Anna Deavere Smith : Crossing the lines.

Video documentation of Anna Deavere Smith's performance 'Crossing the Lines', presented as a part of the 3rd Encuentro of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics, celebrated in July of 2002 in Lima, Peru under the title 'Globalization, Migration and the Public Sphere'. A performance about race and identity in the Americas, Anna Deavere Smith experiments with a translated performance, moving between English and Spanish to convey a series of portraits of representing identities in crisis. As an actor, playwright and teacher, Anna Deavere Smith has built a remarkably wide-ranging and respected career. Ms. Smith--whose work explores the American character and our multifaceted national identity--has been acclaimed by the media, critics and audiences across the country. The Macarthur Foundation awarded Ms. Smith a prestigious fellowship in 1996, saying she 'has created a new form of theater --a blend of theatrical art, social commentary, journalism and intimate reverie'. Looking at controversial events from multiple points of view, Ms. Smith's work combines the journalistic technique of interviewing her subjects with the art of interpreting their words through her performance. Ms. Smith founded and directed the Institute on the Arts & Civic Dialogue, a three-year experiment that was held for three summers (1998- 2000), at Harvard University. Ms. Smith is a tenured professor in the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, with an additional affiliation at the New York University School of Law. Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics