UNITED STATES OF AMNESIA
is driven by a visually dynamic
magical realist Latino voodoo aesthetics
Conjuring the Past To Address the Present
In a System that Seduces You To Forget
Written & Performed by
José Torres-Tama
Presented by
The ArtsXchange
& Academy Theatre
One-Week Residency
Sept. 8-15, 2025
AMNESIA Performances
Friday & Saturday, September 12 & 13, 2025
Doors open @ 6:45pm
Shows @ 7pm
Other National Touring Projects:
LIVING ARTS OF TULSA
Perfomances August 2 - 3, 2024
Saint Mary's College of Maryland
VOICES Literary Series
Thursday, March 28, 2024
AMNESIA Sold-Out a 180-seat
Recital Hall @ Dodge Performing Arts Center
Saint Mary's City, MD
Developed & Debuted at the
Ashé Cultural Arts Center
in New Orleans
& GALA Hispanic Theatre in DC
When Torres-Tama’s emotional vulnerability aligns with the facts he presents,
his honesty clears the waters, and makes it possible for us to see
the full depth of this history, the line that traces from then, through now,
and on to the future. United States of Amnesia shines when it does this,
finding the specificity and humanity while covering broad swaths of history.
---DC Metro News
The Ashé Cultural Arts Center presented
NEA award-winning performance artist,
published playwright & poet,
and interdisciplinary provocateur
José Torres-Tama
in his latest performance
GALA Hispanic Theatre
Presented the US of AMNESIA
Debut in June 2022 in DC
AMNESIA Collaborators:
Lighting Design: John Grimsley
Film Shorts:
Bruce France
Tshombe Tshanti
José Torres-Tama
UNITED STATES OF AMNESIA
Torres-Tama conjures the past to address the present
in a system that seduces you to forget. He inhabits the role of a
“Shamanistic Time Traveler” with invocations, spoken word,
and performance rituals—where the sacred and profane converge.
Peppered with biting sardonic humor, he addresses a forgotten
legacy of anti-immigrant laws such as Operation Wetback (1954),
Arizona's SB 1070 (2010), and the Zero Tolerance Policy (2018).
He connects these laws to other odious legislation from
The Three Fifths Human Compromise (1787),
Fugitive Slave Acts (1793 & 1850),
to Indian Removal Act (1830).
All these laws were set up to propel white supremacy
and inhumanely diminish Black, Brown, and indigenous people.
These laws have actually influenced the current anti-immigrant laws,
and have been redirected to dehumanize immigrants
while their labor is readily exploited.
Torres-Tama reminds us that the current anti-immigrant hysteria gripping GrinGoLandia for 20 plus years since the 9/11 tragedy is nothing new
in a system that continuously demonizes the many "others"
to justify the exploitation of their labor.
He proclaims the UNITED STATES OF AMNESIA
seduces people to embrace forgetting,
and dares us to remember that
blind nationalism has led to a resurrection of white supremacy
—while the pandemic unmasked serious fault lines
of a crumbling capitalist empire.
AMNESIA is a wild history ride to remember
what most would rather us forget, and exposes the
blatant hypocrisies of a colonial settler system.
The most radical thing an artist can do today is dare to remember
in a culture submerged in amnesia, lies, and misinformation!
--- José Torres-Tama
In this fleeting era of racial reckoning post-murder of George Floyd,
white police are still killing Black people; there’s a rise in anti-Asian hate crimes;
Louisiana ICE Jails detain thousands of Latin American immigrants indefinitely;
and the pandemic revealed an open wound of disparities
in health care, employment, and housing.
It’s all enough to precipitate pandemic melancholic funk,
but the artist inspires a revolutionary paradigm shift
with astute and comic observations.
UNITED STATES OF AMNESIA
is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation Fund Project
co-commissioned by GALA Hispanic Theatre in DC
in partnership with the
Ashé Cultural Arts Center in New Orleans.
Additional support has come from a
2021 NEFA Development Grant,
and a 2021 Platforms Fund.
Torres-Tama has had a long-time relationship with
GALA Hispanic Theatre
and the Ashé Cultural Arts Center.
Both arts entities commissioned his critically acclaimed
Aliens, Immigrants & Other Evildoers
performance.
This is the final performance of an Immigration Trilogy
the artist began back in 2005 with his post-Katrina solo,
The Cone of Uncertainty, and it includes his Aliens show.
This Immigration Trilogy of one-man plays & performance texts
will be published in a forthcoming book.
US OF AMNESIA
had its DC premiere at GALA Hispanic Theatre
on Saturday & Sunday, June 11 & 12, 2022.
The show received a rave review in the
DC Metro News Theater Section.
