Year: 2026-2027
DanceForce Member: Margarita Espada
Artist: Meranda Flachs-Surmanek
Community Partners: Bay Shore Chamber of Commerce; Brentwood School District; En Vivo Radio; La Fiesta Radio; Patchogue School District; Tula Restaurant
Audience: 600
County: Suffolk
The Body as Archive: Memory, Movement & Belonging is a multi-week artistic residency centered on physical theater, movement, and storytelling for the Teatro Yerbabruja Youth Ensemble. Led by performance artist and facilitator Meranda Flachs-Surmanek, the residency serves as a platform for self-expression, healing, and collective action, centering immigrant and first-generation youth and transforming personal memory into shared performance. Other supporting artists for this projects include Mariana Lima, music, and Margarita Espada, assistant director.
Drawing from Meranda Flachs-Surmanek’s practice in physical and documentary theater, participatory performance, and community-based wellness—including collaborations with Pink Fang, La MaMa Experimental Theatre, and CultureHub—the residency invites youth to move, speak, witness, and create together. The artistic process emphasizes joy, care, and agency, reframing performance as a collective responsibility rather than individual virtuosity.
The residency includes 10 youth workshops, 30 hours of rehearsal space, and one community presentation, along with dedicated creative development and a public showcasing of Meranda Flachs-Surmanek’s work. Youth workshops will take place August 1–October 17, 2026, while the artist’s creative time and public showcasing are scheduled for November 2026–March 20, 2027.
The project is structured around four core creative modules: The Body as Archive, which explores the body as a living repository of memory and lived experience; Collective Care in Motion, focusing on ensemble-building through trust-based movement practices; Documentary Movement & Spoken Gesture, where youth develop short movement-based testimonies rooted in their own stories; and Devising the Ensemble Piece, in which individual narratives are woven into a collective performance through collaborative decision-making.
This residency is produced by Teatro Yerbabruja in partnership with the Brentwood Union Free School District, Patchogue-Medford School District, the Bay Shore Chamber of Commerce, La Fiesta Radio, En Vivo Radio, and Tula Restaurant (a new partnership). These collaborations expand the project’s reach across education, media, and local business sectors.
The residency serves immigrants, refugees, and New American youth, as well as the broader community. It will directly engage 25 youth participants and reach an estimated 300 community members through the culminating public presentation and related outreach.
This project is especially vital at a time of ongoing ICE raids and heightened trauma related to family separation. The Body as Archive offers immigrant and marginalized youth a safe, affirming space to liberate their bodies and souls through movement, collective care, and storytelling. As Teatro Yerbabruja’s youth dance ensemble continues to grow, the residency deepens artistic skill-building, emotional resilience, and youth leadership, while strengthening Teatro Yerbabruja’s role as a trusted cultural anchor on Long Island—expanding access to high-quality, socially engaged arts programming in communities with limited arts infrastructure.