchy of race and status, as determined by Spanish elites.

The complexities of contemporary racial identity are echoed in this distant mirror of casta paintings. How do Old World anxieties about ambiguous identities reflect contemporary biases? How can the interaction between performance and visual art, specifically portraiture, open a window for a unique audience experience about racial identity?

Salvage Vanguard presents “a second look” workshop of this exciting new piece-in-progress that will experiment with a museum format for a public performance at the Dougherty Arts Center. 

Casta will be performed by Florinda Bryant, Marina De-Yoe Pedraza, Noel Gaulin, Lori Navarrete, khattieq, and Kriston Woodreaux.

Salvage Vanguard is a Resident Artist Organization of the Dougherty Arts Center through the Museums and Cultural Programs Division of the Austin Parks and Recreation Department.