A few years ago, Brazilian-born writer, actor and dancer Andrea Dantas heard back about her audition to dance flamenco on Madonnas world tour. She didnt get the job.

I thought, OK, youre allowed to feel sorry for yourself for 10 minutes, Dantas told The Huffington Post. After, I thought, What do you want to do now? What do you want to do with your life? And I swear, I heard a voice that said Frida, and I just knew.

The fruits of Dantas labor are currently on view at Brooklyns BAM Fisher, in a one-woman show called Fragmented Frida . Dantas plays the role of the iconic painter Frida Kahlo, starting as a young, awkward yet precocious child complete with a bowl cut and a limp and ending up as the most renowned woman artist of all time: braided hair, unibrow and all.

Far more than Dantas focuses on the specifics of Kahlos artistic craft, she zooms in on her life story, an extraordinary journey riddled with hardship. At the age of 6, Kahlo was stricken with polio, leaving her right leg incapacitated and in tremendous pain. At 18 she was involved in a near-fatal bus crash, which left her pelvis crushed. While recovering, and spending most of her time in a wheelchair, Kahlo began to paint, famously declaring: I dont paint dreams or nightmares, I paint my own reality.