The Holy Innocents

 

 

Every year, on the 28th December, the party of The Holy Innocents takes place here EN GUAPI: men wearing grotesque masks, dressed up in women’s clothing and accessories, a whip in their hand, run up and down the streets whipping whoever gets in their way. Men, women and teenagers - mostly Afro descendants - and a couple of white tourists, try to either escape or avoid the whippings, but strangely, many of them throw themselves on the floor to be whipped. This is a party, a celebration, but for those who have never been here before, it could very well seem something else: a punishment? A collective catharsis? A nightmare? A paramilitary massacre?  

 

Based on this real event, its documenting and fictionalization, Mapa Teatro creates a bizarre and delirious theatrical and cinematographic staging that escapes all theatrical categories. The spectator is witness to a party, which juxtaposes reality and fiction, confuses times and places, puts victims and victimizers head to head, contradicts stories and testimonies, unmasking the theatricality of the armed actors in Colombia.

 

The Holy Innocents is the first part of Mapa’s triptych: Anatomy of violence in Colombia.