Minga de una casa en ruinas § Reminiscencia

Minga de una casa en ruinas

The Chillean collective Cuerpo Sur creates poetic and committed works, in direct contact with the reality of its country. Here, through the incredible story of a house that is moved by boat, it evokes property, housing and exile all at once.

Although practically forgotten, the minga is a pre-Hispanic tradition of collective work. In the Chiloé archipelago, in Chilean Patagonia, in addition to agricultural purposes, this informal system of mutual aid was put into practice when a person moved and – another ancient tradition – moved their entire house from one place to another, by sea or land. Mínga de una casa en ruinas is a show literally created with the remains of a destroyed house, hundreds of tejuelas, wooden slats used for construction, with which the Cuerpo Sur collective generates a spatial, visual and sound device manipulated by the actress Ébana Garín. The latter tells us a series of intertwined stories, such as that of her own family, who had to go into exile for political reasons. How many homes will have to be destroyed to finally understand who we are? Can we build another future on these ruins?

Dramaturgy, direction: Luis Guenel and Ébana Garín
Integral design: Ricardo Romero Perez
Sound designer and musical composition: Damian Noguera Berger
Agent, international representative: Loreto Araya Ignat

--------------------
Reminiscencia

Cloistered at home during the lockdown, Malicho Vaca sat down at his computer and began collecting memories from the inhabitants of Santiago. His goal was to tell the story of his neighborhood in the center of the Chilean capital, a colorful neighborhood where all the gatherings take place and all the political demonstrations start. But as the testimonies unfolded, what should have been just a personal search turned into an unidentified stage object. Reminiscencia is a motionless journey. In this country "where there are immense blue skies in which you can read but where you don't know what is hidden in the ground," the director digs into the earth: with a simple click on a digital map, he brings to light mysterious loves and repressed revolutions, fragments of an intimate and collective memory. 
During the confinement, the Chilean director was able to relate the investigation that was carried out on his family with the stories of the Internet users of his city. The map of Santiago is universally gracious to its humanity.

With: Rosa Alfaro, Malicho Vaca Valenzuela, Lindor Valenzuela 
Text, creation, direction, dramaturgy and video: Malicho Vaca Valenzuela 
Lighting: Nicolás Zapata 
Assistant director: Ébana Garín Coronel 
Translation for the surtitling (english): Christine Hills
General and video management: Malicho Vaca Valenzuela 
Stage management: Ébana Garín Coronel 
Administration, production, broadcast: Ébana Garín, Luis Guenel, Roni Isola, Fundación Cuerpo Sur