In the shade of the tent
Diane Lefer has contributed a story, a “What it’s like living here” piece, and a play to Numéro Cinq (see the table of contents). She’s an old, old friend, a former colleague at Vermont College of Fine Arts (dg interviewed her when he has his radio show at WAMC in Albany in the mid-1990s). When we posted her play, she was in Colombia teaching writing—she missed the excitement. But here’s a fascinating account of her trip and the place where ideology and art and teaching and practice form a pragmatic nexus. It’s exciting to read, a reminder that there are parts of the world where art is not merely for contemplation and self-expression. I would have called this a telegram from the front lines, but really the front lines are everywhere.
dg
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Writing Instruction as a Social Practice:
or What I Did (and Learned) in Barrancabermeja
by Diane Lefer
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Friends and family expressed concern when I said I was going to Colombia. Isn’t it dangerous? So I got a kick out of the tourism video Avianca showed en route: Colombia! The risk is that you won’t want to leave!
Apparently something of the sort happened to Yolanda Consejo Vargas, dancer and theatre artist born in Mexico, and her husband Italian-born director Guido Ripamonti when they found themselves in 2007 in Barrancabermeja, specifically in Comuna 7, which began as a neighborhood of squatters–people who’d been driven out of the countryside by violence, had landed in the city and were struggling to get by. The area was controlled by the guerrilla forces of the ELN. Then rightwing paramilitary death squads swept in, disrupting a Mothers Day celebration in 1998, killing and disappearing civilians, including children, while the Colombian military failed to intervene. The people of Comuna 7 organized, intent on reweaving the social fabric and creating a culture of peace. They set up what they termed an “educational citadel” to keep their kids in school and prepare them for a socially responsible future. Impressed, Yolanda and Guido wanted to be part of it. They moved in. As directors of the Centro Cultural Horizonte, they offer classes in theatre, dance and creative writing. More, they train their students who then go to the primary schools in the most marginalized neighborhood of all as volunteer arts instructors. It was because of Yolanda and Guido that I flew in May to Colombia.
Yolanda with young people from the Cultural Center