SoHumanity
SoHumanity is a collaborative duo between Tanya Birl-Torres and Sasha Hutchings. During their time in residence, they will continue the development of A Play in 3 Movements, an immersive and ritualized choreo-play that explores how autoimmunity is an expression of non-consent to a diseased system. Centering around themes of remembrance, the participatory work employs movement and ritual. Three acts: MEDICAL, HISTORICAL, and SPIRITUAL are witnessed through the body of a young Black girl who has chosen to fight “the system” within her own cells as she travels through time and across generations. With a strong emphasis on Afro-Hebrewism and the 12 lost tribes of Israel, this semi-autobiographical tale tracks four black women's journeys throughout history, breaking the chains of physical, mental, and systemic slavery.
Tanya Birl-Torres, Writer & Co-Creator
Sasha Hutchings, Director & Co-Creator
Sasha Hutchings (she/her) is a stage and television actress, teaching artist, director and creative producer. She recently starred as Laurey Williams on the National Tour of Oklahoma! Sasha is notably an original cast member of Hamilton and is featured in the Disney+ Hamilton Film. Additional Broadway credits include My Fair Lady, Rocky, Motown, and Memphis. Sasha appears as Hope on Run The World
(STARZ). Spring 2023 Sasha joins the premiere season on Demascus as well as Season 2 of Run The World (STARZ). Additional TV appearances include Fosse/Verdon, The Bold Type, Jessica Jones, Master of None, and Blue Bloods.
As a freelance consultant in theatre education, Sasha designs curricula on narrative building and storytelling through movement. She collaborates regularly with the New York City Department of Education Theatre programs, Epic Theatre Ensemble, and The Arthur Miller Foundation, facilitating workshops for students and educators and producing fundraising events. In 2020 Sasha created The HomeGrownArts Alliance, a program connecting professional artists with their hometown communities and providing local arts communities with exclusive resources.
Sasha is a Partnership and Culture Associate with Pink Cornrows, the social impact firm "catalyzing equity across industries to achieve one simple (yet not easy) goal: a world that works for all humans." She aids in research and facilitating workshops for clients across various sectors from tech to political advocacy that move beyond diversity and inclusion training to redesigning company culture and implementing sustainable, equitable, growth-oriented practices.
Sasha is the co-creator and co-host of THE CHAOS TWINS, a talk show on BroadwayWorld.com featuring guest interviews, discussion of current events, and non-sequiturs in an exploration of the cross-sections between arts and activism on stage, on-camera, and off-line, and off-the-cuff.
At the center of Sasha's work is a passion for equitable access to the arts, equity within the arts, and a belief that performance art inspires the radical imagination necessary to envision a better world.
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Tanya Birl-Torres (she/her) believes in telling stories that move us towards curiosity and connection. She has a passion and a vision to use her artistry to reach a diverse crowd and blur the lines between performer and audience, recognizing that we are all creative by nature of being born. Over the last five years, Tanya has shifted from her career as a sought after Broadway performer, and transitioned to Movement Direction, Choreography, and Embodied Systems Facilitator. She has served as Movement Director and Choreographer for many prestigious institutions including The Public Theater (Mobile Unit: Twelfth Night), The Guthrie Theater (As You Like It), Oregon Shakespeare Festival (Peter and the Starcatcher, How I Learned What I Learned) and The Signature Theater (The Red Letter Plays).
Tanya is a trained 500 hr RYT Yoga Teacher with Illumina Yoga and has studied at The Presencing Institute at MIT.. She is also certified in Trauma-Informed Yoga and leads workshops and retreats on Embodying Change and Reclaiming the Rights of the Body. She is focused on taking powerful ideas and visions and grounding them in the body.
Tanya is a 2023/24 Map Fund Grantee and NoMAA micro-grant recipient for her development of A Play in 3 Movements. She is the Artistic Director of the Washington Heights Womanist Arts Festival which is being featured in CitizensNYC’s NY4NY campaign being named a woman breaking glass ceilings and exercising their voice in NYC and beyond.
Tanya works at the intersection of the arts, justice, and systemic change teaching practitioners how to hold difficult conversations coming up in our homes and work and sharing how we enter into them while staying present and in the body. She believes that in itself is an act of justice. Using movement, yoga, creative/spiritual connection, and curiosity as a means to ground, source, and embody the truth of who we are.
sohumanity.com/p3m • @sohumanity
Image credit: Laura Yost Photography
