In his NEA award-winning performance piece $CASINOAMERICA$, Jose Torres Tama examines gambling as a metaphor for life in contemporary America. While commenting on a culture that glorifies greed, he declares that we are all gamblers in one way or another that “taking chances” is an intrinsic aspect of modern existence.

Some people take chances with their lives through sexual gambles in an age plagued by the AIDS virus. Others, such as the millions of immigrants who have descended upon this land for a chance at the “American dream,” risk their cultural heritage and identity. The working class gamble their meager earings on lottery tickets and slot machines to achieve instant wealth and prosperity at the expense of their soul and humanity.

Torres Tama weaves these concepts into a multi-layered performance collage, combining metaphoric prose, rituals of fire, and movement and incantations. At channel-surfing speed, he moves with physical and verbal dexterity from poetic drama to the hilariously absurd and delivers the hour-long piece with various personae, sculpting a visceral tableau of haunting images that leave an indelible impression.