Ecuadorean Theater Festival Puts Racism Center Stage

Artists from across Ecuador have gathered in Quito for the second edition of the Theater Festival with performances that address pressing social issues through stage, dance and circus.

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Running until Oct. 30, the festival includes works that explore migration, alienation and racism—an issue Colombian actor and director Frank Martinez, whose collective La Mestiza will perform Wednesday, believes deserves urgent attention.

For Martinez, the Festival of Stage Performance is an opportunity to make visible the legacy of discrimination left by European colonization.

“In the years that I have lived in Ecuador, one of the most notorious and pertinent issues I have seen is to do with racism—racism between ethnic groups of diverse affiliation.” he told teleSUR.

He explains, “Theater and the arts in general are a base to approach social problems … they create spaces to confront the hegemonic ways of thinking that determine the mindset of today’s society.”

In his performance “Ñucanchik Antisuyu Riman,” (Kichwa) or “Our Forest Speaks,” the director reimagines “The Country of Cinnamon,” a novel by William Ospina which follows the Spanish conquistador Gonzalo Pizarro and his cousin Francisco de Orellana on a dark and bloody journey through the Amazon rainforest.

Combining Kichwa songs, mythology and video, the work “gives new meaning to American mestizaje, by presenting on stage one of its most brutal collisions: the European against the Amazon jungle,” he explains.

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The goal, says Martinez, is to “reevaluate the historic and contemporary meaning of our mixed ethnic heritage: Indigenous, African and European.”

As Latin America continues to struggle with racism, inequality and injustice, Martinez believes the arts will become a stronger platform for both political and social critique.

The Theater Festival come as an increasing number of Latin American artists take a critical look at contemporary social problems through the lens of the past.

In 2015, Ecuador’s first mockumentary “Un Secreto en la Caja,” or “A Secret in the Box,” set out to rewrite the country’s complex history, while the Colombian film “The Embrace of the Serpent” was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language for its damning portrayal of Europe’s exploitation of the Amazon.

The festival also comes ahead of the first International Festival of Living Art, in Loja, Ecuador, scheduled for Nov. 17 to 27, where La Mestiza will also perform “Our Forest Speaks.”