Dreams Have No Borders

Los sueños no tienen fronteras

A new operatic film and community-building project

Dreams Have No Borders is a new chamber opera by resident composer Ethan Gans-Morse and resident librettist Tiziana DellaRovere. A collaboration with members of the Oregon Latino community, it centers on the love between Marisol and Rosario, two sisters divided by the border, highlighting the courage and humility of asylum seekers. Scored for three singers and string quartet and recorded during the pandemic, it is now a film by Emmy-winning director Jan Thompson starring Grammy winners Estelí Gomez, Cecilia Duarte, and David Morgans Sanchez.

Dreams Have No Borders is also a multi-phase community-building project: it started as a collaboration with the Rogue Valley chapter of Unite Oregon to collect stories from Latino immigrants in Southern Oregon. Over the course of the Pandemic, it evolved into a film, youth mentorship program, and community gathering event. When we premiered the opera in 2024, we also offered a festival of free events, including:

A free community dinner and panel discussion, comprising an immigration attorney, a university professor, an Aztec culture keeper, and the regional director of Unite Oregon.
An exhibition of artwork created by Latino teenagers in the Forward Youth Program whom we commissioned and mentored under the guidance of professional artist Adrian Chavez.
The commissioning of a new work called Continuar by Adrian Chavez.
Tickets screenings of the film for the general public and private screenings for the immigrant community, including a network of service and mental health providers.

Watch: Film Trailer for Dreams Have No Borders

Press

"The opera is a masterwork. It is a bright mosaic of ancestral Aztec and the Virgin of Guadalupe imagery, soul-stirring string and chamber music that vibrates with sad, but harmonic vocal sincerity and poetry brimming with pleas, endearment and hope. It reaches into your solar plexus and doesn’t let go.

It is a work that should be shown in schools, at festivals celebrating Hispanic and Latino heritages, in cinemas across the country, and especially to those who work in government and immigration. It isn’t just art; it teaches us about the resiliency of the human spirit. We need that now.”

~Lucie Scheuer, formerly of the LA Times, writing for Ashland.News

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Forward Youth Art Exhibit

Artist Adrian Chavez with the painting we commissioned from him, "Continuar," with several of the teen artists he mentored through our "Dreams Have No Borders" Forward Youth art program as they celebrate the unveiling of their artwork at Art & Soul Ashland Gallery

Film Production Photos

Back row (L to R): Jannie Wei, Wyatt True, Seth Biagini, Ethan Gans-Morse, Estelí Gomez, David M. Sanchez, Cecilia Duarte, Sean McCoy, Shawn Ramagos, Nick Alexander
Front row (kneeling): Kimberlee Uwate, Tiziana DellaRovere, Valerie Rachelle, Isabella Cervantes, Eveling Alexander