By: Kenny Ortigas Guerrero (president of the Performing Arts in Camagüey)
Interrogate reality, question our behavior as individuals in society, illuminate areas of thought that allow improving the relations of man as a species against his nature and correct actions that today lead to isolation and barbarism. All these elements can be undressed through the theater, and from the performance we can touch that sensitive skin of mortality that urgently requires an act of purification.
A little history
Since ancient times, the theater has confronted human beings with their own demons, placed their conflicts in an artistic dimension to travel the definitive path to catharsis and stimulate reconciliation with the universe.
How beautiful theater is! Privilege that we have to fly with a critical and poetic gaze on the problems and vicissitudes, letting fall on them a powerful force, full of common sense and intelligence.
The theater is a bridge for dialogue and mutual recognition, it is a chronicle of time that forcefully leaves us battered and injured. There is the scene, the actor, the audience. Any space incorporates the magic of the characters and their actions to establish communion and empathy. Approaching the theater is an act of faith, it is placing a sharp gaze on what makes us better, especially when it seems that the world is crumbling in confrontations and power struggles.
We come from the people and we go to them
The theater is at the service of the people, it is their mirror and place of comfort, there, one is strong, there, one has the courage to transgress the limits of reality to reach other levels of perception of life itself.
On this International Theater Day, we have the obligation to deliver a heavy blow to indifference, apathy, laziness and heartbreak. The theater has to build and reconstruct the path towards the full liberation of the soul, indicating the way, or several of them, that lead to the immediate reflection of the species and its destiny.
May this day of joy and celebration also be one of deep revisions about how we affect peace and harmony. The date also serves to renew forms and procedures, establishing a greater commitment of art with the most disadvantaged places. More than ever, theater must touch the hearts of vulnerable communities, it has to reach where spirituality is broken to try to restore it.
Let’s all sing from the stage the anthem of solidarity and emancipation, let’s sing from the stage in favor of diversity and inclusion, let’s sing from the stage about the right to live and be happy.
Translated by: Aileen Álvarez García
