Antigonas Tribunal de Mujeres

Nine women (actresses and activists) arrive at an imaginary tribunal and become modern Antigonas requesting justice for the murder of their loved ones. Performers and activists, including one of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize nominees, Luz Marina Bernal, bring this poetical and lyrical rendition of the Greek tragedy to address the horrors of political and social violence, transforming pain into power and rebelliousness, and making women key actors in the Peace Process in Colombia.

This Collective Creation opens with an actress playing Antigona, as the other women appear on the stage. They begin to recount their stories using personal objects of their long-gone and massacred young, songs, and dances, turning their plight into poetic, symbolic and political discourses. Resistant and polyphonic, these languages, voices and canticos defeat oblivion and political amnesia forever.

The piece is inspired by a number of state crimes committed in Colombia. Luz Marina Bernal Parra, María Ubilerma Sanabria López and Lucero Carmona are the mothers of Soacha, a poor suburban town near Bogotá where young men and women were brutally killed and villinized as enemies of the state in what is known as the infamous scandal of ‘false positives’. Orceni Montañez Muñoz and Fanny Palacios Romero are victims and survivors of political genocide against the leftist Patriotic Union where more than 5,000 members where assassinated. Mayra López Severiche is a student leader wrongly accused of conspiracy and incarcerated during one year.

This performance piece is described as an artistic performance action and testimonial, that is not anecdotic, but mythic and poetic in nature. Parting from their personal stories, the women have created a perspective that shows or suggests the culture and myth present in societies in which these crimes have taken place; and show the feminine rebelliousness that fights against them all. The work plays homage to women’s respect for life, solidarity and the search for justice.

“I didn’t know I could use art to denounce; that I could transmit these feelings that I kept all to myself and that overwhelmed me: rage, tenderness and love for my son”…explains Carmona, mother of Omar, 26 years old assassinated by the military.

October 5, 2016 at 7:30 PM

A poetical and lyrical re-telling of the Greek tragedy… this play is a testament to fortitude.

Time Out, NYC

The recovery of memory over traumatic experiences is perhaps the most important element toward the establishment of peace, justice, and restitution in Latin America

Brianna Vitands, University of Minnesota

It’s not often coming to the theatre that you feel your heart in your mouth, as happened to me, watching [this] production

Armando Orozco Tobar, The Prisma Multicultural Newspaper, UK

About the artist

Carlos Satizábal and Patricia Ariza, founded Teatro Tramaluna more than 17 years ago.

Carlos is a poet, actor, writer and director, he is Associate Professor at the National University of Colombia. He coordinates the Masters in Creative Writing Program and directs the course/playwriting workshop at the School of Film and TV. His book The Flame Leaning won the National Unpublished Poetry Prize in 2012. His work They and Death – Dream of three poets received the Playwriting Award Bogotá 2012. Satizábal works at Corporacion Colombiana de Teatro (CCT) as director, playwright, actor, composer and sound designer; with continuous processes of theatrical creation with displaced populations and victims of the war in Colombia.