Combination skin

'Combination Skin,' written by Lisa Jones and directed by Roberta Uno, explores the racial politics that has been imposed upon black individuals, proposing 'Who says it's the black man's burden to be black.' Taking a look to historical figures and racial stereotypes, the conversations on stage go towards black skin tonality, discussing if 'combination skin' defines, or not, our own identities. Even more, whiteness as a counterpart of black identity is brought as a desired space for hiding the skin color that is related to negativity, and 'dreaming of a white life.' Playing with irony, and acknowledging that the fears embedded in centuries of a history of oppression are not easy to dissolve, the characters engage within a game show scenario that announces the winners of the whitest black person - a gesture that moves between sarcasm and despair.

From 1979-2009, the New WORLD Theater worked at the intersection of artistic practice, community engagement, scholarship, and activism toward a vision of a 'new world' - one that broke the confines of multiculturalism and was an artistic harbinger of America's shifting demographics. From a geographic 'outpost' in New England, New WORLD Theater evolved from a community organizing project and the Northeast point on a theater touring compass, to a protective studio to hone new work, a site of international intersections from South Africa to the South Bronx, and the home of inspired and rigorous collaborations with Western Massachusetts youth. New performance work development at New WORLD defied the conventional theater play lab as ghetto for artists of color; artists were met where they wanted to be in the imagining of new approaches, methods, and production. One of New WORLD Theater's artistic legacies is Project 2050, an early call to imagine the U.S. demographic shift, with people of the future - youth, in equal collaboration with artists and scholars.