Short Summary

• My name is Yuriria Fanjul. I’m a physical theatre performer, and an opera director from Mexico City. I studied a Masters Degree in London, and in the last 12 years I’ve created many original shows in several countries, especially trough collective creation. My particular interest in music led me to found the Theatre and Opera Company STAGE of the ARTS, where I work in professional stages, as well as in communities.
• Currently, I’m creating a stage training to give tools to refugees from the camps in the border cities of Mexico and the US to develop their confidence and performance, to speak up. Secondly, I’m calling for street dancers and rappers who live in those camps, to create a professional multimedia opera together, based on their stories, that we can take through VR goggles to an international audience. In this piece, refugees perform their stories themselves, by dancing. It’s important to me that this piece highlights their virtues. I want everyone to witness, how brave, resilient, strong and full of love they are.
• The benefits for donating to this project will tangibly be to uplift some of the most disadvantage communities in the world through performance training, and to give them tools to overcome trauma and strengthen their identities. Donor who join us will also help create one of the most innovative artistic projects ever done.

What We Need & What You Get

• We’re currently raising US$16,500 to engage more than 100 artists. The money we collect from this campaign will be used to provide our cast with food, rehearsal clothes, transportation to the rehearsal spaces, and we will also record this process, to hopefully reproduce this in other borders of the world as well. The box office money we collect from the show, will go back to them as well.   
•  By becoming one of our donors, you get access to our our material for free, including watching the full show online on a 360º platform. If you happen to be in one of the cities where we perform on VR or in our 360º Traveling Dome, you will also have free access to the show, and even get a VR goggle as a gift.
• For US and Mexican donors, we also work with Fiscal Sponsorship organizations, and we can process a Tax Deductible receipts if needed. 

• We’ve never created a Multimedia 360º original opera at the Mexican border, with street dancers and an orchestra. And this is the task.

What we’ve already achieved

• This project has come quite far in terms of preparation. I wrote the opera libreto, I commissioned the music score to composer Arturo Fuentes, and The National University of Mexico UNAM produced a professional recording of it. I put together a team of stage creators, NGO’s a 360º video team, and we all committed to start this project in May 2022.  For this initiative I have received the support of many immigration and cultural organizations, and I’m now extending our hand to you, and inviting you get involved as well, to join Stay in Mexico Ópera 360º by making a donation.  

The Impact

• Mexico and the United States are divided by an enormous wall. Since the US imposed a migrant protocol called MPP in 2019, hundreds of thousands of people who arrive by foot from different countries seeking asylum in the US are sent back to Mexican territory to wait for their court hearings. Thousands of families live for months, and even years, in the streets of our border cities, with barely any protection from any government.
• This is the busiest border in the world. Imagine how vulnerable refugees are, when living in the streets where slavery, human trafficking and drug trafficking happen day in and day out. We’re living difficult times across the world. It’s time for us to step up and help each other. In the same way as the Eastern Europe humanitarian crisis, this is an exodus, and it has gone under the radar. For several years I’ve been terribly moved by the scale of this situation, and I wondering how I could help.
• In many community projects that I’ve done in the past, with children with special needs, with young kids from the gangs, with adults from the suburbs of big cities, I’ve witnessed the transformative power of theatre. When joining a theatre troupe, those with broken souls smile again. In terms of social transformation, I have also understood that our job is to create the necessary conditions for Art to do what only Art can do.

Risks & Challenges

• I have put together a professional team of 3 stage co-directors, 3 choreographers, 2 producers, 4 directing and production assistants, a digital creative studio, an architectural studio, and 4 NGO’s are assessing the project and providing psychological and legal support for our cast. We’re also backed up by the Cultural Council of the State of Baja California, and the Arts Educational Center CEART-Tijuana.
• I believe this whole team will will be able to support all possible challenges that this project might entail.

Other Ways You Can Help

• If donating is not possible for you to do today, you can still be part of the project by watching our content online and spreading the word. Have a look at our videos, listen to our opera, meet the team, and share this project with your friends and family. Maybe some of them will get inspired and they might be willing to donate to this initiative.
• Follow us on Social Media: @StageArtsMx @YuririaFanjul #StayInMexico360. 
• Please use the Indiegogo share tools! This is a very easy and reliable platform.

Thank you so much for your support.  I commit to staying in touch with each one of our donors and to make you all part of this journey, what in theatre we call “The hero’s journey”.