STATEMENT FROM MEXODUS DIRECTOR David Mendizábal

Nygel and Brian first met in 2020 prior to the world shutting down. These two multi-hyphenate theatre artists and musicians built their friendship and the foundation for Mexodus during a global pandemic and the long overdue racial reckoning that emerged in America. Inspired by the untold story of the Underground Railroad that went South into Mexico, a story that none of us on the team had heard of or been taught about in school, they began making music together through a technique known as looping. Remotely, they would send tracks back and forth, adding layers of beats, rhythms, and melodies, interrogating the past and making music for tomorrow. While excavating our nation’s history and wrestling with its present, they created the characters of Henry and Carlos, venturing to tell a story of solidarity and combat the erasure Black and Brown narratives from mainstream consciousness.

Drawing inspiration from a range of genres including early 90’s hip hop, R&B, Spanish rock, African American spirituals and work songs, contemporary musical theater, and Mexican boleros, the music in Mexodus and the act of performing it entirely live each night creates a connective loop bridging generations, cultures, and histories. Fusing the aesthetic vocabulary of live concerts and theatre, we leaned into the hybrid performance style of Mexodus to create a visual world for this production that evokes both the textural realities of America and Mexico in 1865 and the contemporary looping technology of 2024. As the costume designer, I looked to the past as a source of inspiration to represent the essence of both time periods, and pay tribute to the history of workwear, streetwear, and Nygel and Brian’s own personal unique style. Recognizing that cultural trends are constantly being revisited and remixed, the design highlights that there is always more than meets the eye when the perspective of truth comes into focus.  

Nygel and Brian’s artistic collaboration parallels the relationship between Henry and Carlos; two men who find each other under dire circumstances and journey together to create their own freedom. Though they are fictional characters, their story is rooted in a very real history of resistance, resilience, and solidarity. Much like a looping melody, Mexodus reminds us of America’s investment in a spiral of racial injustice, but by reaching across imaginary divides and working together Nygel and Brian reimagine a past and a future bigger than the sum of our individual parts. 

As the war on truth continues to rage on in this county, this story shows us that breaking free from the loop of history requires acknowledging and learning from the past, amplifying marginalized voices, and actively working toward dismantling the structures of oppression that perpetuate inequality. Nygel and Brian’s live looping serves as a metaphor for this process, where each layer of sound represents a step towards creating  a more just and equitable future. We invite you on their journey across imaginary borders of time, space, and land, to lean into the loop's invitation to remix history, and acknowledge the many instances of underrecognized Black and Brown solidarity that have sparked powerful movements for social change.