• Overview
• About Project Entrada
• About Project Erendira
• Why Colombia?
• Corporacion Colombiana de Teatro
• Impact of the Project
• Artist Collaborators

Aluna Theatre, Theatre Revolve and Tridha Arts Association (Toronto, Canada) present Project Entrada, the creation of a new professional theatrical production, created and presented in Bogota, Colombia, and in Toronto, Canada.

This dynamic project is the coming together of three like-minded individuals and organizations, Natasha Mytnowych (Theatre Revolve), Beatriz Pizano (Aluna Theatre) and Adriana Sabogal (Tridha Arts Association) as we strive to produce a relevant, groundbreaking collaboration between Toronto-based artists and Colombian professionals exploring the movement of people, goods and ideas between our two countries, to create a work of a shared vision.

Theatre Revolve is a not-for-profit organization that empowers female artists through the creation of live theatre, artistic training, mentorship and leadership development in dynamic projects of immediate impact and global implication, while establishing and strengthening local and international arts networks. 

Aluna Theatre is a not-for-profit company that creates, develops, produces, and presents artistically innovative and culturally diverse performance work, with a focus on Latin Canadian and woman artists.

Tridha Arts Association is a non-for-profit organization dedicated to create, design and produce performing arts event and performances, to administer and manage dance, theatre and music companies and to develop educational programs focusing on international exchanges among artists from Canada and Latin America.

This project has been in development for over four years.  Beatriz Pizano (Aluna Theatre) received a grant to establish a relationship and the seeds of this project with the Corporation in 2003.   In 2006, the Canada Council supported the travel to Colombia for Natasha Mytnowych (Theatre Revolve), Beatriz Pizano (Aluna Theatre) and Adriana Sabogal (Tridha Arts Association) which resulted in the further development of the project’s details in collaboration with Corporation Artistic Director Patricia Ariza and Carlos Satizabal. 

Our project is inspired by the work of Patricia Ariza, Artistic Director of Corporacion Colombiana de Teatro in Bogota, Colombia, is promoting social empowerment among Colombia's most excluded sectors of society, including indigenous people, blacks, drug addicts, women displaced by violence, and especially youth. Her movement enables these groups to engage with society at large, and in safe community-based settings to present their own solutions to the country's problems of poverty, violence, guerrilla groups, drug trafficking, corruption, refugees, and other social issues.  We have included a more thorough explanation of the work of Patricia Ariza in Bogota with refugees, youth and disadvantaged people in the context of a professional theatre company with her letter of support.  This description provides a thorough context for the scope of her incredible work and what we stand learn about ways to create community-based theatre from this internationally renowned trail-blazer in the field.

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Project Entrada is a professional production that will be created by a team of professional artists, ten of whom are from Canada.  The project will be directed by Patricia Ariza (Colombia) with the support of Carlos Satizabal, and will follow their unique Collective Creation process which has devised an incredible body of work over the last 30 years.  It should be noted that while we have a tradition of “collective creation” in Canada, the specific Colombian process has a rigour and structure to it that makes it distinct from our own.  The Corporation is an internationally renowned alternative theatre company, one of the very first in Colombia to create politically based, highly visual and very relevant works that speak to a large and passionate audience.  The Corporation is also renowned for its ability to collaborate with people from many communities from across Colombia including the Indigenous and Amazon natives, and particularly displaced persons, training them as professional artists and collaborating with them on dynamic large-scale projects.  Project Entrada will follow such a tradition, culminating in a large-scale, outdoor performance.  The team of professionals will include Canadians Beatriz Pizano (director, performer), Adriana Sabogal (producer), Daniel Arce (video artist), Claire Calnan (writer, performer), Lisa Codrington (writer, performer), Ame Henderson (choreographer, dance, performer), Trevor Schwellnus (designer) and Natasha Mytnowych (producer, dramaturge and community arts coordinator); and Colombians Patricia Ariza, Carlos Satizabal and members of their professional ensemble that they will select.  The team will also include two emerging professionals who have come through the Theatre Revolve training and performance process.  The team of Canadian and Colombian professional artists will devise the work and collaborate with displaced children, youth and adults to create an outdoor spectacle that reflects the emotional minefield and political chaos as a result of the displacement of over 1-million Colombians due to the armed conflict of the city.  The project will also examine the challenges faced by so many new Canadians as they struggle to continue in a new city (Toronto) that is still learning how to support this increasing population.  It should be noted that not only do all of our professional artists have incredible skill and acclaim in their outlined artistic fields and practices, but all of them are passionate about community and youth arts and are very excited about how this process will push them to examine how they approach this facet of their work.

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Project Erendira is Theatre Revolve’s planned international endeavor that runs concurrently to this professional project.  Theatre Revolve has developed an ensemble of young women ages 18 – 26, and we we intend to bring a group of these young women to Colombia at the same time as Project Erendira, where they will be emersed in the creative culture of Bogota, learn from the work of young artists on the stage and in the communities, and examine the situation for young women in Colombia in greater detail.   They will also learn from and document the entire experience of the professional creation.  All of the work will be profiled on our website, and a documentary of the process be created and to share the experience with a audience.  The Revolve women will be further empowered to expand upon our methodology to work with young women from numerous communities and strengthen our international network of empowered women artists.

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Why Colombia?  Like many regions in Canada, Colombia has shifted in the past 50 years from a nation of a larger proportion of rural inhabitants to a highly urbanized setting, with some 75 percent of Colombians now living in urban areas. In addition to the many Colombians who come to the cities in search of improved economic prospects, hundreds of thousands of families trying to escape the recent violence of the countryside now find themselves as refugees in newly formed cities and shantytowns. In many cases, this tide of urban migration has been accompanied by a neglect or rejection of cultural and social traditions.  The capital of Colombia, Bogotá, is a city of approximately seven million inhabitants, over one million of whom are refugees who have fled violence in the countryside. Despite their desires to escape the crime, threats, and constant danger which have become endemic to rural life in Colombia, city life has proven equally violent. Bogotá is one of the most violent cities in the world, home to many of the 42,000 violent deaths and assassinations reported in Colombia in 1996. The majority of victims killed are young people under the age of 30.  Refugees typically arrive to the cities hostile, unemployed, and in shock. Few programs or activities exist to address these problems or help them cope with their new realities. Children and young people are especially affected by the violence and the absence of strong cultural traditions which characterize urban life-particularly poor, urban life-in Colombia. Street children are publicly referred to as "disposables" by the police and politicians. In many sectors of the country, where there is nothing to identify with except pain, the children speak only about violence, the war, and the dead. This scenario of exclusion has led many urban dwellers to become involved in the illegal economy of contraband, drug trade, and arms trafficking, all of which generate new forms of violence. Out of fear and desperation people become involved in guerrilla and paramilitary groups. There is daily armed confrontation in the countryside between the guerrillas, primarily farm workers, and armed paramilitary groups protecting business interests.  Drug trafficking and corruption, fed by the high levels of consumption in large metropolitan areas of the United States and Europe, has penetrated every level of Colombian society. The link between these sectors and civil society, the economic results of money-laundering, and the arrival of businesses that feed on these "narco-dollars" have changed the economic map of the country, land ownership, the formation of the cities, and political and cultural ethics. 

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Corporacion Colombiana de Teatro The Corporacion Colombiana de Teatro believes that Art is by excellence a space of social inclusion and that both its enjoyment and creative practice must be fundamental aspects in the life of all the people. The Arts are the sensitive memory of humanity. A society that does not value the arts and the role of the artists in society is a society condemned to the movements of its current situation.    Only with access to a broad diversity of artistic expression reflecting the richness, complexity and variety of human experience can culture be enabled to play its true role: turning Visible the Invisible through a permanent expedition through new original expressive forms, to the collective memory, including the new cultural forms created by the youth.

In our pedagogical creative mission of 30 years, we have proved that collective creation produces amazing results. Human beings, and in particular youth, tend to create groups. In these groups they have the possibility of building the “us” and from there they recognize themselves and recognize the environment that surrounds them.  If these groups are spaces for knowledge and creation, the cultural development is amazing. If this does not exist they search other ways of finding an “us” among high-risk groups vulnerable for the lack of education, work and foremost the number of issues that excite them positively. 

We have undertaken this mission with the methodology of the collective creation where the groups begin their artistic creation from their experiences, from their own imaginary. We don’t intend them to copy or imitate, we want them to create original works with their own talent from their personal imaginary.  This experience shows us how the creativity in the art brings people in general, and youth in particular, to discover their own talents and gifts and the ones of their group allowing them to recognize and be recognized by the texts, songs and dances they have created collectively. They then recognize their surroundings, the society and therefore are able to have a dialogue with it.  For example Contravia was a group created with children between 7 and 12 years old with the support of the UCPI. The UCPI support lasted 15 months and the group has been working permanently for 10 years. It currently has 3 pieces in repertoire.  Another experience is the group RAPSODA, a collective created with seven rappers form the neghborhood Las Cruces in 1994. Today this group has 17 rappers and has 6 works in repertoire. It has done 2 international tours including a trip to Canada. And the third experience is the ENLACE MELISA, a collective of 10 girls.

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Impact of the Project
This artistic collaboration will have many outcomes that will enrich the practice of the Canadian theatre artists learning from the work of the Colombians, and vice versa.  We have structured our project in three components to illustrate the different aspects of the work:

1. The professional production will be devised and created though collective creation.  Elements will be developed prior to travel (including some writing and idea generation), but the bulk of the work will occur in Bogota at the Corporacion Colombiana de Teatro.   Artists will work from 2pm – 7pm each day on this project.  It will be directed by Patricia Ariza and all professional artists will collaborate on the production’s development.
2. Professional artists from both countries will facilitate daily workshops on their expertise within the theatrical practice, on subjects such as direction, dramaturgy, new play creation, design, rigging, technical theatre, video and new media, choreography and movement, collective creation etc.  Artists from both countries will lead workshops in their methodology and teach specific skills that all members of the team will learn.  The ensemble of Colombian theatre artists at the Corporation and neighbouring theatre La Candelaria, as well as other professional artists from Bogota, will be invited to attend these daily exchanges of practice.  These workshops will occur from 9am – 12:30pm on alternate days.
3. The large-scale street performance will feature the incorporation of children, youth and adults from the displaced communities in Bogota.  The Corporacion works with numerous communities to develop artists and create professional works through a rigorous process that has resulted in many renowned works.  They have an approach to community work that pushes the boundaries of the practice that Canadians are just beginning to explore.  All of the professionals will learn specific methods and approaches to building upon shared experiences to produce very effective theatrical endeavors that are of great meaning to the participants.  The professionals will observe and participate in the Corporation’s work with its numerous community projects from 9am – 12:30pm on alternate mornings.       

The result of this work will be a large-scale, dynamic, political and professionally led production that will be able to be replicated in process by the professionals in Toronto with Canadian communities.  Will be seeking support from the Component IV to bring the work to Toronto, and incorporate new Canadian children, youth and adults from the immigrant and refugee communities  into the project in its Toronto presentation.  This incorporation will build upon the work of Theatre Revolve in Toronto, and push the integration of professional and community art.   The structure of this project, whereby a team of professionals devises and then can re-create the community integration components of the project in a new city, is what we feel makes this work unique.  The process of engaging with people from both communities who are actually experiencing what the work is about, moreover engaging them in cultural activity and the professional presentation of new work, will have an impact on the depth of the professional work.  The Colombians have been approaching their work, their audience, their relevance and their connection to their communities in this way for some time.  Their “community” projects have toured internationally and achieved great acclaim, a result of the professional approach they have to this work – it is seen as essential to the work they do.  Some of the most dynamic professional artists at the Corporation had come from these community endeavors.  Moreover, the Corporation is a vital cultural and political institution in Bogota because its work both reflects and engages with its people on many levels.  The work is integrated, not forcefully separated from its “community”.  In Toronto, we identify this approach as essential to understand and try to employ – our diversity of our audiences, vitality of our communities and relevance of our art to an increasingly diverse city is dependant on it.     

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Artistic Collaborators

Natasha Mytnowych: Artistic Director, Theatre Revolve
Natasha is an award-winning playwright, director and designer. She most recently received the inaugural Mayor’s Arts Award for an Emerging Artist and was nominated for the Ontario Arts Council’s John Hirsch Award for Emerging Directors. She is currently Artistic Director for Theatre Revolve and Company Theatre Crisis, and the Company Manager and Executive Assistant to the Artistic Producer at the Canadian Stage Company. She was the Artistic Producer for the Paprika Festival from 2004 – 2007, Producer for the 26th Annual Dora Mavor Moore Awards, Associate Producer for the 2006 AfriCanadian Playwrights Festival, Artistic Associate for Nightwood Theatre, as well as Associate Festival Director for 2005 Groundswell Festival, Associate Festival Director 2004 and Assistant Festival Director 2003.  She initiated and facilitated Nightwood’s Emerging Actor Program, and was the Assistant Festival Director for the 2004 Hysteria: A Festival of Women for Nightwood Theatre/Buddies in Bad Times’ Theatre (Assistant Festival Director 2003).  She was the Under-21 Associate Director for the 2003 Rhubarb! Festival for Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. 

Recent directing projects include Suzan-Lori Parks’ 365 Plays/365 Days (Volcano/LMDA) and The Russian Play at Harbourfront Centre and the Magnetic North Theatre Festival.  She has directed new works for Resurgence Theatre Company (Discovering Romeo by Anthony Leo), Alumnae Theatre (Ashes to Ashes by Harold Pinter), The Wrecking Ball (NGO by Hannah Moscovitch) the Hysteria Festival (Girl Power Schopenhauer (opera) by Alexis Diamond/Nicholas Gilbert, Recess by Corrina Hodgson; curator for Saucy:  Girls with Smart Mouths; co-curator for BaBoom! F*cking Good Fashion), Nightwood Theatre (Horse Latitudes by Nicola Harwood; Three Fingered Jack and The Legend of Joaquin Murieta by Marilo Nunez; Alice by Carly Spencer; Pussy by Jane Haddad; Pop My Cherry by Melinda Mattos), Project Just Being (The End is No Longer Near by Mark Andrada), written and directed new works for the Toronto Fringe Festival (velo_city), the Paprika Festival (How the Fish See the Stars, binary), the U of T Drama Festival (metam and wreck’d), and written new works for the Rhubarb! Festival (Aperture), Tarragon’s Spring Arts Fair (parallaxe/ellpisen and the SummerWorks Theatre Festival, (Fly, Ungeziefer [vermin]), where her adaptation of Kafka’s Metamorphosis Ungeziefer [vermin] debuted to critical acclaim and sold out houses in 2003. Upcoming projects include In Full Light and I Think of You, Erendira in the Toronto SummerWorks Festival, and The Russian Play at Factory Theatre in 2008.

Recent assistant directing credits include traveling to Denmark to assistant direct Nightwood Theatre’s The Danish Play at Aveny-T in Copenhagen, as well as at the Magnetic North Theatre Festival in Edmonton, and the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, as well as assisting Eda Holmes on Claudia Dey’s Trout Stanley at Factory Theatre and Kate Lynch on a production of Cymbeline at the University of Toronto.  Other assistant directing credits include Therac 25 (Factory Theatre), The Kafka in Love (World Stage/Autumn Leaf Performance), Absolutely Chekhov and The Play About the Baby (Soulpepper Theatre Company), BeBe (Nightwood Theatre/Rhubarb), I Am Yours (Equity Showcase Theatre), Othello (Shakespeare in the Rough) and the Buncha Young Artists…Festival (Theatre Direct Canada).  Natasha has participated in numerous Director’s Laboratories and Playwriting Units, including: the World Stage Director’s Laboratory (with John Barton, Kama Ginkas, Mike Alfreds and Christopher Newton); several Soulpepper’s Directing MasterClasses, working with Joseph Ziegler, Daniel Brooks and Helena Kaut-Howson; the Tapestry New Opera/Equity Showcase Music Directors/Stage Directors New Opera Works Laboratory; the Rhubarb! Festival Director's Lab; the Hart House Playwrights Unit; Tarragon Theatre's Young Playwrights Unit; and has been involved as a dramaturge in Nightwood Theatre’s Groundswell Playwrights Unit for the past three years. 

Natasha has received the Robert Gill Award for Outstanding Direction (2004), the Helen Gardiner Phelan Scholarship (2004), at the University of Toronto, the Mira Friedlander Award for Extraordinary Accomplishment for Playwriting, Direction and Design, (2001) through the Sears Drama Festival.  She was the winner of the Tarragon Theatre’s 20-Under-20s Playwriting Competition (2002).  Natasha sits on the Board of Directors for Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, the Laidlaw Foundation’s Arts Advisory, The Sears Drama Festival’s Scholarship and Awards Board of Directors, Theatre Direct Canada’s Artistic Advisory and Factory Theatre’s Education Advisory.  She is an Honours Graduate of High Distinction of the University of Toronto.

Theatre Revolve
MANDATE
Theatre Revolve empowers female artists through the creation of live theatre, artistic training, mentorship and leadership development in dynamic projects of immediate impact and global implication, while establishing and strengthening local and international arts networks.  

VISION
Theatre Revolve is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating a vibrant community of female artists collaborating on projects that cross boundaries in culture, economics, education and experience, and who strive to support one another while developing artistic, visioning and leadership skills.  The opportunity to be creative, build new skills, shape new ideas, and make them reality is fundamental in the creation of groundbreaking works of art as well as in the entrepreneurship that shapes our world.  We strive to challenge our perceptions of how we are connected to our different communities, throughout Toronto and across the globe, and in this project combining dynamic young voices and artistic excellence, push community development, artistic creation and international collaboration to new heights.

Theatre Revolve is tremendously excited about this first international collaboration of Project Entrada, and believes that it will have a significant impact not only on the work within the organization, but for the entire youth arts sector, as it pushes boundaries and insists on collaboration between countries, companies, artists, youth, funders, organizations and disciplines on work that is of a significant social impact.  We are not afraid of asking big questions, nor bringing unlikely players into the mix and asking, how can we collaborate to make a difference.   We need to bring together artists from different experiences and communities to explore the intersections of how war and violence are shaping our evolving city, and how our lives have the power to intersect with others from across the globe.  Our collaboration so far with Aluna Theatre, Tridha Arts Association, and the Corporacion has been incredibly fruitful, and we are looking forward with great anticipation to the next phases of our work. 

Beatriz Pizano, Artistic Director, Aluna Theatre; director/performer
Beatriz is a graduate from UBC with a Major in Psychology.  She also studied Fine and Performing Arts at Simon Fraser University and at  Emily Carr School of Art and Design.  Further, she has been a professional actor since 1988 with numerous credits in theatre, film and television.   In 2001 she founded Aluna Theatrewhich in a short time hasestablished itself as the leading professional Latin/Canadian theatre company in Toronto.  Recently, the company was awarded the Capacity Building Grant from the Canada Council for the Arts Equity Office.  Beatriz has been a recipient of numerous awards and grants for her work, including:  The Metcalf Professional Development grant 2006-2007 to be the Associate Artistic Director at Nightwood Theatre, the Chalmers Professional Development in 2006 which took her Belgrade, Serbia to work with the Dah Theatre and at to LaMamma Umbria in Italy.   In 2004-2005 she was awarded the Urjo Kareda Emerging Artists grant from the Tarragon Theatre where she spent the season as an intern writer/director. She has been an assistant director for: Richard Rose, Eda Holmes, Laszlo Marton. Directing Credits include:   Extreme Women (Nightwood Theatre)  Bear with Me (written and performed by Diane Flacks, 2007 Magnetic North Festival)  I think of You Erendida (Theatre Revolve- co-director) The Dinner Party (Rhubarb Festival 2006), Capturing Freedom (Summerworks Festival 2005); For Sale (2 Dora Mavor Moore Awards in 2004); The Fire Story for Write from the Hip(2003), meeting playce (Summerworks Festival 2003).   WRITING CREDITS:  The Communion (Tarragon Playwright’s unit, 2007 CrossCurrents Festival at the Factory Theatre), Madre (2005 Nightwood Theatre’s Playwrights unit)  For Sale (Dora nominated as Outstanding New Play), meeting playce (co-creator), Tangueratas (co-writer, Chicano/Latino Literary Contest winner and Southwest Festival of New Plays in Texas contest winner). Film writing credits include: In Between; A Devil at my Table.  

Beatriz Pizano on Project Entrada:
Project Entrada it is one of the most important initiatives that Aluna Theatre has created and developed to date.  This project will have a significant impact on myself as an artist and as artistic director of the company, as well as on the future production and creation of Aluna Theatre itself.  From the onset of the company we have had a strong focus on international exchanges and co-productions.  After four years since our fist International Pilot project Component I in 2003, we are now ready to make this project a reality.  Entrada is of extreme significance for us.  First of all, we will be working and creating in Colombia which gives me an opportunity to return to my birth place as a professional theatre maker after 28 years.  The work that we write and produce at Aluna has been very influenced by our concerns for world peace and specifically by the need and desire to expose the armed conflict and the many human rights violations inherited in this war in Colombia.   Second, our mandate and mission includes the inclusion and development of Latin American arts and artists in Canada.  The knowledge that I will acquire working with the Corporacion de Teatro and specifically Patricia Ariza, is essential for our goals as a company.  This artist is one of the most important women in Latin American Theatre and has more than forty years of experience developing collective creation based work with the most experimental theatres in Colombia as well as working with communities displaced or otherwise affected by the war in that country.  My goal is to learn the skills involved in this methodology so that I can apply it to some of our work in Aluna, specifically:  working with communities, the development of professional artists from these communities, and the creation of a long term relationship with the audiences that result from this work.  I want to build in Canada something similar to what the Corporacion has achieved:  a successful theatre that has a permanent space and group of artists, a company that creates original work that addresses the concerns of a community and reflects their reality in the theatre, and through this, a faithful and extensive audience which supports and enriches their work. Lastly, this collaboration between Theatre Revolve, Tridha and Aluna Theatre has proven to be an amazing opportunity to grow and expand as artists learning to work together.  Our work at Revolve to date has been enriching, exciting and challenging.  I believe collaboration is the future of theatre.  The sharing of resources, knowledge, experiences and skills allows theatre makers to go beyond their own abilities and think of art as a unifying force.

Aluna Theatre
Mandate
Aluna Theatre is a not-for-profit company that creates, develops, produces, and presents artistically innovative and culturally diverse performance work, with a focus on Latin Canadian and woman artists.

Mission
The artistic mission of Aluna Theatre is to embrace the bursting cultural myriad of voices and stories of our population, transforming the landscape of Canadian theatre. In our new plays, works in translation, and international co-creations, people are complex individuals who exist beyond the restrictions of cultural labels.  We encourage new hybrids of theatre evolved from a rich collaboration of experiences, performance traditions and media, by engaging both emerging and established theatre professionals.  Our work reaches out to communities to attract new diverse audiences in Canada and abroad, to build liaisons that promote art as way to empower, and to share with each other and the world how to live in harmony.

Vision
Aluna Theatre’s artistic work benefits society by addressing social issues, raising awareness, and promoting values and attitudes that Canadians embrace as a nation: acceptance, diversity, equity, peace, respect, human rights and social justice. 

Objectives

• Artistic Production:
• to achieve artistic excellence and integrity 
• to make our work socially relevant, multi-disciplinary, risky, experimental, and distinctive, evolving from the performance traditions, voices and stories of the various culturally diverse communities – particularly the Latin-Canadian / Colombian-Canadian 
• to focus on new Canadian work, works in translation and international co-creations
• to maintain a highly functional governance, administrative and financial infrastructure through strategic planning to support our artistic production
• Artist/Arts Worker Development:
• to advance and empower under-represented artists (playwrights, actors, directors, designers, stage managers), with a focus on the Latin-Canadian Diaspora
• to provide professional development and employment opportunities to emerging and established artists and recently-immigrated experienced artists, as well as, to production, technical, administrative, and marketing/publicity arts workers
• to advance the work of women artists
• Community Outreach & Development:
• to provide opportunities for training, mentoring, and leadership development, through our artistic projects, for youth and emerging artists
• to create liaisons that promote art as a way of empowering people in at-risk immigrant and refugee communities
• to provide opportunities for volunteer development, as for example through board membership, community-building activities, and theatrical work placements
• Audience Development:
• to reach out to new audiences by creating work that reflects the cultural mosaic of this country, making theatre attractive and inviting to a wider population to educate and entertain the public through our performance work, while bringing awareness about specific social and humanitarian issues affecting diverse communities within Canada and abroad

Adriana Sabogal, Executive Director, Tridha Arts Association
Adriana Sabogal is a producer, presenter, promoter and manager that has worked with theatre, dance and music groups.  Adriana has produced several national and international events in Colombia, Mexico and Canada. She has worked as a stage and tour manager for renowned companies and has specialized in coordinating the production of multidisciplinary events of all sizes and budgets. Sabogal is currently the Arts and Tour Manager for Dance Umbrella of Ontario, and the director of Tridha Arts Association with offices in Bogotá - Colombia and Toronto. She also works independently as a consultant and tour manager and is the international dance advisor for the Cultural Department of the City Hall Office in Bogotá. Her expertise in production and management have taken her around the world developing a network that covers Latin America and a big part of Europe.

Tridha Arts Association 
Tridha Arts Association is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the creation, design and production of arts performances and events as well as developing educational programs focusing on the national and international exchange among artists.  Tridha Bogota was founded in Bogota, Colombia in the year 2000 and Tridha Arts Association in Toronto in the year 2006.  Over the course of its history Tridha has advised and supported private and governmental institutions in the formulation, implementation and execution of projects, plans, programs and activities in the arts field.  Tridha has presented theatre plays, dance, music and has produced conferences, expositions, festivals and events of diverse formats and budgets.  During the last three years Tridha has expanded to the international level, creating international exchanges through governmental agreements and contracts between Colombia and Canada, where a second office has been opened in Toronto.  Recent international collaboration projects include an indigenous international dance co-production among Colombian and Canadian indigenous artists, which culminated in a presentation at Harbourfront Centre and York University in the Ritmo Y Color Festival of Latin American Culture in July 2006, a three-month dance residency/creation project for a Canadian choreographer in Colombia, the presentation of five Colombian dance companies in Harbourfront Centres’s summer festivals, five Canadian companies traveling to Colombia to tour productions and workshops, as well as Canadian choreographers and artists acting in Colombia as juries for diverse festivals, among other ongoing activities.  Its members are experts and seasoned creative producers and arts administrators, working both in Colombia and Toronto to develop future collaborations.

Adriana Sabogal on Theatre Revolve:
Tridha Arts Association was created in Colombia in the year 2000, and in Toronto in April 2006 with the main objective of opening spaces among companies, artists and organizations to create, collaborate, exchange, teach, learn, produce and co-produce art - creating links and networks between Canada and Latin America, and providing the basic infrastructure and budget to make it happen. We believe that an engagement with art is a way to furnish our minds and our spirits. Engagement with art synthesizes the rational and the emotional, the imaginative and the intuitive. It releases the visionary impulse, bringing an innovative dimension to problem-solving. It adds judgment and wisdom to information. It helps develop flexible and nuanced thinking. It challenges us to see our world in fresh ways.  This is an opportunity we are thrilled of being part of and impossible to say no to. this is a project where the minds and work of friends and colleagues come together to create through the art an effect on society and a space to reinforce the growing belief that the next century is going to belong to the Renaissance man –or Renaissance Person.

Daniel Arcé – Video Artist
Daniel Arcé has a BFA in Interdisciplinary Studies and a Diploma in Software Development. He runs the Cultural Studies New Media Lab at York University in Toronto. His video works have been shown at the Images Festival in Toronto and Video Archeology in Sofia, Bulgaria. He has presented at the Impakt Festival in Utrecht, the Next Five Minutes in Amsterdam, and at the Looking Glass Gallery in Brussels. He has done live VJ sets with Montreal filmmaker Ian Cameron for DJ Swamp and Afrika Bambaataa. His work is included in Making Art with Databases published by V2 press in Rotterdam, and Connected!LiveArt published by the Waag Society of Old and New Media, Amsterdam. He has done Live Stage Video for Ame Henderson's choreographies Blue* *Disco, Manual for Incidence, and /Dance/Songs/ performed in The Netherlands, Croatia, Montreal and Toronto.

Why I want to be part of the Colombia Project.
I have been working with live video for about seven years. Lately, I have been interested in the intersection between live video and performance. I am looking for ways to use video in a non-representational and non-linear way. Video has a way of affecting our perception of time, and re-scaling actions and features that open up new possibilities in performance-making.  I am intrigued by this project for a number of reasons. Here, I list a few.

New cultural context:
The video for stage that I have been exposed to has been developed in places with a social infrastructure that financially supports art-making. These also tend to be places that have a developed media identity (Western Europe and North America). I am interested in experimenting with this medium in a place that has most of its mass media culture (both culturally and aesthetically) imported from more established industries.  These transpositions create strange hybrids that mix foreign aesthetics and structures with local ways of working and storytelling.

Inexpensive access to technology:
Video has been around for more than forty years in one form or another. The materials and instruments have followed current trends and become less expensive, especially when dealing with simple signals and basic switching. Video projectors have also become more affordable. With a bit of know-how, it's possible (although more challenging) to glean enough equipment to mount a live production.

Addressing gender divide in technology training:
Technology seems to appeal to males for some reason. This is sometimes used to unfair advantage in the job market or to acquire status in some circles. There is no reason why this needs to continue. I am interested in using video tech for the stage as a venue to change this; hopefully by inspiring some individuals to pick up the craft, and by passing along practical knowledge.

Begin a dialogue about contemporary art with Latin American peers:
I left South America in my early teens (I still speak fluent Spanish). The majority of my dialogues about current art practices and new technology happen with colleagues living in Canada or in Amsterdam. I would like to become more aware of what motivates contemporary artists in Latin America. Hopefully meet other media artists or individuals with similar interests and questions.

Claire is a Toronto-based theatre artist and a graduate of the conservatory-style program at Studio 58 in Vancouver. She has worked extensively in Toronto since she returned here with her solo show, Changing Habits, in 2001.   Claire is the co-Artistic Director of tiny bird theatre with Jenny Young. The company has produced three critically acclaimed shows since its inception in 2003 including the myth Inanna, written and directed by Calnan and staged outdoors in the 2004 Fringe with a cast of a dozen actors, singers and musicians. Voted Most Outstanding Production by NOW Magazine and cited as “the surprise hit of the Fringe” by CBC radio, it went on to receive a critically-acclaimed remount in Victoria, BC in August 2005.

Claire works extensively in creation-based theatre. She co-created Chekhov’s Heartache, the final piece in the Chekhov cycle produced by the award-winning Theatre Smith-Gilmour and is currently working with the company on a new piece based on the works of Katherine Mansfield. She co-directed the last two collaboratively created productions at the Children’s Peace Theatre and is working on the development of a dance theatre piece called Appetite with the newly formed Exchange Rate Collective which will debut at the Summerworks Theatre Festival in August.  Her additional performance credits include: Past Perfect (Tarragon Theatre), Ten Obstructions (Buddies in Bad Times Theatre), Duel at Dawn and New Canadian Kid (Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People), The Demimonde and Chasing Krinko’s (tiny bird theatre), Playing Around with Ibsen (Theatre Columbus) and Dismantled and A vs. B (Rhubarb! Festival). 
In 2005, Claire co-founded the A.M.Y. (Artists Mentoring Youth) Project with Pasha Mckenley, a program designed to affect a culture of underserved youth by bringing them out to see theatre and engaging them in activities of healthy, creative self-expression. She directed their inaugural production, Behind the Brickz, in 2006 and is currently directing the second production, I Am Her, which will debut at Theatre Passe Muraille this spring.

Project Entrada is made rich through its intersections: between cultures and languages, differing political climates, a variety of artistic disciplines and a combination of emerging and established artists. Working with the abstract nature of modern dance, the contemporary language of film and video and the narrative structure of theatre the piece promises to be an exciting experiment in form.  Add to this the variety of perspectives honed through our individual cultural experiences and the work begins to resemble a tapestry created through the combined efforts of some of the most celebrated young artists in our country along with their Columbian peers. As a young artist I have had the opportunity to work with many of the most renowned physical theatre artists in our country and I look forward to sharing my knowledge and experience with others. As a creator, I am always searching for new ways to expand my artistic vocabulary and I know I will benefit enormously by mentoring under a new group of elders. Living in a society with an ever increasing sense of global awareness and responsibility it has become essential for artists to travel outside of our borders, both real and metaphorical, in order to enrich our perspectives and continue our growth. In a country where we pride ourselves on our cultural diversity and celebrate our differences, this project will ensure that the artists involved will all walk, for a little while, in someone else’s shoes. The resultant work, created by two uprooted factions of artists, will have the opportunity to enrich and inspire audiences in both worlds. 

Lisa Codrington – writer/performer
Lisa Codrington is an actor/writer based in Toronto.  Currently she is co-director of Youth Initiatives at Nightwood Theatre and a dramaturgical intern at Obsidian Theatre Company.  She has been playwright in residence at Theatre Direct and a member of Nightwood Theatre’s Groundswell Playwrights unit.  Last year Lisa was nominated for the Toronto Arts Council Emerging Artist Award and her play Cast Iron was nominated for a 2006 Governor General’s Award.  She has performed at the Hackney Empire in London, England, Prairie Theatre Exchange, Resurgence Theatre Company, and Mirvish Productions.  Her writing has been performed at Tapestry’s Opera Briefs, as a part of Theatre Direct’s Demonstration projectand on CBC Radio Sunday Showcase.  Lisa’s new play Refined which will be read at Theatre Direct’s Seedling Festival and her libretto Ants will be performed at Tapestry Opera’s Opera to go

What excites me most about this project is the opportunity to collaborate with Canadian and Colombian artists from a variety of disciplines.  I would get the chance to sit outside of my comfort zone and create art in a new way with new artists.  I work primarily as a writer and actor and would like to explore where I go creatively when I work with choreography or video.

Ame Henderson – choreographer/performer
Ame Henderson is a dancemaker with a penchant for the essential and the specific. This interest permeates her work and is applied in technique and aesthetic. Her work seeks not to simulate life, but to examine real moments up close, extract their most potent revelations, and distill these into performance that is natural and without affectation. Everything starts with the framework, and an interdisciplinary group of collaborators who work within it, as themselves, on an equal level. In this framework, expression is sincere, movement is candid, and the body, available to be moved. The content of the work arises from spontaneous situations, and configurations within the group process. The work is made by layering the experience of one day after another, always looking back, adjusting, playing with and pulling apart, until it is time to meet the audience.

Ame Henderson is a choreographer and performer originally from Vancouver Island and currently living in Toronto. She was a co-founder of les productions f.effect, a Montreal-based performance group dedicated to cross-discipline collaborations. With f.effect she co-created the performances A Chemistry Experiment (1999) and A.C.E (303 Emerging Artist Residency 2000), and the the living room dances (1999/2000). Ame was also an instigator in the creation of Solid State, an all-girl alliance of street dancers. In 2001, Ame was a guest at The School for New Dance Development in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Her Amsterdam-based performance project, Blue* *Disco was presented in Amsterdam and in Croatia. Upon her return to Canada, Ame founded Public Recordings, a structure to support the creation and production of her work. Ame presented the solos memories and statements (2004) in Ottawa and Montreal, Manual for Incidence (2005) was presented in Toronto and co-presented by Studio 303 in Montreal and The Instruction Project (2006)was presented at Pixel Projects in Montreal. Her most recent project /Dance/Songs/ (2006) was developed at Le Groupe Dance Lab and premiered in Toronto as part of the DanceWorks Co-Works Series.  As a performer, Ame recently appeared in the work of Tino Sehgal at The Art Gallery of Ontario, and collaborates regularly with Jacob Zimmer and his company Small Wooden Shoe. She was an invited participant in the panel discussion "Fragile Positions: Performance in the 21st Century" in Halifax (2004) and  Clash (2006-2007), a choreographic research project initiated by Lynda Gaudreau / Companie de Brune. Ame is a co-director of Hub 14, a performance and research space in Toronto.

My personal artistic practice has long been invested with intercultural and interdisciplinary work, and with the notions of displacement, translation and mutability. This opportunity to work with a dedicated, diverse and talented group of artists, and to move with them to a new working context, culture and country, promises to challenge my perceptions of these concepts in fruitful and invigorating ways.  I look forward to the challenges implicit in the complex and unknown terrain of the collaboration with our colleagues in Columbia. I am honored to have been invited to be a participant and I am confident that this project will be transformative both personally and artistically.

Trevor Schwellnus – Designer
Trevor is a Toronto - based theatre designer working with several established and independant companies, including Aluna Theatre, Modern Times Stage Company, Jumblies, Independant Auntie, Obsidian Theatre, mammalian diving reflex, publicrecordings, Small Wooden Shoe, among others.   Recent design credits for set and lighting include: the series Dedicated to the Revolutions (Dir. Jacob Zimmer, at various locations in Toronto, 2006-present),  A Bridge Of One Hair (AD Ruth Howard, Dir. Faye Dupras, part of Harbourfront's World Stage Festival, April '07), /Dance/Songs/ (choreographer Ame Henderson, at The Theatre Centre, Nov. '06),  Born Ready / Pusha Man (Dir. Phil Akin), Mysterious Shorts (Dir. Karin Randoja) (both at Theatre Passe Muraille Mainspace, Oct. '05), Little Dragon (Dir. Marion de Vries, at Theatre Passe Muraille, Jan'05), Capturing Freedom (Dir. Beatriz Pizano, Summerworks '05), For Sale (Dir. Beatriz Pizano, The Theatre Centre, Nov.'03 --  Dora Award for Outstanding Set Design)

Recent lighting design credits: The Sheep and The Whale (Dir. Soheil Parsa, at Theatre Passe Muraille, March '07), 2006 Summerworks Festival (venue design, Factory Mainspace), Mercedes (Dir. Heather McCreath, at TPM Backspace, April '06), Clean Irene and Dirty Maxine (Dir. Karin Randoja, at Buddies in Bad Times March '06), The Arab-Israeli Cookbook (Dir. Joel Greenberg, at Berkeley St.,Upstairs Feb '06), The Lover (Dir. Levon Haftvan, at Artword Theatre, April '05)

Recent set design credits:  A Suicide-Site Guide to the City.  (Dir. Darren O'Donnell / Rebecca Picherak, Buddies in Bad Times, March '05)

His rigging has been seen on square riggers in the Great Lakes and on the East Coast, as well as Peter Weir’s last film, Master and Commander.  His play meeting playce was produced at the 2003 Summerworks Festival.  

Upcoming: set and lights for Bear With Me (@ Magnetic North festival, June '07), for Birds' Eye View (@ Summerworks Festival '07), and for Madre (@ Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace, Feb '08).   Blog: www.trevschwell.blogspot.com

Colombia is a land of contradictions and conflict.  Its theatre reflects this: non-representative forms of performance are just as, if not more, prevalent than in Canada.  What this means for design is that its role is different - supportive always of the action of a play, but often it is made more integral to the piece than in much of our theatre in English Canada.  Learning fresh approaches to design is one of many exciting outcomes I anticipate through Theatre Revolve's proposed exchange with its partners in Colombia.  Besides design, of course, are the myriad benefits of cross-cultural association: a fresh awareness of how we work when we see a completely different approach to our craft -- an opportunity to share our creative resources with peers in other countries -- a renewed energy and enthusiasm to bring to our work upon our return.  I look forward to both the possibilities of personal growth through this exchange, as well as the chance to work with people from both Canada and Colombia, for whom this project will provide a substantial benefit.

Patricia Ariza and the Corporacion Colombiana de Teatro

Patricia Ariza is promoting social empowerment among Colombia's most excluded sectors of society, including indigenous people, blacks, drug addicts, women displaced by violence, and especially youth. Her movement enables these groups to engage with society at large, and in safe community-based settings to present their own solutions to the country's problems of poverty, violence, guerrilla groups, drug trafficking, corruption, refugees, and other social issues.

The New Idea

Patricia Ariza has developed an innovative program that permits the most excluded sectors of society to dialogue with the larger society and design and implement their own creative solutions to social problems. This movement involves a network of volunteers comprised of artists, teachers, members of marginal social groups, government workers, and citizen organizations, who work together to ensure that excluded groups are incorporated into community development programs. Through extensive and systematic workshops, members of excluded groups regain their self-esteem and values. They work together to create artistic presentations and cultural events which are performed before the general public.

Parallel to this, Patricia's program taps into the collective imagination of the people who live and experience social problems on a daily basis. Based on this firsthand knowledge, the groups are encouraged to develop their own solutions to the problems of poverty, lack of infrastructure, violence, and other social ills. Previously excluded groups learn how to raise awareness of issues facing their communities, to participate in public debate, and to dialogue with society at large.

The Problem

Like many of its Latin American neighbors, Colombia has shifted in the past 50 years from a nation of largely rural inhabitants to a highly urbanized setting, with some 75 percent of Colombians now living in urban areas. In addition to the many Colombians who come to the cities in search of improved economic prospects, hundreds of thousands of families trying to escape the recent violence of the countryside now find themselves as refugees in newly formed cities and shantytowns. In many cases, this tide of urban migration has been accompanied by a neglect or rejection of cultural and social traditions.

The capital of Colombia, Bogotá, is a city of approximately seven million inhabitants, over one million of whom are refugees who have fled violence in the countryside. Despite their desires to escape the crime, threats, and constant danger which have become endemic to rural life in Colombia, city life has proven equally violent. Bogotá is one of the most violent cities in the world, home to many of the 42,000 violent deaths and assassinations reported in Colombia in 1996. The majority of victims killed are young people under the age of 30.

Refugees typically arrive to the cities hostile, unemployed, and in shock. Few programs or activities exist to address these problems or help them cope with their new realities. Children and young people are especially affected by the violence and the absence of strong cultural traditions which characterize urban life-particularly poor, urban life-in Colombia. Street children are publicly referred to as "disposables" by the police and politicians. In many sectors of the country, where there is nothing to identify with except pain, the children speak only about violence, the war, and the dead. This scenario of exclusion has led many urban dwellers to become involved in the illegal economy of contraband, drug trade, and arms trafficking, all of which generate new forms of violence. Out of fear and desperation people become involved in guerrilla and paramilitary groups. There is daily armed confrontation in the countryside between the guerrillas, primarily farm workers, and armed paramilitary groups protecting business interests.

Drug trafficking and corruption, fed by the high levels of consumption in large metropolitan areas of the United States and Europe, has penetrated every level of Colombian society. The link between these sectors and civil society, the economic results of money-laundering, and the arrival of businesses that feed on these "narco-dollars" have changed the economic map of the country, land ownership, the formation of the cities, and political and cultural ethics.

The Strategy

Patricia Ariza believes in the humanity and creative potential of all people, including the most marginalized and disadvantaged, and sees this potential as a critically important vehicle for restoring and developing their self-esteem. Based on this belief, Patricia is using artistic expression as a means for enhancing the self-esteem of marginal groups and promoting social dialogue between these groups and the society at large.

She has formed a team of ten colleagues who work with her in the various programs throughout the city and the countryside. This team identifies a marginalized sector of the community to work with, such as sex workers, street children, drug addicts, or women displaced by violence. Contacts are made with leaders of the identified group, and workers begin to develop a relationship with them. They then organize a small event, such as a concert or theater performance, with the children, women and other inhabitants in the neighborhood. Using art as a vehicle for communicating the personal experiences and fundamental conflicts they have experienced with society, the performers present their creative expression. Later, artists and professional theater instructors begin to work with them in workshops, debates, improvisations, and other activities, until they have created an original script for a play, skit, oral narrative, or other testimony.

These creative endeavors are presented before the public in diverse places such as community theaters, parks, public buildings, and in the street. The work is repeated in various locales to ensure a diverse array of audiences. As a result, the previously excluded group interacts with other groups-such as student associations, citizen organizations, and the government-about specific projects and programs that they are working on or want to develop. The events are funded through profit-sharing ventures with local concession stands and ice cream vendors. Concurrently, other projects are introduced into the group, such as the construction of youth centers, the formation of ongoing neighborhood groups, the formation of a band, mural painting, interviews of public and social community leaders, and the publication of written works and musical tapes.

After this initial coming-together, the groups begin to take on a life of their own, electing leaders and establishing themselves as a force in the community. For example, a group of prostitutes that was brought together as part of Patricia's program has now formed a group of their own, through which they have established a child care center and health center in their community. Patricia has been working for three years with a group of impoverished kids from Turbo who have formed a rap group and are in the process of releasing their first compact disc. They have become famous in Colombia, appearing in the press and on television, and plan to use the profits from the compact disc sales to pay for music school. Patricia also organized a group of street children who presented a theater production of their own creation about the realities of living on the streets to their most hated enemies-4,000 members of the Colombian police department. After the production the children taught the police officers how to break-dance. The youth have now formed a permanent theater group in the city.

Patricia's methodology for building the self-esteem of marginalized groups and fomenting dialogue between them and other sectors of society has already begun to spread into new areas. Last year, she went to Brazil to present her model at a festival for street people. She has made contacts with Ashoka Fellow Ximena Costales in Ecuador and will begin to work with Colombian prisoners in Ecuador (a large percentage of prisoners in Ecuador are Colombians who are serving time for drug violations). She also plans to go to Germany to work with Colombian women in German jails.

In her native Colombia, Patricia has also worked on a project to form groups of women in the conflict zones around the country. These groups of women knit a peace blanket on the steps of the government buildings and invited the Argentine Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo to join them in their efforts to stop the violence in Colombia. Patricia and her team edited a new musical tape of peace songs which was produced by the youth group organized in the community of Uraba. She has developed a plan to work with university student volunteers, through which they will be able to earn credit through practical experience in the field. Patricia has developed excellent relations with the press and communications media. She uses radio, television, and the written media to spread the ideas and work of excluded sectors of society.

The Person

Patricia Ariza was born in Velez Santander. Her mother was a farm worker and her father an artist. When Patricia was very young her family moved to the city of Bogotá as refugees from the violence in their rural community. The family lived in a poor neighborhood and started an art supply store, studio, and workshop. The four young children in the family continued to study, and Patricia, the youngest, was able to attend university with the financial support of her parents and brothers.

During the 1960s, while in the university, Patricia became a student leader and developed an interest in culture as a means of social change and dialogue. She helped to establish the University Cultural Center and developed a program that permitted students to leave the university and work in the poor neighborhoods of Bogotá. This Center provided a place for students to become involved in social issues and an outlet for the artistic expression by young people from the shantytowns.

In 1966 Patricia co-founded Colombia's first alternative theater, Teatro Candelaria, which recently celebrated its fortieth anniversary. She was later instrumental in the formation of the Cultural Theater Movement in Colombia and the Colombian Theater Corporation.

Over the years Patricia has diversified her interests and has founded various activities and programs, including the organization of numerous "Festivals and Events for Artists and Intellectuals in Defense of Peace and National Culture."

Using her twenty years of experience in the Colombian cultural and social movement, over the past five years Patricia has developed a program to work with marginal and excluded sectors in society by promoting their images and ideas through cultural events and connecting them through their own creative projects with the state, the media, and society as a whole.

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