CASA Festival 2021 @ Monochrome Whitechapel

About

CASA Festival is an internationally regarded showcase for some of the beautiful, challenging and unique work being made both in Latin America and by the UK’s Latinx artists community. CASA facilitates artistic and cultural exchanges between Latin America and the UK, bringing to London all the innovation, passion, artistry and diversity these artists have to offer.

Combining exhibition, performance and installation, highlights at CASA’s multidisciplinary showcase at Monochrome Whitechapel (running Sept 2-11) include SYNCHRONIZED SERPENT, where silhouettes and backgrounds dance in harmony in this collaboration between Argentinian artist Cecilia Bengolea and the Jamaican national swimming team, whose current coach is Olympic gold medallist Olga Novokshchenova. ENTRAR TARDE by Argentinian artist Damiana Poggi is a video performance about the pat-downs carried out in jail by police officers to inmates and visitors, based on her experiences visiting her father in prison. Live performances include WHERE TO BELONG (Sept 3). Presented by Jewish-Lebanese Latinx queer theatre maker Victor Esses and CASA, in partnership with Counterpoint Arts, it’s the tender, moving autobiographical story of Victor’s journeys – an exploration of how to find your place in a complex world of identities. With verbatim dialogue WORK, WORKERS, WORKING (Sept 4) by UK-based Brazilian Joana Nastari (critically acclaimed for her play F**k You, Pay Me) sees actors portray how workers across the adult industry have adapted under lockdown. London-based Peruvian actor and theatre maker Pepa Duarte brings her latest show SENORITA RITA to CASA (Sept 10) – through comedy, music, dance, macrame, tinder memoirs, and pachamama-yoga, this Latina drag performance challenges what being a Latina migrant is all about. 

Further festival highlights include a public art installation at Brixton Village (Sept 16-18), plus a programme of Latin American films every Wednesday throughout September at cinemas across London including the Prince Charles Cinema, Genesis Cinema and Curzon Hoxton.