Friday, July 4, 2008

"La palabra de los mudos"

on the 15th of May, in front of a huge audience the action "La palabra de los mudos" was staged in Redondo Beach, in the district of Miraflores, Lima, as the first artistic project of the French-Peruvian artist Jota Castro in Peru after three decades away from his homeland. During the development of the V Summit of Heads of State and Government of Latin America, the Caribbean and the European Union, Jota Castro carried out this performance, which addressed the limits of communication and the problems concerning inclusion.
Before the event, there was a concentration in Bajada Balta, Miraflores, at 10.00 a.m., where participants (including a contingent of deaf people) from different points of the city gathered. From this meeting point, the participants started their way down to the shore towards Redondo Beach.
From a stage at the beach, Peruvian actor Sergio Galliani prepared the audience for the performance, which started when an interpreter delivered a speech in sign language. This speech was "echoed" at different moments of the performance by the participants, who had been previously taught slogans in sign language by Galliani. In a strongly symbolic and esthetically powerful scene, the responses of the audience were both in sign and oral languages. After the sign language speech, Jota Castro disclosed the content of the sign language message, which dealt with the exclusion suffered by the artist because of his race, establishing a parallel with the pain that three quarters of the world have to bear. "They don't listen to us", Castro repeated, talking about miscommunication, lack of justice, indifference and poverty. "We are all dumbŠ we are only a long silence in history". Then he encouraged the audience to "dream with a better world, a common future", as the Summit was taking place.
The French-Peruvian artist's performance transformed autobiographical and political issues into a historic and emotional experience that joined the audience for the first time with one of the most celebrated contemporary artists in the international scene today.
You can read and watch more information on the project, including press info at: www.lapalabradelosmudos.org.
There is also a video of the action available at: http://www.youtube.com/lapalabradelosmudos

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