[:es]NOTICIAS[:en]NEWS

Santiago, January 3, 2013.- Today marks the beginning of the summer cultural fest, with the inauguration of the 20th version of the Santiago a Mil International Festival. Until January 20th, audiences can enjoy the festival’s 71 productions, including 34 local pieces and 37 international ones.

This is also a special date for Santiago a Mil, as it celebrates its 20th anniversary. To celebrate, today they have opened up an exhibition at the Gabriela Mistral Cultural Center which takes a tour through the two-decade history of the festival, since its beginning in 1994.

The executive director of the Teatro a Mil Foundation, Carmen Romero, explains the significance of the exhibition to the festival’s twentieth edition. “Both the exhibition and the programming scheduled for this year’s festival are designed to surprise the audience, to motivate them, to excite them, to show them that the history of the Festival is also their history, that it fully belongs to them, because without them we wouldn’t be celebrating this 20-year anniversary. Without a doubt, we believe that Santiago a Mil has become a window, an opportunity for so many Chileans to realize that after the return to democracy we have taken back the streets, we have turned them into public spaces of cultural encounter and dialogue. The same has been done with the theater halls, where the Chilean performing arts are shining under the creative gaze of local artists who interpret the concerns of our society. On the other hand, we have become an important Latin American showcase, a cultural center where renowned international artists make an obligatory visit to Chile each January”.

María Olivia Recart, Vice-President of Foreign Affairs of BHP Billiton, operator of Minera Escondida, stated: “We have supported the organization of the Festival during the last 14 years in a row, along with its respective extensions in Iquique and Antofagasta, because we believe that spaces such as these give us the opportunity to be transported to other countries, to observe other cultures, to enjoy new languages. This is without a doubt a contribution to the cultural development of the families and individuals who have participated in an important social change in Chile. Our country will once again be the setting for the best of the Chilean and international performing arts, and we as a company will be contributing to the development of a better country, with more and better culture”.

The exhibition is entitled “La historia detrás de la historia” (“The Story behind the Story”), and it offers a multisensory experience through photographs, videos, documentaries, papers, costumes and pieces of set design used to relive the main highlights of the Santiago a Mil festival, as well as its anecdotes with behind the scenes footage.

The exhibition includes photographs by Luis Navarro, Paz Errázuriz and Evelyn Campbell, one of the Festival’s founders, among others, and pieces of the set design of some of the first plays presented by Santiago a Mil: Taca taca mon amour, by the Teatro del Silencio of Mauricio Celedón, and Viaje al centro de la tierra, by La Troppa, with the exhibition of the locomotive that appeared in that play.

“It is the most important cultural festival in the country”, says the exhibition’s curator, visual artist Camilo Yáñez. The exhibition includes a large timeline with the most important moments of the Santiago a Mil Festival, from the perspective of their social and cultural impact in Chile. “This exhibition is an exercise in reconstructing a puzzle which we could call the Cultural Memory of Chile and its People, a constant and open exercise, which we have put together using the fragments found during the six months of construction of this project”, he explains.

The transcendence of the festival is recorded through the historical front pages of the newspapers and more than twenty displays containing press excerpts. It also includes the projection of one of the most popular milestones of Santiago a Mil: La pequeña gigante, by Royal de Luxe, in her tour through the streets. “She transformed a city and its people”, says Yáñez. The exhibition will be open until the first week in March.

From its first edition, Santiago a Mil has grown in leaps and bounds. From its initial schedule in 1994 with only five local plays, it has expanded to more than 70 pieces in this year’s edition. At the same time, audiences have grown from 10 thousand spectators in the first edition, to 480,500 in just the last year. This exhibition reconstructs the history of a festival that has been fundamental to the period following the return to democracy in Chile, and whose milestones have marked theater and the Chilean society.

Tocatas mil

Today also marks the beginning of the Tocatas Mil music concerts, at the official Santiago a Mil headquarters in the GAM Cultural Center. Since 2010, the Festival has offered in addition to the theatrical programming a series of small concerts in which acclaimed composers, singer-songwriters, soloists and bands can have encounters with the audience. This year, 20 artists and bands will be a part of this musical offer.

Tocatas Mil begins today, January 3rd, at 10 p.m., with a band that emerged at the crossroads between theater and music: Luma!, a national progressive and experimental rock band in which visual artists and theater professionals have come together. Their debut album, “Se ha hecho tarde hoy”, was produced by the company Teatro Cinema.

Tomorrow there will be a presentation by the funk and hip-hop band Los Tetas (Friday 4th, 10 p.m.).

For the first time ever, Tocatas Mil will include family programming, so at 12 p.m. on Saturday 5th there will be a presentation by Mosquitas Muertas, a children’s rock band founded by Rodrigo Latorre (La Mano Ajena). That same day, but at 10 p.m. the group Congreso will give a concert, and to end the week a presentation by the trio Pink Milk (Sunday 6th, 8 p.m.) with musicians from Contrabanda, a group based on musical theater composed of Gabriela Aguilera, Gala Fernández and Elvira López.

These will be followed by other national and popular representatives such as Magdalena Matthey, Silvestre, Angel Parra Trío, Inti-Illimani Histórico, Los Chamullentos, Juan Cristóbal Meza and Ana María Meza, Andrés Pérez Cuarteto Jazz, Beatriz Pichi Malen, Denver, Los Camotes de la Sierre, Francisca Valenzuela, Gepe, Carlos Ledermann Trío and Camila Moreno.

Tickets to Tocatas Mil are on sale through the Ticketek system and at the box offices located at GAM, the Municipal Theater of Las Condes and Teatro UC. Their prices vary between $2,000 and $10,000.

The inauguration day of the Santiago a Mil Festival is marked by the presentation of eight national plays. Redoble fúnebre para lobos y corderos, by Juan Radrigán; El taller, directed by Marcelo Leonart; and Distinto, under the direction of Alfredo Castro, are part of the 2012 Theater Selection. Also returning to the festival’s stage, a coproduction of the Teatro a Mil Foundation, La reunión, directed by Trinidad González and, as part of the special Memorial Cycle: 1973-2013 programming, the piece Oratorio de la lluvia negra, by Juan Radrigán.

Today’s schedule also includes some praised theatrical debuts: Juan Cristóbal, casi al llegar a Zapadores, by the company La Laura Palmer and directed by Ítalo Gallardo; Déjate perder, by the company A Martillazos and directed by Francisco Krebs; and Buenaventura I: El año repetido, by Compañía Teatro de Gerónimo and directed by Antonio Campos.

Finally, two dance pieces have been added to the schedule. Today there will be a presentation of the flamenco-inspired show, Santa fiesta, by the company Danza en Cruz, and a new dance performance with Reserva, by Colectivo Artístico de Artes Escénicas DOS.