This year, thanks to the Itinerant Performing Arts Program of 2024 Ministry of Cultures, Arts and Heritage, the region is preparing to receive the “ROOT: Territorial Memories on Stage” tour, a project organized by the companies 4Elementos (Theater) and Platform Blue (Dance).
The project will be carried out on June 6, 12 and July 13, the chosen scenarios reach the remote towns of Renaico, Manzanar and Curacautín. This tour is developed thanks to the efforts of the Ministry of Cultures, Arts and Heritage, to decentralize cultural offers and reach the most remote audiences.
The plays “Gabriela” and “Sorda Piel” by the 4Elementos Cultural Group, and the play “Vilú” by the Plataforma Azul dance company, will be presented.
According to Carolina Manzano Fernández, responsible for the project, “circulation seeks to reach unusual territories for the traditional performing arts circuit; “It seeks to be a meeting point between the community and artists”. Proof of this are the places chosen for the performances: Municipal Theater of Renaico, Alejo Tascón School of Manzanar and Ko-Panqui Artistic Residency Center of Curarrehue.
Carolina adds that “RAÍZ is thought and conceived as a tour that reaches the mountain territories of La Araucanía, where dance and theater are capable of creating, reflecting and connecting with different types of audiences: children, youth and adults. Likewise, the tour aims to contribute and broaden the view on the forms of creation in the performing arts, exhibiting the work of consolidated professionals in the region who provide knowledge and methodologies for the scenic language, and make it possible to increase the offer on the billboard.. It is worth mentioning that this tour will take place during winter days, an unusual date for the presentation of performing arts shows.
The Seremi of the Cultures of La Araucanía, Eric Iturriaga Gutiérrez, valued the materialization of this initiative, highlighting that “The Itinerant Performing Arts Program of our Ministry seeks to generate an encounter between the works and the public, in the most diverse spaces and territories. And in that sense, the Raíz project precisely promotes the decentralization of the performing arts, in geographically remote communities that have fewer opportunities to access theater and dance.”
The 4Elementos and Plataforma Azul companies, theater and dance companies respectively, are two consolidated creative teams from Araucanía. Both are directed by young creative women: Carolina Manzano Fernández and Kattya Soto Montoya. 4Elementos, celebrating 15 years of experience and as a way to begin its celebratory activities, puts into circulation “Gabriela” and “Sorda Piel” theatrical works that explore the human condition and its nuances, the first being a portrait of the life of our Nobel poet Gabriela Mistral. Blue Platform, for its part, being one of the most prominent emerging companies in the region, offers “Vilú” a dance proposal, based on free movement and inspired by the story of the Mapuche people “Tren Tren y Kai Kai Vilu”, showing a deep respect and connection with local culture.
