WorkersTEATRO
WorkersTEATRO is an independent Chicago group of working people who have self-selected to collaborate with Theater Director & Activist Jasmin Cardenas, and Worker Organizer Isaura Martinez. Members of WorkersTEATRO explore their working experiences of discrimination and exploitation using theater, storytelling, and other artistic forms of expression for the purpose of education, liberation, and change.
WorkersTEATRO... Humanizing the Politics of Labor
Summer 2021
Teatro for Public Health
WorkersTEATRO collaborated with UIC Center for Healthy Work and The Community Writing Project to document worker stories for public health. Video's and scenes available.
Dec. 2021
National Publication: The Atlantic
THE ATLANTIC writer, Kathryn Hymes attended our ZOOM performance with UIC Center for Healthy Work and then interviewed Jasmin to learn more about how WorkersTEATRO is using role play to deal with pandemic realities. Article here
2021
Publishing Our Stories
WorkersTEATRO in collaboration with Community Writing Project with support from UIC School of Public Health published our first workers magazine, VOICES of Experience: stories for empowerment, inspiration and transformation. Available in print and online soon.
2021 WorkersTEATRO
Members from the Workers Resistance Theater decided to reorganize and become an independent collaborative that can flexibly work with working people and organizations from across the city. Isaura Martinez and Jasmin Cardenas established a new collective WorkersTEATRO.
The work remains the same, to educate other workers about their rights and advocate for workers rights. All stories crafted for performance are based on real lived experiences of various members of the group. We fight for workers rights using stories and theater. Our work is sometimes in Spanish, sometimes in English, but always speaks to the human experience. Contact us at workersteatro@gmail.com
Fall 2021
PTO Journal
Jasmin Cardenas wrote a reflective essay to document the use of Theater of the Oppressed (TO) for labor organizing with a workers rights group in the Chicago area. Title is: Theater of the Oppressed and Labor Orgaizing: Possibilities and Limitations. Read the article.
Jan 2020
Arts, Culture &
Workforce Development National Working Group
ArtPlace America invited artist Jasmin Cardenas to share about working with a non-arts organization on labor issues, using theater. The entire ensemble present. Findings of the national workforce development working group were published in a national publication. Our case study is the first in this document.
Image by: drawing impact.com
2020
Documenting the Beginning
In 2017 Jasmin was collaborating with Chicago Workers Collaborative and won a grant, The Catalyst Initiative, from the Center for Performance and Civic Practice to support the new partnership. Read the published Document.