human stampede

A neighborhood meeting must decide what to do about a group of homeless people who took over the neighborhood square. A home improvement store is on the verge of bankruptcy and needs a miracle to save itself from dying. A clandestine leftist faction within the Carabineros attempts to carry out its first attack to make public its adherence to the country's transformation project. These three stories are the origin of Human Stampede, a production by the Bonobo company that reflects on fear, violence and hopelessness in Chile.

With the sharpness, absurdity and discomfort characteristic of the productions of Andreina Olivarí and Pablo Manzi (dramaturgy and direction), the work speaks of how social ties, community life and public spaces have been transformed into places of danger and violence.

"We thought about the idea of ​​riots, of stampedes, hordes where people, either spontaneously or with a little organization, end up in a collective meeting that is marked by some trait of violence, but, at the same time, by a need to do something together. That dichotomy is what interests us," says Pablo Manzi, director. And to do this, they use audiovisual languages ​​and a colorful staging designed by Los Contadores Auditores for the first time.

On stage, the company's stable cast (Gabriel Cañas, Carlos Donoso, Paulina Giglio, Gabriel Urzúa, Guilherme Sepúlveda) joins Coca Guazzini as a guest actress. "I, who do not belong to the Bonobo company, what I have understood is that characters are not worked on here, here the most important thing is the text. The text is what has to provoke the viewer, it is not my character or his emotions," comments the actress.

And this implies an acting challenge when submitting to the interpretation of several characters and the speed of the scene changes that the work proposes. "It was very challenging to create a scenic device that would allow us to tell the story. Furthermore, as a company, it is the first time we decided to work with audiovisuals. It was a very challenging and at the same time motivating exploration for the entire team," adds Andreina Olivari, director.

For his part Gabriel Cañas, in an interview in La Tercera, commented that the work discusses "this setting that we have in our heads that things are the way they are, that this city is lived this way and the way we live too. And in this setting we were unable to think about a different future." To which Gabriel Urzúa adds: "Bonobo proposes to problematize these types of concepts and reaffirm a little the idea of ​​the future: what do we have? What do we think about that?"

After a successful preseason with sold-out performances at the Teatro a Mil Festival, Human Stampede makes its premiere at GAM co-commissioned and supported by The Democracy Cycle, a program of the Perelman Performing Arts Center | PAC NYC and Civis Foundation.

Dramaturgy: Pablo Manzi | Direction: Andreina Olivari and Pablo Manzi | Cast: Carlos Donoso, Paulina Giglio, Gabriel Cañas, Gabriel Urzúa, Guilherme Sepúlveda, Coca Guazzini | Integral designer: Juan Andrés Rivera and Felipe Olivares | Audiovisual design and technical lead: Alex Waghorn | Music: Daniel Marabolí | Wigs and hairpieces: Carla Casali | Producer: Alessandra Massardo.

Coproduction GAM and Fundación Teatro a Mil | Collaborators Laznia Nowa, Centro Cultural España, In Teatro, Nau Ivanow | «Co-commissioned and supported by The Democracy Cycle, a program of the Perelman Performing Arts Center | PAC NYC and Civis Foundation.