In 2018, the Colombian actress Juana Acosta (Cali, 1976) was promoting a triumph, the movie
Perfect strangers
, which she shot under the orders of Álex de la Iglesia.
She then offered an interview to the Colombian newspaper
El Tiempo,
in which the journalist wanted to inquire about an event from her past: the unsolved murder of her father, in the very violent city of Cali, when she was just 16 years old.
Sharply, the interpreter evaded responding that she only spoke about this matter in the private sphere.
However, tonight, on the stage of the Teatro Bellas Artes de Madrid, she will be approaching the traumatic event from the dance, well accompanied by the dancer Chevi Muraday, director of Losdedae, who agreed to choreograph this 30-year-old pain, in
The forgiveness.
"I was not prepared," he says. “Until last year, when I decided to call Chevi and the playwright Juan Carlos Rubio to tell them my story. He did not want to propose a play, or a book. I wanted to express it through dance. I danced ballet from the age of three to six, and from there until I was 16 I did contemporary dance ”. He was leaving precisely for his dance class that day when the phone rang and they gave him the tragic news. Then came pain, rage and anger, and with them the dance of his life and his body disappeared. "Fortunately, there was acting and theater, which saved me," he says.
The montage, which returns her to dance and to a tragic moment that has ruminated in her head for three decades, then has an air of exorcism, catharsis and reconciliation. Pisco-magic as he likes to say. “What we really wanted is to investigate the circle of violence, that violence that generates violence. When you are in this situation there comes a time when you have to decide whether to stay in rage and anger or if you decide to forgive and move on. I opted for the latter, and today I feel personally and professionally fulfilled. Today I can tell my story ”, he explains.
His older brother, who was left in a rage, ended up committing suicide after being kidnapped by the FARC in Colombia.
And for Juana Acosta, all these tragic events also made her hate her country, from which, today she admits, she perhaps fled.
There, very young, he had triumphed.
She starred in the soap opera
Mascarada
, was a television presenter and was very popular.
Madrid was his destination and starting from scratch again, his goal.
"Today the rage disappeared," she says, convinced.
“In 30 years I have gone through all phases of grief.
I had the killing energy, I wanted to kill and that scared me.
So the first forgiveness is myself for thinking about it. "
Go ahead
He emphasizes that
El perdón
does not want to be the tragic story of the death of his father or brother. Nor was it the intention to gloat over that pain. The title is not accidental. It is a play about the ability to forgive and move on. “It is neither sad nor pessimistic. It is a work of resilience and hope. Violence appears opposed to beauty and poetry. It is not a psycho-drama or a pamphlet ”.
It also means a return to dance, something that, physically, has not been easy. Three months, five hours a week, as if she were an elite athlete. This is how he tuned his body to match. “It is amazing to confirm that the body has memory. They spent many years working on dance, but that information was there. I thought I was unable to resume it, but I am very disciplined, and now I dance and literally fly on stage. It has been a great physical demand ”.
The cinema is still there too.
This month he premieres
Arrived at Night,
a drama by Imanol Uribe.
Pending release is
The Consequences,
by Claudia Pinto, and
Big Bad Wolf,
by Gustavo Hernández.
These are very productive times for Juana Acosta.
And although she is fascinated by these jobs and the opportunities they present, she admits that
Forgiveness
is the most daring and courageous of all the jobs in her life so far.
"It has been a tough process, emotionally complicated, in which I have been exposed, but I have been well accompanied."
Strange position
Chevi Muraday likes to take actors to dance. Marta Etura, Ernesto Alterio, who was precisely the couple of Juana Acosta, Aitana Sánchez Gijón, and much more recently the delirious
performer
Miss Beige, among them. But, although it has been their will and initiative many times, it was always their own projects. That makes the difference with
forgiveness,
which was an alien and disconcerting proposal.
“His story moved me, but above all his interest in telling it not from violence but from a beautiful and poetic place.
At first it was not exactly a conflict, but I did get to wonder what I was painting, what could I contribute, "he explains.
But they investigated, spoke with relatives, collected data on the violence in Colombia and little by little they articulated this duet that actually has a single character: Juana Acosta being herself and her circumstances.
The forgiveness.
When
: Wednesday to Friday at 8:00 p.m. or Saturday and Sunday at 7:00 p.m. until January 23.
Where
: Fine Arts Theater (Calle del Marqués de Casa Riera, 2).
Price
: from 17 euros.
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