Noticias
Eighth edition
Dramafest Festival to touch Swiss soil in 2018
July 23, 2018The Contemporary Dramaturgy International Festival: Dramafest 2018 will have Switzerland and Oaxaca as guest country and state in its eighth edition, announced Aurora Cano, artistic director of the event, at a press conference.
The biennial event that seeks to stimulate and promote contemporary drama in Mexico will be held in Mexico City from August 2 to September 2, in Oaxaca de Juarez from September 3 to 9, and from September 20 to 29 in Geneva, Switzerland.
Aurora Cano expressed her joy at "keeping the festival afloat" and continuing to have the support of public institutions. She stressed that this is the first time that there is an exchange with the guest country, where in addition to presenting their productions, Mexican productions will be programmed in Switzerland.
She said that Dramafest is a creative event that does not necessarily present productions that have already been edited, but creates them, which is already quite unusual in the world of festivals. "We invite artists and together we build and produce, creating new productions”.
The playwright also pointed out that one of the purposes of the Dramafest is to show the contemporary writing of the guest country. In order to fulfill that purpose, two plays will be performed in German with Spanish subtitles: Woman in the forest, with which the festival will begin on August 2, at the Teatro Santa Catarina of UNAM, and Metamorphosis.
Concerning this exchange, Mathie Bertholet, director of Théâtre Poche Gve, a Swiss company that receives and evaluates dramaturgical texts to be performed in the European country said that in his opinion there was no point in just coming to show what is being done in his country.
"I thought it would be very interesting to come to this festival and see how a Swiss work can be done here and vice versa, to take a Mexican work to Switzerland. For the little I have seen, the two theaters are very different for many reasons. I think Mexico's is more sentimental, emotional and baroque, in Europe we are a little more minimalist and abstract,” he said.
The Swiss creator will direct Under the Sign of Thespis, written by José Manuel Hidalgo, while the Mexican Damián Cervantes will direct The Dire Fate of Karl Klotz, by the Swiss Lukas Linder. Both will be staged at the Centro Cultural del Bosque.
The productions that complement the programming of this event, which will take place first in Mexico City and will be repeated in Oaxaca, are: La brulla y la grulla by Adriano Madriles, directed by Andromeda Mejía; MAH, written and directed by Alfonso Cárcamo.
The artistic director of Dramafest celebrated the participation in Oaxaca, because after the September 19 earthquake, she said, it is necessary to promote cultural creation as a form of support. She said that the family is one of the recurring themes in the texts to be staged this year.
Other activities that make up the meeting include dramatized readings, the project Karaoke for 2 and a workshop given by Swiss playwright and scriptwriter Antoine Jaccoud at the Hellenic Cultural Center from August 27-31.
The dramatized readings will be Palavie by Valerie Poirier; Au revoir by Antoine Jaccoud (both from Switzerland); Las Balmoreadas by Elena Guiochíns; Don´t ask what Sleeping Beauty dreamt about by Francisco Reyes (Oaxaca) and Omittere by Alberto Barrientos. All of them will be held at the La Gruta Forum of the Hellenic Cultural Center.
In Karaoke for 2, viewers will become actors in a story they don't know and discover more about as they do and say what the characters are touched by, following, through simple headphones that give them instructions to live other lives and be surprised and excited about it.
The activity will take place in metro stations: August 14 and 15 in Pino Suárez; August 21 and 22 in Chabacano and 28 and 29 in Copilco. From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The texts that make up the program of productions were chosen from among 60 entries and the dramatized reading texts from among 40. The purpose of Dramafest is to promote contemporary drama in Mexico, to bring the theater closer to the public and to create links between the national and international communities.
For further information and programming, please visit: http://dramafestmx.com/.
Mexico
