A Colombian farewell ceremony.
La Despedida is the final piece of a trilogy about the link between feast and violence in Colombia : a theatrical installation about the current peace treaty between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC).
La Despedida means literally 'the farewell' and thus stands for a farewell ceremony. A farewell to the bloody conflicts but as well to a utopia, to the longest lasting revolutionary dream of Latin-America.
The starting point of the performance is the arrival of a shaman from the Amazon region at the holy ground of his ancestors, which was annexed by the FARC and turned into a guerilla camp. A huge feast appears to be in full swing at which almost all communist celebrities are present : from Karl Marx and Mao Zedong to Che Guevara.
Theatre makers Heidi and Rolf Abderhalden, the driving force behind Mapo Teatro, string together audio-visual archives material, written testimonies and fictitious story elements into a poetic montage. The conclusion of thirty years of research.
The work of Mapo Teatro is of a baroque exuberance and invariably mixes fiction and reality. The performance Los Santos inocentes, part one of the trilogy, was selected for the prestigious festival of Avignon.
Conception et mise en scène: Heidi et Rolf Abderhalden.
Distribution: Heidi Abderhalden, Rolf Abderhalden, Agnes Brekke, Andrés Castañeda, Miguel Molina, Julián Díaz, Santiago Sepúlveda.
Dramaturgie : Mapa Teatro, accompagné de : Martha Ruíz, Matthias Pees, Laymert García Dos Santos, Jean Tible, Giulia Palladini.
Musique et création sonore: Juan Ernesto Díaz.
Scénographie: Pierre-Henri Magnin.
Conception lumière et direction technique: Jean François Dubois.
Création costumes : Elizabeth Abderhalden.
Masques: Christian Probst et Juan Alberto Orrego.
Montage et live vidéo: Luis Delgado, Ximena Vargas.
Régie plateau : José Ignacio Rincon/Javier Navarro.
Production: Mapa Teatro, Ximena Vargas/Les Indépendances, Camille Barnaud.
Traduction : Anne Proenza.
Co-productions : Théâtre de la Ville –Paris avec le Festival d’Automne à Paris, Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne, Festival Sens Interdits, Next Festival –La rose des vents.
Tournée en France dans le cadre de l’année France-Colombie 2017
avec le soutien du Ministère de la Culture de Colombie, de l’Institut Français, et de l’ONDA.
Remerciements : Michelle Kokosowski, Alejandro Valencia Villa, Sergio Jaramillo, Grupo Puma, Base Militaire El Borugo, Ministère de la Défense de Colombie, Ambassade de Suisse en Colombie, Ambassade de France en Colombie.
