An integrative cultural force with a mission to present work in a diverse array of venues and environments, The Carpetbag Brigade increases the quality, scope and impact of live performance culture through performer training, community outreach and aesthetic presentation. Their platform engages people of differing cultural backgrounds to share, create, express and reflect on common experiences. By utilizing performance art and its pedagogy as a tool to transcend language, class, and environmental background The Carpetbag Brigade aspires to evolve the role of performance culture and ensemble practice as a fundamental aspect of a healthy society.

Bi Cultural Road Show

With the support from the Kenneth Rainin Foundation and Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, Carpetbag Brigade hosted the Colombian performing arts companies Nemcatacoa Teatro and Hojarasca and Tucson, Arizona’s Verbo•Bala. The Bi Cultural Road Show expanded the understanding and appreciation of Latin Culture beyond the Mexican border by being a living display of creative co-existence that included presenting each participating company’s repertory performances, sharing two slide show lectures and conducting a residency program that engaged students and artists from the different communities visited by the Bi Cultural Road Show. 

The Robes of St. Anne

This Carpetbag Brigade collaboration was with Circus Stella and Julie Co Danse, Canada and was presented in New Brunswick. Carpetbag Brigade taught acrobatic stilts and worked alongside acrostilters from Moncton, New Brunswick and Montreal, Canada to build a tableau of work entitled “The Robes of St. Anne”. This ambulant outdoor stilts spectacle-based drama was presented at the Festival du Cirque de Dieppe, The 450th Anniversary of Prince Edward Island and the Congres Mondial Acadien.

Puentes Ciudades Invisible

Inspired by the writings of Cabeza de Vaca and Italo Calvino; Carpetbag Brigade and Pura Vibra explored the tension between individuals, between one group and another, between north and south, and between Mexico and the U.S. Created in one month for the Festival Internacional de Santa Lucia, Mexico, the performance highlighted the acrobatic stilt technique common in both groups.

Dios de Adrenalina

A groundbreaking genre bending cross-cultural collaboration between accomplished acrobatic stilt companies The Carpetbag Brigade and Nemcatacoa Teatro along with contemporary Andean music from Hojarasca and bilingual spoken word from Verbo•Bala’s Logan “Dirtyverbs” Phillips. Illuminating the undercurrents and dynamics of globalization, ‘Dios de Adrenalina’ examines the collectivizing of trauma through hidden economic relationships and the impact of contraband commerce on the human nervous system and the commodification and re-cycling of resulting conflicts into digestible pop culture.

Penny Farthing’s Fantasy of Flight

A multi-media spectacle of colorful creation between collaborators Flam Chen and The Carpetbag Brigade takes a simple circus love story to the sky and beyond. Pyrotechnic wizardry, choreographed acrobatic stilts, enchanting aerial dance, a bevy of mischievous clowns, flying machines, weather balloons, a metaphysical marching band, and a gypsy orchestra set in a Victorian atmosphere.
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