Un señor muy viejo con unas alas enormes.

The story of 'Un señor muy viejo con unas alas enormes' by renowned Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez is here staged in the traditional art of Theru Koothu of Southern India as a collaboration between two companies, Purisai Duraisami Kannappa Thambiran Paramparai Therukoothu Mandram of Tamil Nadu, and Mapa Teatro of Bogotá, Colombia. The story metaphorically unravels as an intercultural, theatrical and human experience: a man from another world appears one day, fallen from the sky into the backyard of Pelayo, a villager and his wife, Elisenda. The production is, for both companies, an experience of alterity and difference, where an experimental theater from the 'new continent' searches in the traditions of popular theater from the 'thousand-year-old continent, ' looking for thriving ritual forms and a 'total language' capable of illuminating the dark paths of contemporary theater, while the ancient epic art of Theru Koothu discovers, in the work of a contemporary playwright and in the gaze of Mapa Teatro's theater, the possibility of exploring new horizons and revitalizing its own tradition. According to Mapa Teatro, the experience revealed 'a post-dramatic theatrical form approaching pre-dramatic forms and vice-versa, creating a dialogue between past and present over the space of the performance itself.' Approx. first 20 min. of this video documentation is dedicated to backstage pre-performance activities, following various actors through parts of their preparation routine in drinking coffee, applying make-up and sitting about a large room together. A brief interview with Heidi and Rolf Abderhalden of Mapa Teatro contextualizes their working relationship, while actors sit behind them applying make-up in the background. The video concludes with two fragments of the performance recorded by two different cameras. Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics