Oasis de la impunidad

After the international success of Paisajes para no colorear, the Chilean company La Re-Sentida presents a dance production. It is the Teatre Lliure's contribution to Dansa metropolitana 2023.

An oppressive introductory space unfolds in front of a giant painting of a ghost that is constantly crying, in which beings detached from all civility are instructed to inflict and receive violence, dance beautiful choreographies and praise virile images. Bodies indoctrinated to inspire fear and make terror reign, the mere presence of which creates the 'spectacle of power'.

This production is an abstract investigation of the forms of violence that inhabit and overwhelm the police forces of our democratic societies, and which evoke the desecration of the human body as the only means of indoctrination, punishment and control.


THE START POINT
Inspired by the estallido social, the social revolt that swept through the streets of Santiago de Chile on 18 October 2019 and filled Plaza Dignidad, Marco Layera and his company Teatro La Re-sentida undertake a choreographic reflection on the nature of violence that, in Chile, has locked the police and the citizens in a permanent dialectic. This examination of the systemic and individual motivations of violence focuses, in particular, on the side of those who exercise it. What connects individual conviction and forced discipline? Who pulls the strings behind the scenes? How can the aggression of the victims be unleashed? And: Who can be held accountable in the oasis of impunity? Six actors, two dancers and a living sculpture embark on a search for answers.


WHAT THE PRESS SAID
"In Oasis de la impunidad, the party is the good life of all the followers of the middle and upper classes, who make it possible for those above to exercise power. [...] The "oasis" means, of course, Chile, which has never really come to terms with its past dictatorship. The constitution of the Pinochet dictatorship remains in force, making Chile one of the countries with the greatest social inequality in the world: electricity, water, education, health and pension systems have been privatized. On one occasion the "spirit of society" speaks to us, a spectre hung in oil on the wall (the voice, as always, comes out distorted from the tape) and that enforces law and order to ensure possession. Later, the actor of the Schaubühne, David Ruland, stands in underpants and combat boots and defends his commitment as a police or soldier for democracy: "We too are victims". This sounds bitter in the context of Chile’s massive protests against social inequality in 2019, during which then-President Sebastián Piñeda had people shot. Many lost an eye, some their lives." Nachtkritik.de - George Kash

"Although his last show, Paisajes para no colorear, still offered a lot of text and culminated in a feminist manifesto, this time the group is based almost exclusively on the theater of images: drastic scenes, very explicit physically, who relentlessly confront the public with the brutality, with the police and army that quelled the 2019 protests. [… ] However, the evening is not only drastic theater to mace, but also plays with motives of zombie culture and terror, as well as the history of pop and cinema, which combines with Latin American political reality. Certainly, some things can only be completely deciphered by the Chilean public." DasKulturblog.de - Konrad Koegler


TO LEARN MORE
Bodies of power, by Joseph Pearson - Schaubühne Berlin
Cronología del estallido
La mirada del estallido social según Rafa Cavada - Chilevisión
Una setmana de mobilitzacions i militarització a Xile: "no volem tranquil·litat, volem transformació", by Berta Camprubí and Meritxell Freixas - Directa.cat
El estallido de Santiago de Chile desde mi balcón, by Rafael Ortano - El País
Chile protesters: 'We are subjugated by the rich. It's time for that to end', by Jonathan Franklin, pictures by Marcela Bruna - The Guardian
Proyecto A.M.A., historias de las víctimas de la violencia