La Luna en el Amazonas (The Moon in the Amazon)

The world’s largest rainforest is at the center of the work. The narrative is mainly in the Colombian Amazon, where in 2019, the existence of indigenous communities in isolation by self-determination was reported.

Mapa Teatro was attracted by the secular resistance of the native peoples. Its proposal is to track and fictionalize the evidence of that report. To this end, reports from shamans, anthropologists, and eyewitnesses that offer some indirect evidence are collected.

The documentary and imagery scales reach the Earth’s natural satellite. The first time that man set foot on the moon, in 1969, unconventionally served dramaturgy. Just like the film “Memoria” (2021), by the Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, shot in Colombia, inserted through the participation of two actors in the feature.

The work searches for the existence of indigenous shelters in the same way that quantum physicists track the particles that make up the universe or that astronomers try to determine the existence of planets in other galaxies. Facing the impossibility of perceiving them directly, they direct their gaze to the forces and vibrations they imprint on the space surrounding them.In 2020, however, the project was impacted by the pandemic. During the months of social distancing, the members of the collective experienced strange perceptions in their bodies, such as the appearance of a third leg, the touch of a beast, the sound of an arrow, the presence of a border, and the threat of proximity. Although coincident, the survival strategies imposed by Covid-19 proved to be very distant from those practiced in indigenous resistance to the policy of death and racialization in the trans-Amazonian territory.

Is it possible that, in these circumstances, our quest is then to allow the isolated to take our dream so that we can experience the possibility of a new way of existence and another way of resisting?” ask the creators.

The show delves into the jungle and devoured dreams, fusing actors with the images of an integral and rotating screen that gives a three-dimensional character to the action.

Who are they
Mapa Teatro is an artists’ laboratory dedicated to transdisciplinary creation. Based in Bogotá since 1986, it was founded in Paris in 1984 by Heidi, Elizabeth, and Rolf Abderhalden, Colombian visual and scenic artists. It traces its own cartography within the scope of the “living arts,” a space conducive to the transgression of borders – geographical, linguistic, artistic – and to staging local and global questions through different operations of “thought-stagecraft.”

Datasheet

Conception and direction Heidi Abderhalden e Rolf Abderhalden
Dramaturgy Heidi Abderhalden, Rolf Abderhalden e Aljoscha Begrich
With the participation of Heidi Abderhalden, Agnes Brekke, Andrés Castañeda, Julián Díaz e Santiago Sepúlveda
Voice in the Andoque language Levi Andoque
Voice in the Ticuna language Carla López
Special guest Jorge Alirio Melo
Music and sound design Juan Ernesto Díaz*
Lighting Mathias Roche
Lighting in Brasil Grissel Piguillem
Lighting technician Patricia Savoy e Kuka Batista
Visual and scenographic project Rolf Abderhalden
Costumes Elizabeth Abderhalden
Design of objects Jose Ignacio Rincón e Santiago Sepúlveda
Camera Javier Hernández, Fausto Díaz e Mónica Torregrosa
Video editing Heidi Abderhalden, Fausto Díaz, John de los Ríos e Ximena Vargas
Portuguese text version Beatriz Sayad
Live video Ximena Vargas
Technical video and sound coordinator Rodrigo Gava Rodrigues
Video technician Rodrigo Caldeira
Sound technician Randal Juliano
Stage director Santiago Sepúlveda
Stage technicians and technicians Wanderley Wagner da Silva, Fernando Zimolo, Rafael Alcantara e Enrique Casas
Assembly and disassembly technicians Adriano Barbosa da Silva e Normando da Silva Junior
Coordination of scenography construction Julio Cesarini
Room maid Jamile
Technical direction in Colombia Jose Ignacio Rincón
Technical direction in Brazil Julio Cesarini
Mapa Teatro Production José Ignacio Rincón e Ximena Vargas
Production management in Brazil Andrea Caruso Saturnino e Ricardo Muniz Fernandes
Administration Letícia Fernandes
In partnership with Iberescena e Naves Matadero, Siemens Stiftung
Support Foundation for Arts Initiatives Ffai
Coproduction Ruhrtriennale, Mousonturm, Culturescapes, Le Phénix Scène Nationale, Next Festival, Théâtre de la Ville e Paris Festival d’Automne
Executive production in France, Belgium and Switzerland Le Phénix Scène Nationale
Special acknowledgments David Lapoujade, José Antonio Sánchez, Apitachtpong Weerazethakul, Daniel Giménez Cacho, Tilda Swinton, Roberto Franco (in memoriam), Germán Castro Caycedo (in memoriam) e Goethe-Institut Kolumbien