Latin American theater has had irregular visibility in Spain.
Proximity to Europe has often outweighed the fact that they share a language and only a few renowned figures make regular debuts: Daniel Veronese, Rafael Spregelburd, Claudio Tolcachir, Lautaro Perotti, Rafael Spregelburg, Christiane Jatahy or Sergio Blanco, among others.
But in recent years not only are more and more names being added to that list, but a more fluid bridge between the two shores of the pond seems to have been built.
The main port of entry has traditionally been Cádiz through the Ibero-American Theater Festival (FIT), which celebrates its 37th edition until next Sunday, but other events such as the Temporada Alta de Girona (until December 12),
the Madrid Autumn Festival (from November 10 to 26) or the Almagro Classical Theater (every July) are opening new windows, as well as large production centers such as the National Dramatic Center, the National Theater of Catalonia or the Lliure from Barcelona.
Which in turn has led to a greater presence in the regular programming of theaters.
Wherever you look, this fall it is easy to find a show from Latin America on the billboard.
What follows is just a selection for the next few weeks.
Wherever you look, this fall it is easy to find a show from Latin America on the billboard.
What follows is just a selection for the next few weeks.
Wherever you look, this fall it is easy to find a show from Latin America on the billboard.
What follows is just a selection for the next few weeks.
Marco Layera and his company La Re_sentida
The Chilean Marco Layera (Santiago de Chile, 45 years old) is one of the essential directors among those who have been added in recent years to the list of creators from the other side of the pond who regularly premiere not only in Spain, but in the big European scenes.
They call him the
enfant terrible
of Latin American theater.
He has been several times with his company La Re_sentida at the Avignon festival and his last show,
Oasis de la impunidad,
It has been co-produced by the Berlin Schäubuhne.
It premiered there last spring and this weekend it is performed in Spain: yesterday and today at the Central Theater in Seville and on Sunday it will close the FIT in Cádiz.
The work was born from the social revolt that broke out in Chile in October 2019. Or rather, from the violence exercised by the security forces against the protesters.
“What happened led us to reflect on violence as something systemic even in democratic societies.
In Chile there is no longer a dictatorship, but the violence of the State against the citizens persists”, explains Layera in a telephone conversation.
“But we have not tried to bring to the stage what happened on the street.
We do not want to give speeches from the tables.
What we do is an artistic abstraction starting from the question:
This has been poured onto the stage in an avant-garde show in which Layera dispenses with words for the first time to focus solely on the bodies of the performers with an impressive choreography of tense gestures, convulsive movements, the terror reflected in the body.
“In Chile everything has already been said.
What remains now is to reflect on why the brutality remains.
Why do we accept it?
Perhaps because we have it embedded in the body.
Because it is not only exercised by the States, violence crosses all areas of life: the family, the school, friendships.
After passing through the Central de Sevilla and the FIT this weekend,
Oasis de la impunidad
will be seen in March at the Lliure in Barcelona and in April at the María Guerrero in Madrid.
Christiane Jatahy
The Brazilian Christiane Jatahy (Rio de Janeiro, 54 years old) now needs little presentation on the avant-garde European stages: last June she was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Theater Biennale.
Her personal way of mixing cinema and theater has resulted in amazing shows such as the version of Chekhov's
The Three Sisters
that she premiered in 2014 and that could be seen in Madrid and at the Temporada Alta festival.
In this last contest, in which she has scheduled almost all of her latest shows, this weekend she presents her new creation,
Depois do silêncio
,
in which she addresses the rise of populism and the extreme right in the country of she.
In addition, from November 25 to 27, she will be seen at the Madrid Autumn Festival, her version of the film
Dogville
by Lars Von Trier,
Entre chien et loup
, which was already scheduled for Temporada Alta last year.
Gabriel Calderon
The career of Uruguayan director and playwright Gabriel Calderón (Montevideo, 40 years old) in Spain is unstoppable.
His show
From him Story of a wild boar or something by Ricardo,
co-produced by the Grec festival in Barcelona and the Temporada Alta in 2020, has been one of the most awarded in recent seasons in Spain and his tour is still open.
Starring the Catalan Joan Carreras, it is the monologue of an actor who takes on the role of the evil Richard III, with whom he ends up mimicking himself.
Also on tour is her exciting play
Ana contra la muerte,
the story of a mother who wonders what she is willing to do to save her son suffering from cancer, which became a phenomenon in Uruguay after its premiere in 2019. It will be seen at the Lope de Vega Theater in Seville from 19 to 20 November, at the Abadía de Madrid on November 25 at the Teatro de la Abadía in Madrid and on December 12 at the Principal de Palma.
lava skin
The company Piel de Lava was born in 2003 in Buenos Aires and finally arrives in Spain this fall as a revelation with its work
Petróleo
,
that sweeps Argentina since its premiere in 2018. It is a comedy starring four workers from an oil field in Patagonia, with the particularity that they are played by four actresses, who are also co-authors of the montage.
It is a comedy with which the public laughs out loud because the interpreters, by adopting the role of men, highlight the contradictions and the efforts of the protagonists to sustain their masculinity in an environment in which any sign of vulnerability can be object derision, as the actresses explained in an interview with this newspaper two weeks ago.
They debuted at FIT on October 22, then performed in Badajoz and Seville and are also scheduled for Temporada Alta (November 4) and Madrid's Autumn Festival (November 11 and 12).
Manuela Infante
Another name that is sounding a lot is that of Manuela Infante (Santiago de Chile, 42 years old).
After already presenting several works in recent seasons in Spain, the Chilean presented last Thursday at the FIT her new creation,
How to turn into stone,
a beautiful show with which the artist continues to explore the relationship between human beings and nature and the planet.
It will be seen on November 11 and 12 at the Teatro de la Abadía in Madrid, scheduled for the Autumn Festival.
The Durruti Column
A scene from the theatrical show 'Ulrike's Night or the Historical Subject', by the Argentine company La Columna Durruti.Lourdes de Vicente (FIT)
Argentines Maricel Alvarez and Emilio García Wehbi form La Columna Durruti, a company whose works usually have a strong political charge.
The last one premiered at the FIT last week:
Ulrike's Nocturne or the Historical Subject,
focused on the controversial figure of Ulrike Marie Meinhof, one of the founders of the German terrorist group Baader-Meinhof, who hanged herself in her cell in 1976 The montage brings her back to life as a ghost to contrast the activism of the 1960s with the present.
It will be seen next Sunday at the TNT room in Seville and on November 12 and 13 at the Pradillo theater in Madrid, programmed by the Autumn Festival.
Mariano Pensotti
The Temporada Alta festival will host the premiere in Spain of the new work by the Argentinean Mariano Pensotti (Buenos Aires, 49 years old), another Latin American creator highly appreciated on the European elite stages.
On the 26th and 27th, in Temporada Alta, he will present his new work,
Los años,
a piece that proposes a suggestive theatrical game where the life of a person today and twenty years from now is simultaneously seen.
It is the story of Manuel at two very different moments in his life, when he is 30 and 60 years old, which the viewer sees in parallel to a documentary filmed by the protagonist in his youth.
There is one actor for the Manuel of 2020 and another for the one of 2050.
Oligor and Microscopy
The company Oligor y Microscopía is an international benchmark in the so-called “theater of objects”.
Emerging from the union of Jomi Oligor from Navarre and Shaday Larios from Mexico in 2013, she develops a beautiful poetics in all her shows, searching the memory of the objects they bring to the stage.
A good example of this can be seen this weekend, The Tourist's Melancholy: a journey for a small group of spectators through the secret life of things.
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