Todas las mariposas negras mueren en el mar
“Porque nosotras no escribimos, ya estamos escritas.”
Written by Heny Roig Monge
Directed by Antígona González and sarAika movement collective
Tickets
– General Admission - $35
– Seniors and Students - $30
• Fridays and Saturdays at 7pm
• Sundays at 3 pm
In Spanish with English supertitles
Ages: 16+
September 26 to October 5, 2025
IATI Theater
Mainstage Theater
64 E 4th St
NYC, NY 10003
ADA/Wheelchair Accessible
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About
Todas las mariposas negras mueren en el mar is an experimental, visceral meditation on female suicide and collective exhaustion. At its center is Ella, a thirty-year-old woman deciding to end her life, accompanied by a Coro de Mujeres, voices that witness, echo, and amplify her unraveling.
The play unfolds in fractured movements—Dream, Outside, Inside, Reality—rejecting linear narrative in favor of ritual and incantation. Ella’s body becomes a contested site: a psychiatric interview reveals her phantom pregnancy, her stomach swelling and collapsing as strangers demand to know when she will give birth. A privilege walk turns into testimony, as women step forward and back, tracing shared wounds—being called crazy, touched without consent, asked to change while men remain unexamined. A child picks petals, marking time that spirals rather than progresses.
At its core lies a haunting metaphor: black butterflies flying over the ocean until exhaustion, dying because they have nowhere to rest, washing up on beaches by the thousands. The women’s bodies follow this trajectory—suspended, fragmenting, dissolving into silence. Their voices separate and repeat, from whispers to screams to nothing.
This is theater as ritual exorcism and collective testimony. Through poetic repetition and choral embodiment, the play confronts how women are “already written” before they can write themselves. It interrogates motherhood as social weapon, memory as burden, and the female body as battleground. The question is not why the butterflies die, but why they fly into the sea at all—and whether choosing an ending might be the only way to author one’s own story.
Credits
Cast
Antígona González
Carmen Álvarez
Georgina Saldaña
Sandie Luna
Sonia Mera
Production Team
Matías Ulibarry, Technical Director
Valeria Llaneza, Stage Manager
Maria Luisa Portuondo, Scenic & Cotume Designer
Omayra Garriga Casiano, Lighting Desinger
Nicole Fernández, Media Designer
Sophie Yuqing Nie, Sound Designer
Alejandra Díaz-Pizarro, Translator
Creative Team
Antígona González Director
A seasoned Mexican performer, director, and producer. Her numerous collaborations with IATI Theater include winning "Best Director" at the 2023 Hola Awards for the critically acclaimed "Temporada de ciervos." Co-founder of "aguardiente," a community-focused art collective that utilizes field research and oral history in its projects. Co-creator of "Amarillo," "Baños Roma," and "Article 13" with Teatro Línea de Sombra. Her work includes collaborations with The Commons Choir, FABnyc, Superhero Clubhouse, Cie Carabosse (France), Downtown Art, and University Settlement.
sarAika movement collective Directors
Founded by queer immigrant women Aika Takeshima (Japan) and Sara Pizzi (Italy), sarAika movement collective is a New York City–based company dedicated to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in the dance world. Blending contemporary dance with multidisciplinary performance, their work explores urgent social issues and intimate personal narratives. Since its founding in 2021, sarAika has made a powerful impact, presenting over 50 performances in a single year. Notable milestones include their debut piece Stella, Come Home at HERE and The Brick (2022), performances at the Museum of the City of New York, a 2023 Spoke the Hub award, an international tour in Japan, and their selection as 2025 resident artists at University Settlement’s Performance Project. The collective also founded and organizes the Osaka International Contemporary Dance Festival. Looking ahead, sarAika has been commissioned by acclaimed Kyoto University professor and media artist Naoko Tosa for a performance at Japan Society in New York. They have also received invitations from IATI Theater, the International Human Rights Art Festival, and other major platforms for their 2025–2026 season.