Chile’s National Stadium, used by the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship as a detention and torture center, this Tuesday has inaugurated a half century memorial mural coup, which took place on September 11 this year. The colorful work of artist Mon Laferte – known mainly for his singing face – and muralist Alejandro Arc González has been the starting kick of Santiago a Mile International Festival, that he could not escape the emblematic date from the prism of the performing arts. The 30th version of one of Latin America’s premier theater festivals will be firmly marked by Chile’s political and social memory, but will also be a showcase for a great global theme. as migration flows and climate change.

More than 130 theatrical, dance, musical, installation, performance and visual art performances starring artists from 19 countries will be shown until January 31 from the northern region of Arica to the south of Magallanes. Actor and director Alfredo Castro, one of the founders of the festival which started in 1994 with only five works, explained at the opening that the area far from the capital “is like any other country in Chile”. “What this festival has done is to integrate the whole country, allowing us to collaborate on an imaginary which is often very diverse between north, south and center”, said the interpreter in films such as Tony Manero (2008), No (2012) and Club (2015).

The military coup will be present in such national works fascist mistress, Night rhythmAmong the year I was born in digital version, among others. Carmen Romero, the festival’s executive director and programming, said that there was “never again” in Chile, even with Pinochet in prison, and that’s why the theater took over “the suspension point that the country is experiencing” with works inspired by that darkness. stage and back again and again to wonder where it went missing. The hostess of the cultural festival added that all social processes are in dramaturgy. The 2019 Uprising, for example, “was written before, during, and is still being written. These are themes that cut across national theatres, which is why it is such an important language”, said Romero.

Castro would climb the table with his work fail accompli, premiered in 1981 by legendary playwright Juan Radrigán. “It was written during dictatorships, against dictatorships, but today it takes on dimensions we never expected. I was confused listening to it because it touched on issues of feminism, private property, the Constitution, misery… as if Radrigán was, -and he, the actor added-, a seer”.

A mural commemorating the coup at the National Stadium, which will host the Paralympic Games in November, shows prisons, music, women, missing prisoners, copihue (a native Chilean flower), among other codes. muralist Arc González, 76, wants to work together with Mon Laferte, 39, so that two generations can have a dialogue through a painting about an event that marks them in a different way. Prisoners of the seventies and even their grandchildren also participate in the painting. “The spooky place is alive, with color. Like it or not, but there are traces related to the culture of life”, said González in front of the work which can be seen from September.

Its range of themes covers other contemporary issues, such as climate change, through the staging of opera Sun & Sea (Lithuania), winner of the 2019 Venice Biennale, and dancing The Jungle Book New Concept (United Kingdom), which through Mowgli invites us to rethink the world of the future, addressing the environmental crisis and its impact on new generations. New technologies will also have their space Orpheus Y The incredible journey of Galactic Hood (Spanish), and works for cell phones A decolonial stare or that Colonial observations (Germany-Chile).

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