Bogotá

After the classical 13 to 15 hours travel between cities, we finally arrived in Bogotá, drop everything in a hostel for gringos in the central area of La Candelaria and help the guys of Presagio Theatre.

In La Candelaria there’s one of the most important theatre of the entire Latin America: Teatro La Candelaria.

On the same day we arrange a meeting with one of the founders and the most important activist for the human rights in Colombia: Patricia Ariza.

For over 40 years she’s fighting for the right of the women, right for the homeless and against the terrible plague of the “falsos positivos”, which consist in kill an innocent person, afterwards dress him as a guerrillero and denounce him at the police. Thanks to that, the Colombian police and army can demonstrate (in particularly to USA), that the terrorism funds to fight the guerrilla in Colombia are well spent…big bullshit!

Patricia creates theatre plays and street performances with the parents of the victims and actors, performing plays in the poorest barrios of Bogotá and the entire Colombia.

For her stubborn activity against the injustice, 3 years ago the Colombian police condemned her as part of the FARC, which is the biggest guerrilla group. Later, most of the Colombian artists and people from all around the world signed, through a petition, against the absurd verdict of the police.

It’s the 45^th of theatre La Candelaria, a Guinness for an independent theatre company, thanks to their particular method of the “collective creation”. Through this method, all the actors participate at the creation of the theatre play: every member by turn is performing a small play based on the improvisation. After the performance there are meetings to analyze what happened on the stage, which themes has been touched and the possibility to create a final play. The mentor of this method is Santiago Garcia, or how he’s simply called in the theatre: Maestro. Chatting with Santiago is like talking with the past, present and future of the Latin American theatre, with his 83 years old, he’s always at the creation of a new play or ready to perform in an old one. We ask which is his secret, and he reply that the best thing is what make people happy, in his case the love for the theatre.

The play that Teatro La Candelaria is showing is called El Paso (The Pass), which is representing the life in a small village in the Colombian countryside, where everything is apparently quiet, but in a second time with the entrance of two emblematic characters everything change. El Paso is describing how the presence of guerrilla and paramilitaries are deforming and fading the life of Colombia.

This play has got 30 years more or less, but it’s still incredibly recent, nothing has been changed.

Personally, we think that Patricia Ariza, Santiago Garcia and all the actors of theatre La Candelaria are necessary and absolutely important for the life of Colombia, with them we share the same thoughts and ideas, thanks to people as them the world is changing.

Time to go, a new city and a new theatre company is waiting for us: Medellin.