No matter how much we want to deny it or discount it, the South Sound was built by and for the railroad that runs through it.



Tacoma was the end of the line for the transcontinental tracks a century ago, and that fact continues to shape who we are as members of the community.

A multi-staged performance piece and art show celebrates that fact as it takes a ride on the rails.



Tacoma’s Barefoot Studios is staging a dance-theater show called Train, and it has partnered to have visual artist added to the mix.



The story behind this original concept show started more than a generation ago when Barefoot co-founder Josephine Zmolek’s grandfather died while walking along the rails just a few months before Zmolek’s mother was born.



“That was a story that no one talked about,” Paul Zmolek says, noting that his wife was raised near railroad tracks and would even play “dare” by seeing who could stand on the tracks the longest before jumping out of the way of the on-coming locomotive. “She stopped a train.”



The studio’s former home along Puyallup Avenue was near track, a fact that provided for interesting performance breaks as the mile-long cargo trains rattled by.



Those early memories and the recent performance pauses got them thinking about how trains not only built this area specifically but made America. The engine of the performance piece that would become Train had left the station.



Zmolek then researched about the Depression-era train jumpers and hobos who would cross the nation on their way to finding better lives and employment in distant states. This workforce on the move got Zmolek thinking about the current flow of workers found in the illegal immigrant community and the political climate that surrounds them.



The first car in this railroad of multimedia experience is “Migrant,” a dance theater performance work, with five male dancers who tell stories of migrants. The second car is “On the Back of Our Mothers,” a seven-women show that chronicles train interactions involving strong-charactered women.



The show will run Fridays and Saturdays through May 13 at the intimate studio of 32 seats, as well as shorter versions of the show that will be performed at select train-related sites around Tacoma. Those venues run from Link stations to train depots. Performances will include dance theater as well as singing and visual artists.



[Barefoot Studios, Friday, May 2-Saturday, May 3 8 p.m., $18, 1604 Center St., Tacoma, 253.627.2273, www.barefootcallous.org]