By Cecilia Kenning | President, APAC
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.
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