BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA – Drumbeats from a musical theater group echo in the streets of Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. Women and men wearing bright costumes and expressive makeup sing and jump, forming a circle.
In the center of the ring, actors and actresses of various ages and nationalities dance together, holding one another’s shoulders. They form a human chain of artists, connected by their embraces as well as a commitment to pursue theater in an independent form.
One link in the chain is Argentine actress and theater instructor Gabriela Julis, an organizer and founder of this gathering, the Latin American Independent Theater Encounter. The event convenes artists from across Latin America to explore the opportunities and challenges of independent theater – a genre in which troupes accept funding only from sources that respect their liberty to choose the subject matter for their plays and other modes of interpretation.
“The encounter is at the human level,” Julis says. “That is why it is an encounter and not a festival. It is a real coexistence. We share the hotel, the meals. It is not an exhibition of individual work. We share our works and experiences with the other groups, and we are enriched by the different experiences. It is inspiring to see how others resolve the same problems you face.”
The second annual Latin American Independent Theater Encounter took place Sept. 3 to Sept. 7 in Buenos Aires, with groups from Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Argentina. They aimed to share experiences and to reflect on the social significance of independent theater and its relationship to the search for Latin American identity. It was also an opportunity to discuss the challenges of pursuing independent theater.
The encounter took place in three theaters on the independent circuit and in the city streets. Six theater troupes – three Argentine and three from other countries – took part, along with two Argentine musical groups.
The encounter’s offerings – some of which were free to the public – included two workshops, one on acting and the other on writing theatrical works. There were also talks on a variety of themes and performances followed by discussions between the audience and actors.
Argentina’s Secretariat of Culture officially designated the gathering “of cultural interest.” About 1,800 people attended.
Grupo UmaMinga, an independent group of five Argentine artists that focuses on collective work for the common good, organized the event.
The idea for the encounter arose while Grupo UmaMinga was traveling around Latin America, Julis says. During the trip, the group’s members met theater troupes similar to theirs and were surprised to discover they shared ideals, interests and challenges.
This year’s encounter reaffirmed the idea that the continent’s independent theater groups share common ground, Julis says. This includes the search for Latin American identity and the desire to memorialize the histories of the region’s countries.
One play that a Peruvian troupe performed at the encounter, “Goodbye Ayacucho,” tells the story of the spirit of a “desaparecido” – a person whom the state or a state affiliate secretly abducts, detains and often murders. The play takes place during the 1980s during a period of violence in Peru and follows the spirit of a murdered, mutilated person as it searches for its bones in order to reunite them and rest in peace.
“Seeing the play ‘Goodbye Ayacucho,’” says Marcela Pérez, an audience member and theater aficionado, “and afterward having the opportunity to talk with its authors, I was able to learn about a terrible massacre that happened in Peru and to feel in my skin the pain of those people.”
The story was powerful without elaborate adornments, she says.
“There is no costume, makeup or lights that could surpass that,” Pérez says.
Although Pérez sees this simplicity as a virtue, it is also the result of a common challenge independent theater groups face. Finding funding while maintaining their independence, dedication to social critique and inclusivity is difficult, Julis says.
Independent theater’s main virtue – and chief difficulty – is that it does not have producers or financial backers, Julis says. Artists are free to choose the subject matter and theatrical works that interest them. But this privilege comes with the responsibility of finding funding themselves that will not interfere with their artistic processes.
“You are independent, so you can decide what it is that you want to do,” she says. “But you also need to take on the work of going to look for funds. And you have to be very careful when you get that support so that it does not come accompanied by any limitation.”
Public and private donations, including from Argentina’s Secretariat of Culture, financed the cultural encounter.
Santiago Roldós, an Ecuadorean theater director whose troupe performed at the encounter, says that the struggles of independent theater groups to attract patrons come from their politicized spirit, dedication to social critique and noncommercial nature.
“We consider the theater to be a dissident space,” he says, “one of confrontation, of critique and also of experimentation. We do not look to entertain but to draw attention to certain aspects of our society and, from there, to provoke reflection.”
Francisco Ramírez, an Argentine director and actor whose theater company performed at the gathering, agrees.
“We like that our works are not merely entertainment but also leave some message or invite reflection,” he says. “We try to move the spectator and, from this feeling, leave them with a message.”
The groups make up for a lack of funds with a lot of work and creativity.
Each of the actors must help with costumes, sets and music and think of ways to invite the public to the performance, Ramírez says. Teamwork is key.
“We find a way to make things ourselves,” he says, “because if we had to have them made, it would end up very expensive, and it would be impossible to carry it out.”
To keep costs low, the groups look in the garbage for materials.
“Whenever we are walking down the street, we are looking to see whether there is something discarded that might serve us,” he says. “That is why we also go on improving the staging, even after opening night.”
Maite Velo, an actress of Grupo UmaMinga and co-founder of the encounter, agrees that collective “autogestión” – self-management – is a key element of independent theater.
“Along with the other groups, we arrived at the conclusion that the common characteristic of independent theater is that it is self-managed,” she says. “We all work a lot as a group, and we multitask. Collective work is required, in a team.”
Keeping with its popular spirit, the theater encounter began and ended in the street. During the opening ceremonies, dozens of actors disguised as detectives surrounded the iconic obelisk in downtown Buenos Aires looking for people to invite to the event.
The closing ceremonies took place in the doorway of the Andamio 90 theater. There, in the shelter of a roof improvised from a large sign, the musical theater group Le Puse Cuca sang and danced with artists and spectators.
“We opened and closed in a public thoroughfare to transcend and to erase the spaces, to erase the borders, and so no one would be left out,” Velo says.
Interviews were translated from Spanish.
