Lewy body

On June 2, 2021, Emilio Agüero, diagnosed with Parkinson's Plus, falls out of his bed while sleeping. From this moment his diagnosis changes, triggering Lewy Body dementia that leaves him dependent. How does a daughter and family with an unruly mind interact again? How do you reconstruct the wounds left by dementia?

This is the origin of the scenic research that the director and protagonist, Ignacia Agüero, carries out based on a personal episode and which materializes in Lewy's Body, a work that is presented at GAM after its successful premiere in 2024.

Crossing theater, movement, projections and performance, the montage exposes a unique and revealing moment: the lunch he would have liked to have with his father. On stage, the restaurant's cooks and waiters also play surgeons extracting "dementia stones", an essential ingredient to create the dishes. From appetizer to dessert, each snack served is the daughter's attempt to meet her father and get to know her again.

"I wanted to make a play about how the dementia that was diagnosed in my father has not only transformed him, but me, my mother, and our family dynamic as well. The number of traces that it has left behind has been enormous. The horror is intimate because no one wants to take charge, or see it. And that's why I want to show it. Let it be talked about, let it be known, let it be thought, let it be considered, so that it can be sustained in the community," says Agüero, who also created the dramaturgy with the collaboration of Carlos Briones, Melchor Pino, Juan Diego Bonilla and Martín Acuña.

In the work, the father is represented in different poetic ways. This is how the director explained it in Revista Wikén: "We finally decided to bring it in fragments and in different ways. The "marote" (puppet) is a version, of which I am interested in the image of this headless father, or far from his head. There is another element that is a fresh clay head, which is then deformed. And my father also appears through sound, lighting, his diagnosis through his doctors."

Lewy Body, then, seeks to dialogue with dementia from a human perspective. "We try to give it shape and dialogue with it (...) It is an honest work that shares what was experienced after my father's diagnosis: the affection, but also the chaos, the contradictions, the fatigue and the humor. I think it is stark and, for that reason, refreshing," Agüero concludes.

Director: Ignacia Agüero | Cast: Carlos Briones, Martín Acuña, Melchor Pino, Juan Diego Bonilla and Ignacia Agüero | Assist. direction and visuals: José Miguel Agurto | Comprehensive design: Laurene Lemaitre | Sound composition: Santiago Farah | Production: Scarlett Carrasco | Photos: Daniel Corvillón and Elio Frugone | Projectfinanced by the Arts and Culture Directorate of the UC Vice-Rector's Office for Research.