What’s your immigrant heritage story?

People move. Across borders, across time, across generations, across the country. Whether your family journeyed here recently or long ago, we all carry stories of movement, resilience, and change.

In honor of Immigrant Heritage Month, Motus Playback Theater invites you to an evening of improvisational theater where your story—or your grandparent’s, or great-great-great-uncle’s—takes center stage. Share a short reflection or memory, and watch as a diverse cast of professional improv actors brings it to life through music, movement, and powerful storytelling.

No pressure to speak—your presence builds community. Whether you share or simply listen, join us in a joyful, moving celebration of the immigrant heritage that shapes us all.

Let’s laugh, reflect, and connect—one story at a time.

Motus Theater’sTRANSformative Stories features transgender and non-binary leaders performing artfully crafted personal stories about their hopes, dreams, and experiences of negotiating oppression and liberation with live musical accompaniment.

Performances From: Motus Theater TRANSformative Stories monologists Rev. Nicole Garcia (she/her), AlisonReba (they/them), & DavidBreña (he/him). Featuring live musical underscoring by Colorado violinist Anthony Salvo.

This performance will take place in the town of Erie, CO. Please register for full location information.

Motus Theater’s Youth Behind & Beyond Bars: Stories from the Frontlines of the Juvenile Legal System brings powerful, artistically-crafted personal stories from adults who survived incarceration as youth. These moving autobiographical monologues lift the curtain on the realities of the juvenile legal system while inspiring action toward true justice. Featuring musical responses from the nationally acclaimed and regionally loved duo The ReMINDers.

Motus Theater, with Congregation Har HaShem and Congregation Bonai Shalom, present a performance of Motus UndocuAmerica monologue “The Meaning of Courage” by Cristian Solano-Córdova and co-read by Rabbis Fred Greene and Marc Soloway with musical responses from Cantor Devorah Avery.

Motus Theater and Being Better Neighbors present a performance of civic love stories from Motus Theater’s UndocuAmerica project, with musical responses from the Boulder Philharmonic’s String Quartet. In this special collaboration, Motus monologists who are   immigrants with DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) perform artfully crafted personal stories about their lives underscored by violinist Anthony Salvo. The Boulder Philharmonic String Quartet performs musical responses to each story curated by Fernanda Nieto. Featuring music of Dvorak, Heins, Ponce and more; with stories of Motus monologists Laura Peniche, Alejandro Fuentes Mena and Cristian Solano-Córdova. 

Motus Theater’s TRANSformative Stories features transgender and non-binary leaders sharing powerful, autobiographical monologues about their hopes, dreams, and experiences navigating oppression and liberation. Featuring personal stories by Rev. Nicole Garcia (she/her), Jahmil Roberts (he/they), and David Breña (he/him), accompanied by live musical underscoring from acclaimed Colorado violinist Anthony Salvo

Please register for exact location on the UCCS campus.

Motus Theater’s TRANSformative Stories features transgender and non-binary leaders sharing powerful, autobiographical monologues about their hopes, dreams, and experiences navigating oppression and liberation. Featuring personal stories by Ruby Lopez (she/her), Raye Watson (they/them), and David Breña (he/him), accompanied by live musical underscoring from beloved Colorado violinist Anthony Salvo.

Motus Theater invites you to a special adventure of improvisational theater where you share a short reflection or a story, and then watch a diverse group of professional improv actors enact YOUR story on the spot using movement, music, and dramatic spoken word. The stories may be funny or sad; memories from long ago or yesterday. The audience and performers co-create a theater event whose subject is the life experiences of the people attending the show. Join us for an abundant exchange interconnecting our shared humanity through music, story, poetry, and improv theater.

our story matters. Your voice deserves to be heard.

Join Motus Playback Theater for a powerful afternoon where immigrant stories take center stage. Share a personal experience—whether joyful, challenging, or deeply meaningful—and see it brought to life through improv, movement, music, and spoken word.

Motus Theater invites you to a special adventure of improvisational theater where you share a short reflection or a story, and then watch a diverse group of professional improv actors enact YOUR story on the spot using movement, music, and dramatic spoken word. The stories may be funny or sad; memories from long ago or yesterday. The audience and performers co-create a theater event whose subject is the life experiences of the people attending the show. Join us for an abundant exchange interconnecting our shared humanity through music, story, poetry, and improv theater.

What is your vision for Boulder over the next 20 years? What community issues are most important to you? What community assets are unseen or underutilized in the Boulder Valley that could support our shared future? Do you want to feel seen and heard by policy writers for the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan?

Motus Theater invites you to a special adventure in improvisational theater where you share a short reflection or a story about your vision for Boulder, and then watch professional improv actors enact YOUR story on the spot using movement, music, and dramatic spoken word. 

The city of Boulder is developing the next Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan (BVCP) to set priorities and goals for the future and the BVCP writers want to hear from YOU! Motus Playback Theater is here to help you express what you feel will build “A Boulder Future.” By sharing our stories we can influence the direction of Boulder for the next 20 years!

What is your vision for Boulder over the next 20 years? What community issues are most important to you? What community assets are unseen or underutilized in the Boulder Valley that could support our shared future? Do you want to feel seen and heard by policy writers for the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan?

Motus Theater invites you to a special adventure in improvisational theater where you share a short reflection or a story about your vision for Boulder, and then watch professional improv actors enact YOUR story on the spot using movement, music, and dramatic spoken word. 

The city of Boulder is developing the next Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan (BVCP) to set priorities and goals for the future and the BVCP writers want to hear from YOU! Motus Playback Theater is here to help you express what you feel will build “A Boulder Future.” By sharing our stories we can influence the direction of Boulder for the next 20 years!

Motus presents our 3rd annual arts-based event inspiring action in alignment with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., with the musical medicine of The ReMINDers. After the Dr. King morning marches (and Inauguration Day), join Motus and the ReMINDers at 3pm for the antidote to ‘divide and conquer’ politics - an inspiring intersectional array of Motus monologues from Black transgender, immigrant, and leaders who were formerly incarcerated. Together we will leave encouraged and committed to building ‘the beloved community.’ Featuring performances from Motus monologists Cynthia Randall, Alison Reba, with Alexis Miles and MORE!

At this special launch event, you will have an opportunity to share a short reflection or a story about your vision for the Boulder Valley, and then watch professional improv actors enact YOUR story on the spot using movement, music, and dramatic spoken word. 

The first story sharing on January 11th is designed specifically for community organizations and leaders whose voices and visions are most strategic to developing a stronger and more equitable future and yet have been too often marginalized. By sharing our stories we can influence the direction of Boulder for the next 20 years!

Join violinist Anthony Salvo and Motus Theater’s founding executive artistic director Kirsten Wilson for an opportunity to rest deeply in ourselves in a field of shared blessing. Entering into the holidays and a month after a tumultuous election, we are each holding diverse experiences of personal and political vulnerability, and negotiating what it is to be a human being at this time. Motus offers our community a candlelight event to help us rest in our hearts within a tranquil experience of melodious beauty. It is a sweet and tender holiday concert. Perfect for relaxation, reflection, and aligning your spirit with your truest intentions. 

We are each holding diverse experiences of personal and political vulnerability, and negotiating what it is to be a human being at this time. Over a month after the election and entering into the holidays, we have an opportunity to come together as neighbors and share stories from our lives. Then, Colorado’s most diverse Playback improv theater troupe, Motus Playback Theater, will reenact our stories on the spot. Join us and share your biggest questions, quirky reflections or stories. Whether your reflection is joyful, fearful or fantastic Motus Playback will play your experience back to you with a musical underscore from Adolfo Romero.  The performance will be followed by community tea and cookies. 

Rocks Karma Arrows is a film of Motus Theater’s multimedia contemporary theater piece of the same name that explores Boulder history through the lens of race and class. Historical figures, like the great Chief Niwot (Nowoo3, pronounced “Na-waath”), come alive to tell the story of the early founding of Boulder and the massacre at Sand Creek. Interviews with local historians and Buddhist monks are woven with historical photographs and film into the drama. At times the photographic images completely take over 180° of the theatrical space so that actors are literally immersed in the history – interacting with the photos, struggling with the voices of the past, and trying to understand how those voices echo in the present. 

Doors open for tea and cookies reception at 6:30p.m. followed by a 7p.m. performance of Motus Theater's TRANSformative Stories monologues for the Boulder Library’s Civic Dialogue series. In this special performance, transgender and nonbinary leaders perform artfully crafted personal stories about their hopes, dreams, and experiences of negotiating oppression and liberation, with live musical underscore. Colorado’s most diverse improv troupe, Motus Playback Theater, will then support the audience to reflect together on gender and reenact reflections on the spot. Regardless of your ideas about legislation focused on transgender & nonbinary people, come together for tea, cookies, and community to hear stories from your transgender & nonbinary neighbors so we all know more about the people impacted by anti-transgender legislation.

Doors open for tea and cookies reception at 6:30p.m. followed by a 7p.m. performance of Motus Theater's UndocuAmerica monologues for the Boulder Library’s Civic Dialogue series. In this special performance, immigrants with DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) perform artfully crafted personal stories about their lives, with a musical underscore. Colorado’s most diverse improv troupe, Motus Playback Theater, will then support the audience to reflect together on the experience of listening to the stories, and reenact reflections on the spot. Regardless of your ideas about immigration policy, come together for tea, cookies and community to hear stories from your undocumented neighbors so we all know more about the people impacted by these policies.

Featuring Motus Theater UndocuAmerica monologists Laura Peniche, Alejandro Fuentes Mena and Cristian Solano-Córdova. Featuring music from acclaimed violinist Anthony Salvo (he/him). 

Doors open for reception with tea and cookies at 6:30 pm. Performance starts at 7 pm.

Registration is recommended for email reminders and to hold a seat until 6:50 pm. Walk-ins are welcome, but seating is limited. After 6:45 pm,. entry only through the Canyon entrance (north side).

Who knew a discussion about the future of Boulder could be so fun? Bring your vision of Boulder’s future and watch it unfold on stage through improvisational theater. Your reflections will be brought to life by a diverse group of performers, creating a dynamic, interactive theater experience.

Motus Theater invites you to a special adventure of improvisational theater where you share a short reflection or a story, and then watch professional improv actors enact YOUR story on the spot using movement, music, and dramatic spoken word. 

There is power within our stories and our truths. Join us for an abundant exchange interconnecting our shared humanity through music, story, poetry, and improv theater — all whole helping make Boulder County an even better place to live!

Motus Theater & the Parent Engagement Network (PEN) present TRANSformative Stories, featuring transgender and non-binary leaders performing artfully crafted personal stories about their hopes, dreams, and experiences of negotiating oppression and liberation with live musical accompaniment. Join us to celebrate the humanity, joy, and gifts of gender-diverse leaders who are on the frontlines of dehumanizing rhetoric and policies. Monologists include Rev. Nicole García (she/her), Raye Watson (they/them) and Jahmil Roberts (no pronouns, name only). Featuring music from acclaimed violinist Anthony Salvo (he/him). This performance is sponsored by the Louisville Cultural Council.

Motus Theater presents TRANSformative Stories, featuring transgender and non-binary leaders performing artfully crafted personal stories about their hopes, dreams, and experiences of negotiating oppression and liberation with live musical accompaniment. Join us to celebrate the humanity, joy, and gifts of gender-diverse leaders who are on the frontlines of dehumanizing rhetoric and policies. Monologists include Jahmil Roberts (no pronouns, name only), Ruby Lopez (she/her), and Raye Watson (they/them). Featuring music from acclaimed violinist Anthony Salvo (he/him). This performance is sponsored by the Lafayette Cultural Arts Commission.

Motus Theater invites you to a special adventure of improvisational theater where you share a short reflection or a story, and then watch a diverse group of professional improv actors enact YOUR story on the spot using movement, music, and dramatic spoken word. The stories may be funny or sad; memories from long ago or yesterday. The audience and performers co-create a theater event whose subject is the life experiences of the people attending the show. Join us for an abundant exchange interconnecting our shared humanity through music, story, poetry, and improv theater.

This Motus Music session offers a tranquil experience of melodious beauty within a field of blessing. It is perfect for relaxation, reflection, and aligning your spirit with your truest intentions. There is room for 30 people to lie down and listen and another 90 to sit on a first come first serve basis. So come early if you want to lie down - and don’t forget to bring your yoga mat and blankets! Proceeds go to pay for the violinist, the space, and Motus social justice programs.

In this Motus Theater’s TRANSformative Stories performance, Shauna Brooks (she/her) presents her artfully crafted autobiographical monologue “The HRT with HRT.” Shauna tells her story of how as a Black transgender teenage girl without access to gender-affirming care she had to go to the streets to get the hormones and silicone shots that eased her dysphoria and helped her pass as female to survive transphobic violence. Sixteen years later, she is sharing her experience to call for gender-affirming care for all, because the street treatments that protected her from being killed are now poisoning her body. The performance features music from acclaimed violinist Anthony Salvo (he/him). 

Motus Theater and Redline Contemporary Art Center present a special empowering Motus Queer Immigrant Pride performance with monologues from Motus’ TRANSformative Stories and UndocuAmerica projects by LGBTQIA+ immigrant monologists. This performance features monologues by David Breña (he/him), Cristian Solano-Cordova (he/they) and Ruby Lopez (she/her). This special performance is part of a Motus three part series in June, “There is No Them in U.S.” and is presented at Redlines satellite location at the Evan’s school as part of its 2024 annual exhibition Stories_UnderScored.

Women of Resolution weaves the stories of four Colorado women — Ingrid Encalada Latorre, Sandra Lopez, Rosa Sabido, and Araceli Velasquez —  who took sanctuary to prevent the separation of their families through deportation. Guest readers include: Boulder County Sheriff Curtis Johnson and District Attorney Michael Dougherty. Featuring award-winning photos of Joel Dyer and musician Teresita Lozano. 

Motus Theater and Redline Contemporary Art Center present a special Motus performance with UndocuAmerica monologist Victor Galvan and Motus JustUs monologist, Candice Bailey. They share personal monologues about their experiences of multinational private prison corporations & immigrant detention centers, with music from Colorado’s acclaimed acapella group, Spirit of Grace. The performances featuring guest co-readers: Hassan Latif, Founder and Executive Director of Second Chance Center and Mekela Goehring, Executive Director of the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network (RMIAN). This special performance is part of a Motus three part series in June, “There is No Them in U.S.” and is presented at Redlines satellite location at the Evan’s school as part of its 2024 annual exhibition Stories_UnderScored

Join Motus Theater and Redline Contemporary Arts Center for a special performance of powerful personal stories of undocumented leaders from Motus Theater’s award-winning UndocuAmerica project. Featuring UndocuAmerica monologists Laura Peniche, Tania Chairez, and Alejandro Fuentes-Mena uplifting the assets immigrants bring to our communities and challenging inhumane immigration policies. With special guests from Motus Playback Improv Theater.