The second month of my Nicaraguan immersion journey was bookended with theater.
One of the various reasons I chose to move to Matagalpa was that there is a women’s collective with a theater troupe. For the past four years, I have had the great pleasure to be in an interactive theater troupe for social justice, Rehearsals for Life. Theater of the Oppressed, which is the inspiration for my theater troupe, comes from Brazil; I didn’t know if I’d have the opportunity to participate in theater here, but I figured I could learn a lot from feminist Latin American theater.
I walked into the Colectivo de Mujeres en Matagalpa (Women’s Collective of Matagalpa) for the first time on a Wednesday. That Friday and Saturday they were hosting a workshop on Poesía Corporal (Corporal or Physical Poetry) with a director from Argentina, Graciela Casanova. I decided to jump in, though I really didn’t know what I was getting into. I spent two full days with a dozen Nicaraguan women, while Graciela guided us through activities using our whole bodies for expression. Graciela would give us a prompt, such as: express a word from the poem provided using movement. She then let us continue with that same prompt long enough to move from acting, to getting bored, to move beyond boredom to flow into creating something new. We moved from activity to activity, with one hour at the end of the day for questions. When I asked why there wasn’t debrief after each activity to reinforce learning, Graciela responded, “¿Porque siempre tenemos que hacer cosas para aprender?”/”Why must we always do things to learn?” This statements nicely framed my second month. I had moved out of the honeymoon stage of cultural immersion when everything is new and exciting, and moved into regular life. Since I have specific personal/professional development goals for my time here and the time here comes at personal cost, I feel compelled to ensure I’m ever-growing and learning. Graciela reminded me of something my friend Kate would tell me too, I’m here to experience, to live life with the natural ups and downs. Learning will come out of that, I don’t need to force it.
This video is in Spanish produced by Radio Vos “Donde tu voz se escucha” radiovos.org reporting on the Poesia Corporal workshop:
One of the various reasons I chose to move to Matagalpa was that there is a women’s collective with a theater troupe. For the past four years, I have had the great pleasure to be in an interactive theater troupe for social justice, Rehearsals for Life. Theater of the Oppressed, which is the inspiration for my theater troupe, comes from Brazil; I didn’t know if I’d have the opportunity to participate in theater here, but I figured I could learn a lot from feminist Latin American theater.
I walked into the Colectivo de Mujeres en Matagalpa (Women’s Collective of Matagalpa) for the first time on a Wednesday. That Friday and Saturday they were hosting a workshop on Poesía Corporal (Corporal or Physical Poetry) with a director from Argentina, Graciela Casanova. I decided to jump in, though I really didn’t know what I was getting into. I spent two full days with a dozen Nicaraguan women, while Graciela guided us through activities using our whole bodies for expression. Graciela would give us a prompt, such as: express a word from the poem provided using movement. She then let us continue with that same prompt long enough to move from acting, to getting bored, to move beyond boredom to flow into creating something new. We moved from activity to activity, with one hour at the end of the day for questions. When I asked why there wasn’t debrief after each activity to reinforce learning, Graciela responded, “¿Porque siempre tenemos que hacer cosas para aprender?”/”Why must we always do things to learn?” This statements nicely framed my second month. I had moved out of the honeymoon stage of cultural immersion when everything is new and exciting, and moved into regular life. Since I have specific personal/professional development goals for my time here and the time here comes at personal cost, I feel compelled to ensure I’m ever-growing and learning. Graciela reminded me of something my friend Kate would tell me too, I’m here to experience, to live life with the natural ups and downs. Learning will come out of that, I don’t need to force it.
This video is in Spanish produced by Radio Vos “Donde tu voz se escucha” radiovos.org reporting on the Poesia Corporal workshop: