PAPER The Drum Beat - 21 - COLOMBIA - Colegio del Cuerpo
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| The Drum Beat - 21 - COLOMBIA - Colegio del Cuerpo Additional Information and Commentary By Adelaida Trujillo-Caicedo Citurna Producciones en Cine y Video Bogotá, May of 1999 adelaidatrujillo@cable.net.co 6. Colombia: Programmes - Colegio del Cuerpo The Colegio del Cuerpo - College of the Body - in Cartagena, is a unique social change project in Latin America through an experimental centre for contemporary dance and the performing arts. With a solid knowledge of the possibilities of modern dance for healing and socialisation purposes, the Colegio del Cuerpo teaches young people from the marginal barrios of Cartagena the many alternatives for development that a career in the performing arts can offer. The Colegio's view on development and education challenges the traditional approach to marginal areas, by proving that young people can pursue a profession and way of life very different from the ones often offered to kids in assistance projects. In this case it combines secondary education with modern dance and training in other areas of the 'scenic' arts. Development here is seen at two levels: individual and societal change. The focus is on the use of the body for the reconstruction of the social fabric - through a wide concept of conviviality and tolerance - torn apart by the war and socioeconomic differences. The young people that coreographers Alvaro Restrepo and Marie France Delieuvin work with come from schools in the working class sector of central Cartagena, as well as from the barrio Nelson Mandela, a squatter district that concentrates all the families displaced from the armed conflict in the northern coast of Colombia. The Colegio del Cuerpo has three main areas of activity : 1.formation : includes arts secondary school (bachillerato artístico en Danza), higher education (Nivel Superior), permanent education; 2. Dissemination and sensibilization :Itinerant Programme to approach Dance, the international Dance Festival - Memoria e Imaginación (Memory and Imagination); 3. Creation: Professional Dance Company Proyecto El Puente, Artists in Residence, Co-production; 4. Research and Documentation: videolibrary, library, phonothéque, editorial proyects, electronic network Corporación Proyecto el Puente and the Colegio del Cuerpo are supported, amongst other institutions, by the Ministry of Culture in Colombia, the Fundación Social-Circulo de Obreros San Pedro Claver, the Governor's Office of the state of Bolivar and the Mayor's office of Cartagena, the French Government,the Centre National de Dance Contemporaine D'Angers (CNDC),UNESCO and the Ministries of Foreign Relations of Colombia and France. It has been selected for a pilot project on development and culture of the IADB. Summary In Colombia the human being has lost its sacred significance. People are being tortured and murdered every day and those still alive are used to seeing the human body mutilated and discarded. Against the trauma of violence, Alvaro Restrepo is trying to restore a sense of beauty and equilibrium through dance. He is reconstructing an 'ethic of the body', where harmony in the individual's body system will ultimately bring health to the body politic. This philosophy informs his choreography and he's now taking it further in an ambitious project in the historic city of Cartagena. The colonial magnificence of this city is dwarfed by sprawling slum settlements enlarged each day by the refugees displaced by Colombia's 'dirty' war. Today, over 350,000 are living in miserable and inhuman conditions. For the children, scarred by the experiences they have fled from, there is little to stop them joining the cycle of violence. Some have joined The College of the Body -El Colegio del Cuerpo- which Alvaro has set up with Marie France Delieuvin, the acclaimed dancer -coreographer and director of studies of the National Centre for Contemporary Dance in Angers, France. Here the children discover a new sense of themselves. Traditional behaviour patterns are challenged using Alvaro's and Marie France's rigorous search into contemporary dance language: an original combination of modern dance techniques, carribbean rythmns, Alexander technique, yoga respiratory exercises, body games and traditional music and singing from the northern coast of Colombia. The children learn to explore their anxieties and dreams and through the power of their bodies, Alvaro seeks to reveal what he calls 'a peace of the organs', an inner harmony which can generate a spirit of tolerance and creativity. He is interested in developing the best dancers to evolve performers and performances which can travel back into the environment from which they come. The vision and spirit of optimism in this project has brought celebrities such as the Colombian Nobel Prize winner, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, to see what is going on. He has long admired Alvaro's extraordinary choreography which explores violence in different spaces, including pop videos like a piece he helped design and perform for Lennie Kravitz' s "Rock and Roll is Dead". Marquez' visit took him back to his own youth: 'when you put talent and determination together, there is nothing or no-one in the world that can stop you... I wasn't given the chance as a kid and my struggle to live from my writing lasted years'. The Story and it's Background "Mr. Garcia Marquez, just tell me why you are so interested in us?" The question came from Ailyn Banda , a 12 year old girl from the "barrios" of Cartagena, one of the dance students in "El Colegio del Cuerpo". The Colombian Nobel prize winner had spent the whole hot and humid morning quietly watching the kids dancing in the colonial cloister's adapted dance studios. He just could not hold back the emotion and his own childhood memories when replying to Ailyn: " ..some people have talent and others have determination. But when you put talent and determination together, there is nothing or noone in the world that can stop you..." Garcia Marquez was thinking back 50 years..."This chance I was not given as a kid ...and my struggle to live from my writing , and be respected for it, lasted years..."These kids are being given the chance to explore their talent, their capacity to communicate in one of the most innovative artistic projects in the world: the Colegio del Cuerpo (the College of the Body) , from the latin "colligere": to reunite, to reconcile, to cohere again . The Colegio is an experimental centre for contemporary dance and the performing arts, officially launched in May 1998 in Cartagena de Indias , one of the caribbean's colonial jewels, and Colombia's most beautiful tourist attraction. But behind the glossy brochures and the magnificent houses in the fortified colonial town restored by Colombia's jet set, the place is falling apart. Cartagena is a city where half of its 700,000 inhabitants live in inhuman conditions: close your eyes and it's the worst of Haiti: no running water or electricity, fragile board houses submerged halfway in the contaminated marshlands that surround the bay, and living barely by the day with a permanent smell of decayed fish and open sewage. And this misery is now to be shared with the thousands of peasants displaced by Colombia's dirty war waged between the paramilitary death squads and the leftist guerrilla movements in the rural areas close to the Caribbean coast. In Cartagena, the jewel, the shadow of a country at war is looming. It's about black and white, it's white against black. It's a microcosmos of a polarized country. Colombia is a country sunk in a bloody confrontation that takes 25,000 lives per year. And we haven't found a way to resolve it. Alvaro and Marie France want to struggle against this war, against violence: with the body, thru the body. The challenge is to find tolerance thru the recognition of the enormous cultural diversity in a country like Colombia, diversity that has torn us apart and kept us alive. The human body as the essential patrimony of every human being, is the pivotal centre for the Colegio del Cuerpo's study , research and creation activities. Alvaro 's eyes shine with passion as he summarizes the project: " Colombia is an amazing , intense and beautiful country....but we do not want to see or have not been able to resolve the bloody crisis we are in , the spiritual value crisis that is destroying us..." Amidst this violence the human body has lost its ultimate sacred dimension: "....we see it being tortured , mutilated, assassinated. ...so it is imperative to reconstruct an ethics of the body - of the individual body and the social body.... the body politics ...to recapture what we like to call the "peace of the organs"...which really means health, and health in collective terms is equivalent to peaceful cohabition, plenitude and tolerance within a society..." Alvaro's passion is shared by one of France's most important coreographer and dance educator Marie France Delieuvin. Director of Studies of France's most important Contemporary Dance Centre (Centre National de Danse Contemporaine L'Esquisse). She has been seduced by the magic of Colombia and its talent, which she has been familiar with since 1993, since the French- Colombian collaboration began. She moved permanently to Cartagena in 1998, with the full support of the CNDC, bringing together world known professors and coreographers. The experimental phase during 1998-99 was in the hands of Benjamin Houal from France, Mitsiko Shimura, belgian-japanese and Jordi Ros Navarro, spanish, as well as four very talented colombian dancers and teachers. Marie France is not only astonished by the natural talent of the Caribbean kids with their strong african influence. She has found much more audacity and creativity here than in her years of teaching and experimental work in France. It's not what they are able to do, but also HOW they do it, how they approach it. "...such natural elegance and physicality, such musical..."...the perfect mix of the African diaspora, the indian cultures and the southern spanish colonization.." El Colegio del Cuerpo pretends to become not only an academic centre for the performance arts but also a major research and information centre for Latin America on contemporary dance. Alvaro and Marie France's challenge is also to educate the audience by broadening their sense of the meaning of dance. Working for the last five years searching to establish a dialogue of tradition and memory with contemporary avantguarde artistic manifestations, they seek to develop a truthful meaning of contemporary dance language through the rigorous search into tradition. They are permanently challenging the mechanic transposition of models and forms and techniques by thought -provoking exploration into tradition and authenticity. "In fact, truly universal atristic manifestations are those that are deeply rooted into the essence of tradition , or at least are very respectful of its legacy..." says Alvaro , as he describes the Colegio´s work with the "cantaoras" ( traditional singers) of the Colombian Caribbean coast's "bullerengue" and "cumbia" rythms, or the group of ancient singers from the maroon town of Palenque , who recently found their artistic name: "Las Alegres Ambulancias" ( The Cheerful Ambulances)!! The research with traditional groups from the area of Cartagena, as well as masters in afro-caribbean percussion and music, is simultaneous with the kids' work . Alvaro and Marie France will not only share their technical knowledge with the kids. The challenge is also for them, as they know they have to learn a lot from the kids too: " their raw , virgin energy...their spontaneous approach to music , rythm and space, ...their sensuality, their body intelligence..." So here we are, surrounded by talent and creativity flourishing. Rigour and research in the arts. Finally a chance is given to these kids to express and find the means for an alternative professional development : self - steem, confidence, self knowledge, exploration , imagination....the vaccine we are desperately needing against the violence we have become used to? against war? against poverty? It's a project for peace and democracy, for integral development and education in its broadest sense. A project that really subverts the idea of assistance and aid, the usual patronizing formula. Alvaro's words are clear on this crucial aspect of their work: " It´s not about helping people survive. It's about life , the possibility of living fully ...by incorporating the aesthetic dimension, arts, beauty...it's about linking the aesthetic to the political and ethical discourse..."Integral development" is a term that is used in aid agencies' jargon but never fully understood: What we are seeking is to dive deeply into the meaning of what "integral " means, how this afffects all spheres of human development. This project is not about assistance and aid, it is not about creative use of free time in kids living under harsh conditions....we want to open a door, a window of possibilities...where they can discover a way of life, a profession, a way of being and seeing.....the kids that will go through this experience may not become professional dancers or choreographers...but they will surely be better human beings...." Subversive...? Who knows how the Cartagena elite will react: it is by far the most conservative in Colombia. Alvaro, born of parents from this racist city is challenging it: with his exploration into the afro-colombian experience he is pursuing a reappraisal of the african heritage in our complex culture. The colonial cloister's space, the most ancient of Cartagena, may well become the meeting point , the crossroad of the many Cartagenas, the Cartagena of many colours and shades. A film is being developed by Citurna (Colombia) , in co-production with YNTV (Youth Network Television) from South Africa: 'The Power of the Dance' . The film will observe the progress of Alvaro's work with the children in the context of his enquiry into the origins and legacy of violence. This will be combined with his permanent artistic search, through his present individual choreographic adaptation on H.G. Wells' story "The Country of the Blind", for a truly authentic contemporary dance language that blends tradition and cultural diversity with modern techniques. The film will follow some of the children from the developing harmony within to the brutality of the world outside in a country where over 25,000 are being killed each year . This violence of the many wars being waged, combined with the country's extraordinary talent and vigour, will also be projected through Alvaro's performance work and in the film's stylised use of fragments of archive from the dirty war itself . Contact : Alvaro Restrepo / Marie France Delieuvin CORPOpuente - EL COLEGIO DEL CUERPO Claustro de San Francisco, Oficina 205 Getsemaní Cartagena de Indias , Colombia Tels/fax: (57-5) 664 3184 / 664 9341 e-mail: mafer@fnpi.org |