Arts and Culture Bolivia Project #11197

Social Inclusion through Theater in Bolivia

by Asociacion Pro Arte y Cultura

Project Report | Oct 22, 2012
How we spent our excess funding

By Ariana Markowitz | Project Leader

Poster for the first Regional Theater Festival

Thanks to your support and partnership, we raised $5,120 from 63 people, giving us more than enough to earn a permanent place on GlobalGiving and, more importantly, fully fund the first Regional Theater Festival in the Integrated North, a group of towns just to the north of Santa Cruz de la Sierra. The projected budget was $4,930, so we used the additional $190 to print programs for each of the festival's five nights. This allowed us to give credit in a professional, visible way to the cast, writers, directors, and stagehands of each play, and to the families, sponsors, and authorities who worked with us to make the event successful.

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Oct 22, 2012
Notes from the field: Regional Theater Festival

By Cecilia Kenning | President, APAC

Opening night: mimes performing in the plaza

Saavedra, Bolivia is a sunny town with less than 5,000 inhabitants a couple hours to the north of the regional capital of Santa Cruz de la Sierra. It is normally quiet, but something was different on the morning of September 12. Children and young people filled the main plaza, excited by the flurry of activity occurring in their town since the early hours of the morning. In the Saavedra Friends' Club, located on the western edge of the plaza, people had been cleaning for hours and a stage crew was assembling a stage and putting up light and sound equipment in advance of a performance. Chairs were brought in later in the day and black curtains were put up over lights and windows.

Later in the afternoon, the sound of drums attracted the curious to the center of the plaza. Inaugurating the first Regional Theater Festival of the Integrated North, a joint initiative by APAC and the participating municipalities, was a Santa Cruz-based group performing a street comedy called "Trades," a play without words -- but with quite a lot of music and sound effects -- about the four most common trades in the region, those of builder, plumber, teacher, and seamstress. The festival included theater troupes from Saavedra, Portachuelo, San Juan, and Montero, plus special invitees from the town of Vallegrande and the group Café con Leche from Santa Cruz, and it was the first ever theater event in this part of Bolivia.

As night fell, people filled the Saavedra Friends' Club for the performances of "Creatures" and "Just Names" following introductions by local authorities. These were two of the 10 plays presented during the five-day festival by some one hundred children and adolescents who, besides performing, also had the opportunity to participate in workshops on stilts, drumming, and juggling each morning. Beyond the satisfaction of their artistic success, all of the participants returned to their hometowns with new friendships and skills and a greater sense of belonging and pride in their communities. The festival attracted more than 300 spectators each night and the participating towns are already looking towards next year.

"Creatures" directed by Claudia Rada

"Just Names" directed by Geronimo Mamani

"Mannequins" directed by Claudia Rada

"The Revenge of the Chupacoto" by Jorge Nazra

Links:

Press coverage of the festival from Montero (in Spanish)

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