Taxi Ride Lottery and Free Gallery Announced for TAXILANDIA

Oye Group, New York Theatre Workshop and The Bushwick Starr in association with The Tank announced today additional details for Taxilandia by NYTW Artistic Instigator & Bushwick Starr Season Artist Modesto Flako Jimenez, including the Taxilandia Gallery & a ticket lottery for the Taxilandia taxi rides.

Taxilandia, created and written by Oye Group's Modesto Flako Jimenez, is a site-specific play-within-a-ride of a city. The piece immerses its audience in the flavors, sounds, sights and dynamic history of a neighborhood confronting social stigmas and the realities of gentrification. Weaving a dramatic, performative 'tapestry' that interconnects generations, social classes, races and cultures, Taxilandia complicates our notion of what it means to be a local, an immigrant or a resident of a place, challenging us to answer: "What is my personal roadmap of home?"

Originally developed in Jimenez's own neighborhood of Bushwick, Brooklyn, the piece was inspired and drawn from his nine years driving a taxicab and his documentation of conversations with passengers, residents, locals, and immigrants to the neighborhood. The Oye Group now works with companies all over the country to develop local versions of the piece specific to each city.

Taxilandia offers four experiences for the New York City run:

• VIRTUAL SALONS: From March 8-20, 2021, Flako hosted four salons with local artists from each borough whose work intersects with gentrification.

• TAXILANDIA GALLERY: An opportunity to experience the past and present of Bushwick. While walking the neighborhood, guests will take in the sights, sounds and history of the barrio-the part Vogue wasn't talking about. Each installation features original poetry, video and sound design work, and is based at a local business that is an important patch in the fabric of an ever-changing neighborhood. The Taxilandia Gallery is free to visit from April 5-May 3, 2021. For more information, visit www.taxilandia.com/gallery.

• TEXTILANDIA: Come walk the streets of Bushwick with Flako! Co-created by Modesto Flako Jimenez and Andrew Kircher, Textilandia is a new text message experience that invites you to traverse these blocks haunted with a deep history of conflict, perseverance and joy. And to recognize how you inscribe yourself wherever you go. All you need is your phone, your body and a comfortable pair of shoes. Flako will be your guide, teaching you to peep the traces of gentrification. Textilandia will be available from April 5-May 3, 2021. Tickets to Textilandia are $3 and are available now at www.taxilandia.com/textilandia.

• TAXI RIDES WITH FLAKO: Become passengers in Flako's cab for a personal experience of Bushwick, Brooklyn! Taxilandia taxi rides will be available to the general public via a ticket lottery; winners may purchase up to three $25 tickets. Taxilandia taxi rides run from April 9-May 2, 2021. The schedule for the taxi rides is as follows: Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday-12pm, 2pm & 4pm; Thursday-4pm, 6pm & 8pm; Saturday & Sunday-12pm, 2pm, 4pm & 6pm. To enter the lottery, visit www.taxilandia.com/taxi-lottery.

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