Chef is the newest piece from Viaje Inmovil, one of Chile’s most highly regarded companies. Conceived by multi-award winning director, actor and writer, Jaime Lorca, the piece is based on Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal. Set in a not so distant dystopian future, Chef is the story of one celebrity chef’s desire to stay at the top of his game at any cost! Viaje Inmovil is Chile’s foremost physical theatre company. Formed by Jaime Lorca in 2005, it brought some of Chile’s most important performers together in one company. Their three creations to date have won multiple awards and they tour regularly all over the world. They are currently the resident company at Chile’s Museo de Bellas Artes. Link: (Chef) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJEti7uYOPE
El Inmigrante, El Nica is a new political drama by writer-performer Cesar Melandez. It tells the story of a Nicaraguan immigrant who arrives in Costa Rica alone, and with nothing expect for a crucifix. As he explains, berates, recounts his day, beseeches and prays to his silent wooden partner, the plight of his situation and that of millions of immigrants around the world becomes harrowingly clear. Teatro La Polea is one of Costa Rica’s most groundbreaking companies. El Inmigrante, El Nica has been performed all over Latin America and has previously been performed in the United States, France and Spain.
Codigo Pirata is a stunningly innovative physical theatre piece for all ages from 4+. The exciting story of three cut-throat pirates all hunting for the same treasure, its a masterpiece of comic choreography. Performed to an exciting soundtrack, three acrobats who can only be seen from the waist up, create a whole world of swashbuckling action, battles at sea and a treasure with magical properties. Codigo Pirata is a multi-award winning show that was originally created for ages 4+ but it’s so good we’ve been thinking of giving adults the chance to catch it as very late night show. Vuelve en Julio are a young multi-talented company who live and create their work in La Plata. Codigo Pirata was their first original creation and has won 3 national awards and has toured Argentina, India and Europe. Link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUiDJ-GXLbg
Passport is a hard-hitting investigation into the politics of power by one of Latin America’s most prolific playwrights. One woman arrives at an undefined Latin American border hoping to cross over to the other side but is detained by two guards. Very quickly, all normality is stripped away leading to an unrelenting Kafka-esque descent into terror. Passport premiered in Caracas in 2003, became one of the Teatro San Martin’s biggest hits and has since travelled the world, performing and winning awards at festivals across Europe, the United States and Asia. Gustavo Ott has written over 40 plays and is the Founder and Artistic Director of Teatro San Martin de Caracas, Venezuela’s premiere new writing theatre. His plays have been translated into 14 different languages and have been performed all over the world by companies such as the Comedie Francaise and the Public Theatre, NYC. He has won a number of awards, most prominently the Lawrence Epstein Playwrighting and Maclaren Comedy Paywrighting Awards in 1995 and 1996.
Nelson, a down and out boxer tells us a story. At first it sounds like every other down and out boxer’s story. A tough childhood. Amusing anecdotes. The story of that fight. And then the play takes a turn. A stunning tour de force by writer-performer Quique Fernandez, El Guante y La Piedra is a play about choices. The ones we made and those we could have made. El Guante y La Piedra is Teatro Secreto’s debut show. It has been peformed in Argentina and Spain and we are delighted to be presenting it in the UK. Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGXqo6jv97k
Presented by Persona Companhia de Teatro and Teatro em Tramite (Brazil)
The story of a dysfunctional family, this play, based on the eponymous short story by Uruguay’s Horacio Quiroga is as dark as they get. An already loveless marriage has seemingly been torn apart by the birth of four mentally disabled children. When their fifth is born, a girl with no deficiencies at all, the true reasons for their loveless relationship emerges. With a stunning aesthetic, an incredible soundtrack and brilliant puppetry throughout, A Galinha Degolada has been supported by the Brazilian Ministry of Culture to tour across the country. This show is the first collaboration between the Persona Companhia de Teatro and Teatro em Tramite from Florianapolis. Link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrbQeKktkPc
Produced by CASA Theatre Festival and Vicky Araico Casas
“Where is home? Is it the place we are leaving behind, or the place we are heading to?”
One of hundreds, one of thousands, one in a million, Juana crosses the fence, the pond, the air in attempt to find an answer, and to forge an identity outside Mexico. Her encounters in a foreign land will lend new and unexpected shapes to her existence, to her otherness and confront her with the buried past of a Nation.
Juana in a Million was selected for development after last year’s CASA scratch festival. Writer/Performer Vicky Araico Casas is an emerging theatre-maker from Mexico who is based in the UK and this is her debut solo show. Nir Paldi is an Israeli Director and founding artistic director of the critically acclaimed Theatre Adinfinitum who’s award-winning shows include Behind the Mirror, Odyssey, The Big Smoke and Translunar Paradise, a major hit at this year’s Fringe Festival.
Produced by CASA Theatre Festival and directed by Gael Le Cornec
When Jesuino asks Vindinha to be his wife, she wants him to prove he is worthy of her – he must be the best fisherman in the village. But everything has a price. How far will Jesuino go to conquer Vindinha’s heart? A beautiful short play about man’s relationship with nature and the crazy things we do for love.
This production, produced by CASA and directed by this year’s Guest Artist, Gaël Le Cornec, marks the UK premiere for the work of Brazilian playwright, Ruy Jobim Neto. To complement The Boy who Caught the Tide, the performance will also feature a free live music performance of Brazilian sea shanties.
Following successful CASA Theatre Festivals in 2007 and 2008, CASA returned with its most ambitious festival yet to celebrate the very best of contemporary Latin American theatre. With a one week festival programme that boasted original performances from four brilliant award-winning companies from Argentina, Colombia, El Salvador and Uruguay all making their UK premieres, CASA offered Londoners a unique opportunity to discover the incredible riches of Latin American theatre. The main programme was supplemented by CASA Nuestra, a scratch mini-festival to discover the best Latin American talent working in the UK today as well as free live music every night, playreadings, spoken word events, a visual arts exhibition of great young Latin American artists based in London and much more.
Five lives. Five lonely people. All of them looking for love. One day will bring them together in a way that will force them to face the lies they live with. Timbre4, one of Argentina’s most respected theatre companies, are led by playwright/director/actor Claudio Tolcachir and operate out of one of the smallest theatre spaces in Buenos Aires: Tolcachir’s own home. Though their resources are limited, their reputation isn’t. Written as a follow up to his breakthrough hit play, The Omission of the Coleman Family, Tercer Cuerpo has been performed over 300 times, including performances at major theatre festivals across Latin America, Europe and the USA. First performed in 2008, Tercer Cuerpo has since won Best Production at the National Theatre Awards and the Maria Guerrero award for Best Play, as well as Best Actor, Best Writer and Best Lighting at the Teatro del Mundo Festival.
Starring award-winning actor Carlos Rodriguez, Cabrerita tells the uplifting story of the life of Raúl Javiel Cabrera, mythical Montevidean character and noted watercolourist, who was committed to a mental asylum for thirty years under the most terrible conditions a man can be expected to bear, mostly due to bad luck. Teatro de la Alhambra is an independent theatre company formed in 1995 when a group of actors that had studied under Jorge Triador contacted director Eduardo Cervieri and decided to form their own company. They have produced a number of critically acclaimed shows including ..tuyo, Federico, Tierra Gitana, Sepia by Eduardo Cervieri, Montevicuentos and Sexo en la cabeza. Cabrerita is their biggest success to date and has been performed to great acclaim across Latin America and Spain. It won Best Actor and Best Uruguayan Play at the Florencio Awards (Uruguay’s National Theatre Critics Awards).ost important 20th Century visual artist and intellectual. “Cabrerita” won Uruguay’s National Theatre Critic’s “Florencio” Awards for Best Actor and Best Play.
“Acéfalos doesn’t aim to tell you a story… It’s a theatrical gamble… We wanted to challenge the audience’s need to “understand” what they’re watching. We wanted to play a game that only made sense to us. We wanted to see how far you could go before your aesthetic slipped away and disappeared into chaos… But none of it worked. The audience came and, sitting huddled in the darkness waiting for, hoping for something, who knows what, they understood. They understood our show with their hearts and their minds and their souls. They defeated us. We’re happy.” Teatro del Presagio, founded in Cali in 2005, are regarded as one of the most exciting theatre companies making work in Colombia today. Always striving to push theatrical boundaries to the maximum, Acéfalos was created in 2008. It premiered at the VIth Cali National Theatre Festival where Diego Fernando Montoya received the Best Director Award for the piece. Acefalos was generously supported by the Colombian Embassy.
A new version of Eduardo Pavlovsky’s Argentine masterpiece Potestad, this powerful monologue explores the kidnapping of children during a Latin American dictatorship. According to René Lovo, director and performer, it is a play that confronts the socio-political and profoundly human truth of a country that, at some point in its recent past, has engaged in the disappearing of unwanted elements of society for political reasons. La Galera Teatro (originally La Cocina Teatro) was founded in 2006 to investigate and develop the autonomy of the actor while creating works that challenge the social and cultural contexts in which they are made. El secreto más terrible has been performed in El Salvador and at the Festival Internacional Teatro del Carmen in Mexico. In April of this year La Galera Teatro became the first El Salvadorian company to perform in Spain.
Tell us who YOU want to see at next year’s CASA 2011 Latin American Theatre Festival. We’re giving six Latin American companies and artists who make theatre work in the UK the chance to share a new project with you. Each company has up to 15 minutes to inspire you, to delight you, to move you. Then it’s your turn as we all move to the Cafe Bar, where you’ll have a chance to tell them exactly what you thought over a FREE Cusqueña beer. For the shy (or very critical) amongst you, you can of course offer feedback anonymously through secret paper forms. Once we’ve had a good chance to read all your comments and had a good think ourselves we’ll pick one company who we will work with in the hope we can all see the full length show at CASA 2011. Nuestra CASA Scratch Festival was generously supported by Cusquena Beer.
