International Congress at CRIM
María Guadalupe Lugo García   
Oct 5, 2023
The Regional Center for Multidisciplinary Research (CRIM) of UNAM hosted the XXIX International Congress Performing arts and their communities in Ibero-America: problems, affects and new theorizationsconvened by the Mexican Association of Theater Research (AMIT) and the university entity, in collaboration with the Rodolfo Usigli-INBAL National Center for Theater Research and Documentation and Information (CITRU).
From September 27 to 29, the CRIM hosted the work of said international meeting, whose purpose was to debate research projects on theater, performing arts, performanceliving arts, dance and other scenic-political formats articulated under the category of community, promoting the exchange of experiences and knowledge.
In the opening ceremony held remotely, Fernando Lozano Ascencio, director of the CRIM, indicated that in universities there is a great theatrical tradition, and as part of this a community of researchers. For this reason, it is noteworthy that the Center, together with the Continuing Education area, host this event in which an important group of academics who carry out research on performing arts, as well as their collective artistic expression, participate, “and how it intersects with other issues that are related to our political, cultural, gender and, above all, community reality.”
For her part, Rocío Galicia Velasco, president of the AMIT, expressed that this Congress It is a celebration for that association because it is celebrating 30 years, the oldest organization in Latin America that brings together theater researchers. Research in Mexico is a young area, however, AMIT is strong and has maintained itself as a community thanks to the work, not always in the best conditions, of those who for three decades have met uninterruptedly to think about the country’s scene. “In this Congress “We are writing a significant page in the history of the study of performing arts in Latin America.”
Meanwhile, Arturo Díaz Sandoval, director of CITRU, recognized the work of AMIT, “because since its founding it set out the objective of promoting and strengthening the development of theater research in Mexico, a vision that has been more than achieved throughout of these first 30 years, with the uninterrupted holding of 29 conferences, and which has had its presentation in many others in universities and academic spaces where it has always been very well received.
Critical understanding of reality
In the keynote conference that inaugurated the work of the International Congress Performing arts and their communities in Latin AmericaLola Proaño Gómez, researcher at the Gino Germani Institute, at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, explained that, according to Foucault, community theater can be defined as a liberating apparatus, because it manipulates the relationship of forces between the neoliberal imposition that It has been in Latin America since the 1980s and is favorable to theater production and improvement of life.
These productions change the sensitivity of both the “neighboring actors and their spectators,” the specialist continued when giving the keynote lecture. In defense of life: community theater (1983-2019).
He pointed out that the objective of his talk was to show how the different moments in the political and economic history of Argentina have been forming responses from the neighbors who make up the community theater, which is always in defense of life in different ways, according to the moment. “For this reason, I consider that this theater is part of what is proposed within the aesthetics of liberation, following the philosopher Enrique Dussel and making small changes that adapt to performing art.”
He explained that community theater reintegrates the social and aesthetic experience into the whole. That is to say, it gives us a critical understanding of reality, they are productions that are always showing respect for life and demanding economic and political rights, and the horizon towards which this is directed is towards a better life, with a hierarchy of values. and existence brought to the fore.
He commented that some groups that do it in Argentina are Catalinas Sur de La Boca, which emerged in 1983 after the dictatorship; and Patricios Unidos de Pie, from the town of Patricios, province of Buenos Aires, established in 2002 and which was responsible for denouncing social disintegration and demanding for young people the right to education, housing and health, as well as those associations of community theater that emerged during the period of distancing due to the pandemic.
At that moment a dramaturgy of confinement emerged, a fight against isolation through digital communication; This proposal managed to evade distancing through the use of digital tools and maintain solidarity action. “The real community built joint artistic manifestations as a result of the pact of a plurality of individuals, who generated a new way of producing and being together,” he concluded.
2023-10-05 22:59:12
#Debate #theater #performance #scenic #formats #Gaceta #UNAM
