Justin Duyao
February 22, 2023
They say that you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology said: “You are what you do.” Award-winning choreographer and performance artist Marcella Torres-Sanchez says you’re a lot more complex than that.
Athletic, ambitious, and emotionally compelling, Torres-Sanchez’s sweeping, two-hour show, “A.B.I”—or “America’s Biggest Issues”—mines the width and depth of human experience, in order to explore topics of social justice and scrutinize systems of power. The first of three back-to-back evenings of performances as part of San Diego Dance Theatre (SDDT)’s “Live Arts Fest,” Torres-Sanchez set a high bar.
Her criticism is sharp, her storytelling rich, her dancers as precise as they are passionate. But above all, Torres-Sanchez’s performance, to me, proves one powerful point: Your identity is so much bigger than just you. You are your family. You are your community. You are your cultural and ancestral heritage—tangible and intangible, neat and messy.
Thematically, each of her show’s 12 installations differ wildly, each approaching this idea from a variety of perspectives. While the first, “HAYFT?” or “How Are You Feeling Today?” is a moving depiction of yearning, loss, and strained human connections, “Hook(ed)” ushers the hypersexualization of the female body onto center stage. Some dances celebrate Torres-Sanchez’s Tijuana roots, drawing on her Mexican heritage to reinvigorate traditional folkloric images. Others tap into contemporary issues like gun violence and sociopolitical division, foregrounding the pain and anger so many minority groups in the United States experience on a daily basis. Suffice it to say Torres-Sanchez pulled no punches.
As an up-and-coming performing artist in San Diego, it’s no wonder Torres-Sanchez took home the coveted Young Choreographers Showcase and Prize in 2022. In addition to winning support by the Naval Training Center Foundation as an Emerging Dancer and Choreographer along with Trixi Anne Agiao, who performed dazzlingly alongside her, and Lavina Rich, whose show “Pages on Pages” debuted the following night—Torres-Sanchez represents some of the best that the San Diego dance community has to offer.
She isn’t alone in that, either. Jio Chavez, who has come up as a dancer in the San Diego area alongside Torres-Sanchez, moved across SDDT’s Light Box Theater stage with strength and elegance. Leo Huerta—a movement artist from Baja California—leaned on his background in acrobatics and martial arts to make several technically complex movements look effortless. Mabel Lara, Sam Muñoz, and Karla Espejo also gave standout performances, each graceful and emotionally forceful in their own right.
In all, “A.B.I.” covered a lot of ground. The music Torres-Sanchez selected, itself, skipped dizzyingly from Bad Bunny to Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, from Pink Floyd to Vivir Quintana. Instead of diving head first into a single issue, Torres-Sanchez tackled all of them. In my mind, however, today’s problem solvers are going to need to be that daring to get things done. It seems to me that’s exactly what Torres-Sanchez intends to do.
