“This piece is largely about family and, specifically, my family,” he explains. “The theme is associated with immigration and people leaving their families—it is very sad. I interviewed my parents about why they left; it was a really large sacrifice to leave everybody behind. And it’s a sacrifice that many people make.”

Escalante, 31, describes Clandestino as an ode to his culture. Using film, including video footage he shot along the border fence between Tijuana and San Diego, and live music, the work juxtaposes Mexican social dance with depictions of interrogation. While there are no characters—Escalante stresses that he didn’t want to fabricate specific personae—one section features the cast (Renée Archibald, Pedro Osorio, Sandy Tillett and Escalante) interviewing audience members about their views on immigration.

“I’m not trying to shove anything down anyone’s throat,” Escalante says. “What I’m trying to do is give an association to these people—they’re not a number. It’s not 12 million immigrants: It’s human beings who are coming here for better opportunities. I want to give the immigration experience a face, to give it a culture and some kind of subtext, too.”

But Escalante realizes that, to a certain extent, he is preaching to the choir. “There aren’t going to be a lot of hard-core Republicans there,” he says, laughing. “Even though I wish there would be! And I don’t think there are going to be a lot of Mexicans coming to the show, either. But I want this work to be seen because it’s an important piece, and I think it’s an important issue.”

While immigration is at the heart of Clandestino, the work also moves beyond the trauma of closed borders and green cards to display how maintaining one’s heritage through music and dance is a way to preserve identity. The score, which includes recorded songs and live music by Los Inmigrantes del Sur, a three-piece band Escalante discovered performing on the subway, also drives the work. Escalante includes the energetic quebradita, a dance usually performed to banda music, as well as the pasito duranguense, which the choreographer describes as a mixture of quebradita and merengue. As a young dancer growing up in Los Angeles, where he attended a performing-arts high school, Escalante was also a member of a folk troupe, Ballet Folklorico del Pacifico. The experience marked him.

“I think that’s where I started my long association and love for Mexican dancing,” he says. “I did this deer dance—it’s an incredible piece, because it’s so different from all the traditional Mexican dances you see at a folklorico concert. You do this dance as a celebration before you go hunting, and I used to wear a little loincloth and a crazy, real deer head that was maybe 30 pounds. There will be some pictures of it in the piece.”

Another goal is simple: to demonstrate the joy of social dance. At the end of the piece, Escalante hopes to re-create a Mexican dance party for both his performers and the audience. His set closes off the entire space, using eight-foot-high pipes and bleached white muslin to hide the normal seating; audience members will watch along the perimeter of the stage, and video footage will be screened on each side. “These images will feel like an enclosure as well—when the border-fence images are being shown, it might feel like you’re there on the border,” Escalante says. “I didn’t want the audience to feel like a distant spectator, but like it’s involved in the piece. It will also feel like a club in a sense, too, with a dance floor in the middle. And I’m telling you—the music is so infectious, it makes you want to move, it makes you want to dance.”

Alex Escalante presents Clandestino at Danspace Project Apr 10–12, 2008.