Descolonizarte TEATRO: Building Community, Healing, and Liberating Through Art
By Descolonizarte Teatro
In Central Florida, Descolonizarte TEATRO—also known as Desco—is redefining what community-rooted art can do. A professional Latinx social-change theater organization, Desco centers Latinx, immigrant, and LGBTQ+ identities and their intersections. Through theater, arts, and educational programming, it promotes the diverse experiences, cultures, and talents of Latinx communities while prioritizing accessibility.
For Desco, theater is not a luxury—it’s a need, a right, and a tool for decolonization. Every event is designed to reach everyone, including those historically excluded from mainstream arts spaces: farmworkers, immigrants, people living with HIV, people with disabilities, and monolingual Spanish speakers from low-income backgrounds. By bringing high-quality arts programming directly into these communities, Desco ensures that art remains a tool for reflection, healing, and collective action.
Desco’s mission is deeply informed by decolonization as an ongoing practice—challenging systems of oppression while building community around healing and joy. The organization’s name reflects this process, inviting audiences to confront internalized colonization and to re-frame and re-tell the stories told about our bodies, histories, and identities.
Year-round, Desco’s programs weave together art, activism, and community care. Its theatrical productions bring to life works by acclaimed Latin American authors whose voices have been sidelined by white supremacy and Eurocentrism, while also developing original devised pieces created collectively. Each year, Desco also produces EDALX—the Encuentro de Artistas Latinomericanxs, a multidisciplinary Latinx arts Encuentro that connects international, national, and local artists while supporting immigrant youth who crossed the U.S. border unaccompanied. Beyond the stage, Desco cultivates spaces for dialogue through Community Conversations, inspired by Popular Theater and Theater of the Oppressed, which transform audiences into participants reflecting on identity, justice, and liberation.
Collaboration is central to Desco’s work. The organization regularly joins forces with partners to create cross-sector projects that bridge art, advocacy, and social change. Desco also works directly with community members through creative processes grounded in Theater of the Oppressed and socio-artistic methodologies, helping participants explore their identities, reclaim their narratives, and educate the broader public through performance. Its free bilingual workshops further open the doors of theater to all, encouraging creative exploration, connection, and self-expression.
Accessibility is at the heart of Desco’s mission. The organization actively reduces barriers that limit access to cultural experiences through language, financial, geographic, and disability accessibility. Programming is offered in Spanish, Spanglish, and English, with translation provided as needed. Financial access is ensured through free and sliding-scale admissions. Desco brings theater to rural areas, partnering with farmworker organizations to reach people who would not otherwise have access to artistic programming. Disability access is a consistent priority: most programs include sign language interpretation, all venues are fully accessible, and when possible, audio description is provided in both English and Spanish.
Descolonizarte TEATRO continues to prove that art can be both beautiful and revolutionary—a space where personal healing and collective liberation meet, and where communities most impacted by injustice reclaim their stories and shape the world anew.
Learn more at www.descoteatro.org and follow @Descolonizarte_Teatroon Instagram and Descolonizarte Teatro on Facebook.
