“A town that does not help
and does not promote its theater,
If he’s not dead, he’s dying.”
Federico Garcia Lorca.
Fifty years ago, the Association of Friends of the Theater of Cuenca was created in our city, which since then has been developing its corporate purpose under different approaches depending on the management team in charge at each moment, but always with the dissemination of the Performing Arts as its main objective. .
A cultural activity that has served as a social catalyst like few others in our environment, as those of us who were at the Commemorative Talks of our Fiftieth Anniversary which took place at the headquarters of the University of Castilla-La Mancha. Encounters that were marked by nostalgia and the joy of having done so much. A walk through the memory of what was lived and through the memory of those who left us.
An exercise of collective recognition in our liveliest passions, in our cultural tastes, in our artistic delight. An exercise in investigating our social and artistic identity as a living city.
They have been fifty years encouraging the cultural movement of the city, keeping alive the flame of the performing arts, from the stalls and from the stage.
During the last twenty-seven years, the association has dedicated its work to cultural management in these plots. In this way, more than one hundred performances have been scheduled each year, in the city and also in different places in our province, with a stable schedule for Spring and Autumn; organizing for thirty-one years the International Puppet Festival:
Titiricuenca; and for twenty-five years International Actor’s Theater Biennial: BITA; It has collaborated with various associations, groups from Cuenca and the region in different activities such as the Puppet Saturdays; the Festival Conka Street; the Days of Historical Recreation of San Mateo; the celebrations of international puppet day; and of World Theater Day; Solstices and Equinoxes at Taiyo Square. Has been created the Angeles Gasset Awards to a Puppeteer career and the BITA Award for theatrical career. Training courses have been organized in various technical or artistic fields in different Performing Arts.
So many years have gone a long way and all this work can be found in the newspaper library.
All this work would not have been possible only with the support of those of us who make up the association and of the citizenry in general, but rather the support of institutions such as the Cuenca City Council, the Cuenca Provincial Council, the Junta de Comunidades de Castilla-La Mancha, and entities such as: the Globalcaja Foundation, La Caixa or the City of Cuenca Culture Foundation and many other private sponsors that have collaborated through the crowfounding launched in recent years.
The Board of Directors of this Association sincerely appreciates having made our work possible during all these years, and is convinced that our work will remain in the social substratum of our people, our neighborhoods and those who have been part of the association.
It is very difficult to communicate that a cultural project is coming to an end, that we have lost hope, that the response from the institutions is not what we expected and that without dissemination and institutional support there is no public.
It is difficult to recognize that perhaps this work is not worth so much effort, that altruistic actions are always suspicious.
It is hard to verify that only with good will things are not done.
It is hard to reflect on our current situation and verify that the association, despite its work and effort, has been ignored by the institutions that should have supported us.
It is difficult to understand that from the economic point of view it has been unsustainable, we have had to program without the security of receiving public aid and compromising our economy and our name, because without money there is no culture.
It is difficult to understand that this project has no future, that they do not want to receive you, that they keep dragging you along, that after fifty years we discover that we are not rowing in the same direction; It is difficult to discover that many factors intervene in the culture of Cuenca and that each one pulls for his plot, that is legal, but drowning one of the associations that has done the most for culture in this city is not acceptable.
There will be those who will think that with the appearance of the Auditorium Theater of Cuenca there can be no other institution that programs theater, that complements and improves the cultural offer of the city, but that is not true, the Association of Friends of the Theater of Cuenca has always believed that our work added and enriched the cultural panorama of Cuenca.
It is not just that we have spent too many years with an increasingly scarce budget, it is that without a budget there is no programming, no company can be hired and, above all, if there is not a minimum of respect and consideration for our work, the desire is over.
The last straw has been the lack of communication with the new director of the City of Cuenca Culture Foundation, after twenty-seven years of collaborating hand in hand with that entity, the new manager has tightened the rope so much that it has broken. She left us with no budget and no desire to continue.
Time will tell.
Right now, we rejoice over the creation of the Regional Theater SchoolHopefully, it arrives loaded with people with enthusiasm and desire to work in the same direction as we did and be respected.
We’re leaving, but we’ll always be here.
See you always FRIENDS OF THE THEATER OF CUENCA.
Another train leaving us…
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