Mapa Teatro: La Balsada

Lake Zürich, 2021

 

In the Colombian municipality of Guapi, a celebration takes place every year in December – a homage to the «Vírgen de la Inmaculada Concepción» (Virgin of the Immaculate Conception). The celebration begins at night on the river, with the arrival of the «balsada» (a parade of rafts). The balsada represents the beginning of the Christmas season which then continues with various festivities including «Los Santos Inocentes» (the Holy Innocents). 

In Guapi, these festivities recall the different forms of slavery, racialisation and violence that the Afro-descendant population of the Colombian Pacific Coast has been suffering for centuries and until the present day. From the violence of the colonial times to the current violence of drug trafficking, «Los Santos Inocentes» continues to be a ritual of incantation against death, a march and a dance of the bodies who, in the guise of the celebration, resist to the different forms of invasion, colonialization and exploitation of their culture and their lands. 

Mapa Teatro refers to these ambivalent festivities with the performative gesture «La Balsada» on Lake Zurich, including objects, sounds and images collected in 2009. 

 

«I was born on 28 December, the day of the ‹Holy Innocents›. Since I was born, all I’ve heard of that day were pranks, outlandish lies and nonsensical stories. There was a time when I couldn’t care less about celebrating my birthday. But on 28 December 2009, I decided to celebrate it in Guapi, a town on the Colombian Pacific coast. Every year on 28 December, the people of the town celebrate ‹Los Santos Inocentes› in a way that I knew nothing about at the time. 
In Guapi, I stayed in the town hotel. For a while, the police had been staying there on the third floor. I had breakfast at the hotel. After their nightshift, the police officers came down to the dining room wearing shorts, t-shirts and slippers, and with their machine guns hung across their chests. What’s the police doing here, I wonder. Why are they staying at the town hotel?
It’s early. I look out the door and there is no one on the streets yet. The receptionist tells me that it’s best not to go out. ‹You can watch the celebration from indoors›, she says. ‹Through the window.› […] I go up to room 219. I open the door. It’s hot like hell. I lay down on the bed and fall asleep. I’m having a dream…» 

– From the diary of Heidi Abderhalden, Guapi 2009