Migrant actors: they play the heavens and hells of settling abroad

Aye Iñigo

07/29/2021 6:02 AM

• Clarín.com

• Live

Updated 7/29/2021 6:02 AM

You cannot understand Buenos Aires without talking about immigration.

From the arrival of Spaniards and Italians at the end of the 19th century, through the wave of Taiwanese in the 80s to Latin Americans in more recent years, the city was a destination chosen by those citizens of the world in search of a new home.

The reasons for these arrivals changed over time, as did the imaginaries built around an always complex and enigmatic city: its lands, the cultural scene, the different opportunities.

Today, more than ever,

migration is a phenomenon that occurs throughout the world and that generates questions and uncertainties

.

Why are we leaving?

How do they receive us?

What is gained and what is left when leaving?

Vladimir Chorny, a Mexican who came to study at the UBA and turned to the theater.

PHOTO: Constanza Niscovolos

From these questions

,

Migrantes was

born

, a play by the international company Mirando al Sur, in which

the stories of six Latino immigrants in Europe are told

.

The play –which had premiered in the city in February 2020 and had to be suspended due to the pandemic– was conceived and directed by the Franco-Argentine director Greta Risa and written by the Argentine Gabriel Fernández Chapo based on more than

one hundred interviews that the author made them to Latin Americans living in Spain

.

An Argentine, a Bolivian, an Ecuadorian, a Mexican, a Colombian and a Chilean take the stage to interpret these

six fictional stories that could well be their own, because, as in a game of mirrors,

these six actors are also immigrants living in Buenos Aires today

.

How and why did they get here?

Each one has its own story, but

all six agree that Buenos Aires was chosen for its vast cultural scene

and the enormous amount of possibilities it offers in the world of theater.

Olivia Torrez is Bolivian and knows discrimination.

He fell in love and married in Argentina.

PHOTO: Constanza Niscovolos

“The cultural offer, the possibilities and the industry that exist in the field of action is impressive.

If acting is your passion, here there are thousands of proposals and places to show your work ”, says Mariana Maciel, one of the actresses.

Although Mariana was born in Argentina, in the town of Moreno, she also perceives herself as a migrant within her own country.

At the age of 17, he left the family home and moved to Buenos Aires, where he studied psychology for a year before dedicating himself to the theater.

He was trained with different teachers, completed a diploma and a professorship in art and since 2014 he can make a living from this profession, teaching and acting.

The large number of careers, masters, courses and specializations that the city offers is also one of the main reasons why these six actors came to Buenos Aires.

César Riveros is Chilean and a fan of the San Telmo neighborhood, where he lived.

PHOTO: Constanza Niscovolos

“

Having the possibility of coming to study at a free public university is something that does not exist in our countries

or exists for certain people, with a certain income and for certain careers.

It is something that we are very grateful for and I think that staying here also has to do with giving something to the country after everything it has given us ”, explains Juan Prada.

Juan is Colombian, he is 33 years old and he has lived in the Argentine capital for 14 years, where he arrived to study a Bachelor's Degree in Acting at the National University of the Arts.

While he was studying he began to produce in the field of theater, to form casts and to teach.

In Migrants he

plays a Colombian who has just arrived in Spain who suffers the stigmatization

of his country, often colored by ignorance and by the biased clipping of the media.

The same is happening to each of the characters, who try to show that a nation cannot be defined in just two or three words.

Mariana Maciel is Argentine but she feels like an immigrant even here.

PHOTO: Constanza Niscovolos

“It happens a bit here that when you say Colombia the same jokes are made, about drug trafficking or Pablo Escobar.

Although I feel that something is beginning to happen, I don't know if it is due to technological access, but the other is beginning to be identified as someone more similar to one, not so different ”, reflects Juan.

Vladimir Chorny, Mexican and also part of the cast of

Migrantes

, believes that the play aims to think about these stereotypes: “It invites us to have a deeper and more humanized look at our countries, at the same time that it makes a criticism and a complaint.

Rejecting the idea that the stereotype defines the whole

, but recognizing that these problems exist in our countries.

The idea is to humanize to understand that there are differences, but that we are a bit the same, part of Latin America ”.

At first I saw more crudeness, like the police stopping me or shouting at me 'go back to your country' on the subway.

Olivia Torrez, Bolivian actress

During the interview, Vladimir's responses always sound a bit more "academic", probably due to influences from his training. Since he was little he did theater as a hobby, but he received a law degree from the National University of Mexico because his family opposed him studying acting. He came to Buenos Aires to do a doctorate in Political Philosophy and Human Rights at the UBA and meanwhile began taking courses and training in theater, reconnecting with his first passion.

“I have just submitted my doctoral thesis, in which I am researching from a theater perspective, because I think the two are compatible.

In the case of

Migrantes

, I think the play comes at a time when there is a lot to say on the subject.

A time in which there is migration due to desires, dreams, impulses, but also due to

violence and the inequality of economic models that discriminate

”, adds Vladimir.

Reflections and emotion

Through music, food, colors and the movement of bodies,

Migrantes

is at the same time

a work that reflects, moves and amuses

.

In one scene, the six Latin Americans line up nervously waiting for Customs staff to tell them if they are welcome in Spain.

To the cry of "You, yes!"

"You, no!", Each one of them is facing their destiny.

One of those who suffers the most is the Bolivian, who leaves for Europe in search of a better life, leaving her little daughter in Bolivia to look for her again once she gets a job.

Juan Prada is Colombian and had to endure stigmas and stereotypes.

PHOTO: Constanza Niscovolos

In real life that Bolivian woman is called Olivia Torrez, she is 42 years old and lives in Buenos Aires for love. Ten years ago she came to the city on vacation and to do a specialization in clown, but she met who would be her husband and decided to settle here. Although her story is very different from that of the Bolivian woman she plays in fiction, Olivia also experienced firsthand the reality of being an immigrant in Buenos Aires:

“

The first time I wanted to come to Argentina, they didn't let me in

.

In my early years I saw a bit more raw, like walking down Corrientes Street and the police asking me what I was doing or being yelled at me on the subway 'go back to your country'.

However, I believe that immigration has its good and bad aspects, it does not seem like something that happens only here.

The artistic spaces were always very supportive and they opened many doors for me ”.

The living history of the city with its bars of yesteryear such as Varela Varelita;

the National Museum of Fine Arts and the Cervantes Theater;

the Ecological Reserve;

artisan ice creams;

Güerrin's pizza are some of the things that these six actors love about Buenos Aires.

Paul Criollo is Ecuadorian and says he does not want to return to his country.

He trained as an actor here.

PHOTO: Constanza Niscovolos

“I like the fury that the city has, I think it is a question of the Argentine personality and of the people who come from abroad and are also here, that mixture.

It is a city that lives at night, with options for everyone –adds the Mexican Vladimir Chorny–.

You see it in art and culture.

Suddenly when I arrived a universe opened up for me

.

Also the existence and appropriation of public space here is something that very few cities in the world have.

The number of parks, squares, museums, how people appropriate them, drinking mate, sharing, running.

It is impressive and there is also the interclass question, because they are equalizing spaces. "

Another of the protagonists of

Migrantes

, the Chilean César Riveros, adds that he loves San Telmo, a neighborhood where he lived for seven years and from which he knows every corner.

“But each neighborhood has its own life.

Also among the six of us we learned to know each other culturally, to share the gastronomy of our countries, flavors, aromas ”, he says.

Before joining the cast of

Migrantes

, César became familiar with the city by working as hard as he could: as call center and travel agency personnel, in administrative areas of some companies and even as a waiter.

In Chile he had started acting and arrived in the Argentine capital 17 years ago to study at the National University of the Arts.

"It was only after two years of having arrived that I began to get into the theatrical world, to be in calls and six years ago I decided to only focus on the artistic," he says.

As a migrant, you once again have a blank page.

you put aside what you were and you become something new.

Juan Prada, Colombian actor

 When asked what he longs for Chile, César says - a bit jokingly, a bit serious - that he misses pisco and chili, and that he brings them every time he can travel.

All six have their sentimental relics, amulets reminiscent of their lands

.

Bolivian aguayo, Colombian coffee, Mexican hot sauces or Ecuadorian chocolate.

“The only thing I keep from my country is a piece of chocolate that they sent me.

I never opened it, because somehow I feel that if I do it it will end, it will be lost ”, confesses the Ecuadorian actor Paul Criollo.

"I

have lived

in Buenos Aires for 16 years,

I have never returned to Ecuador and I am not going to return," he

adds, with an astonishing assurance.

I came to study theater, something that is not very well seen in my country.

Here I was trained, I joined different casts.

I believe that the stage that I lived in Ecuador was a maturation to become the person that I am. "

None of the six denies what is missed: the daily contact with family and friends, food, identity, shared customs. However, they agree that, in reality,

nothing is lost with migration, but that everything is redefined

and takes on new dimensions.

Prada remembers one of the first theater classes he had in Buenos Aires, just arrived from Colombia: “During the first year of college, my acting teacher told us that we were at the moment when we began to understand and know who we were going to to be like people and like artists.

I believe that when one begins to be a migrant, one has a blank page again

, because what you were you put aside to be something new.

A lot of things happen to you in your first years as a migrant, over time that becomes more complex.

I have no idea who would be Juan who stayed in Colombia.

What I gained by coming to Buenos Aires is being the person I am today ”.

"Migrants" is presented on Thursdays at 8.30 pm at Espacio Callejón, Humahuaca 3759.

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