The city government plans to turn the Colón theater into a testing center for suspected coronavirus cases. The theater director, Maria Victoria Alcaraz, sent an internal letter, to which he agreed Page 12, in which he asks all the staff – including dancers, musicians and choir-masters of the stable bodies – to work as volunteers performing “non-medical support, in shifts of four hours a day.” The theater workers, and the various unions that represent them, expressed their disagreement and repudiation of the measure. They demand that, with the corresponding protocols, the artistic activities and rehearsals that have been suspended for almost a year be resumed. They also denounce that the Buenos Aires government encouraged the return of commercial theaters, but did not allow the Colon to resume its activities with protocols or new proposals.
The situation looks like opereta. On Monday, a letter signed by Alcaraz arrived to the mail of the theater workers: “We have to continue working in the fight against the covid also this year. On this occasion, we need you to be complying a new role, supporting the Detectar campaign, which will be launched at the Colón Theater itself from next Friday January 29 “. And it specifies:” In the Paseo de Carrdamientos and in the Foyer, we will carry out administrative, reception and of orientation to the people who attend. I am sure that once again the Teatro Colón team it will show off and that we will receive the residents of the City, with the same passion and dedication always. I wait for you!“
“Colón theater alert: workers resist being a ‘testing center’. The Government of the City of Buenos Aires did not approve protocols to initiate activities and now they intend to compulsively send us to face the pandemic. We were not tested or prepared for such nonsense. It is a criminal act “, they indicated from the celestial group of Sutecba, which brings together theater workers. This newspaper tried to consult the board of the Colón on this decision, but did not receive a response.
The workers also reported that they are more than a year without being able to carry out his essays and artistic tasks, while the commercial theater reopens and is supported by the Minister of Culture of the City, Enrique Avogardo, and by the head of the Buenos Aires Government, Horacio Rodríguez Larreta.
Larreta and Avogardo were strong promoters of the opening of private commercial theaters. In November, for example, the head of the Buenos Aires government uploaded a photo to his networks with the city’s culture minister on a stage with a text that read: “Together with Enrique we visited Flavio Mendoza, Georgina Barbarrosa and Carmen Barbieri at the Broadway Theater. They are rehearsing very excited to receive the audience back in the room. On Monday we presented to the National Government the protocol for the return of the public to the theaters and cultural spaces. In a short time, with the appropriate care, we will be able to applaud our artists again. “
The Colón Theater is without activities and without protocols to return to the presence since March 2020. Last year, when it communicated to its subscribers that the season was suspended and that it would return the money, it also invited them to donate it “so that our dear theater continues to maintain its leading role in the cultural life of Argentines ”. For this year it has a budget of 37 million dollars assigned.
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