Oasis de la impunidad (Oase der Straflosigkeit)

Eight bodies move across the stage in mysterious convulsions. They march, exercise and celebrate – but it remains unclear whether their movements are expressions of suffering or joy, pride or fear. Together they form a police body: a mechanical and convulsive organism composed of strictly disciplined bodies. They undergo training to apply violence against themselves and others – and once something is inscribed in the body, it runs through all levels of being and life. Keep order! That is the command. In an abstract museum space, police officers, victims and fantastical figures of evil meet for an eerie carnival.

Oasis de la impunidad is a study of bodies on the street as both objects and, above all, subjects of violence. How is power transformed into forms of biopolitical strategies, surveillance and oppression that injure, mutilate and desecrate the human body? In grotesque and spectral landscapes, Oasis de la impunidad performs a ritual of confession, atonement and denunciation.

Marco Layera and his company La Re-sentida (The Resentful) create a choreographed study on the nature of violence. Their examination of the systemic and individual motivations for violence and the responsibility for its consequences focuses in particular on the perpetrators. What is the link between individual beliefs and violent disciplining? Who is pulling the strings from behind the scenes? Can there ever be justice where there has always been impunity? The play deals with the question of the legitimate and appropriate application of violence in a democracy: Who utilises and who controls the state’s monopoly over the use of force?

As a pilot project for international collaborations, the play was rehearsed in Santiago de Chile as part of the Münchner Kammerspiele’s artistic research field “remembrance as work on the present”. This was preceded by a theatre lab for which over 500 people from all over Chile working in the arts and civil society applied, and from which 200 were selected to participate in workshops. The experiences and stories of these people are the starting point for this play which examines the origins and consequences of violence.

Marco Layera:

“We neither intend to nor believe that we should territorially and symbolically transpose what is happening on the streets onto the stage. To take what is happening outside literally or to reproduce its semiotic and semantic resources would be aesthetically and ethically inappropriate. What is more, a visit to the theatre should not lead to a demobilisation of the protests on the streets.

Theatre audiences are thus not invited to witness what is happening on the street. Conversely, the performative power of outside events challenges us as theatre makers and throws us, too, into a state of crisis. It requires our art to reinvent itself so it can play a part in social processes. Art is challenged to (re)gain its subversive and transformative capacity. As artists, we are invited to take a step into the unknown and the uncertain, to get lost, to take risks and to expose ourselves to constant danger. Oasis de la impunidad is an artistic essay which owes nothing to reality but which feels absolutely committed to it.”

This was preceded by a theatre lab, sponsored by the international relief fund of the German Foreign Ministry and the Gothe Institut, for which over 500 people from all over Chile working in the arts and civil society applied, and from which 200 were selected to participate in workshops.

Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola

Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola

Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola

Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola

Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola

Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola

Photo: Gianmarco Bresadola

Photo: Maglio Pérez

Photo: Maglio Pérez

Photo: Maglio Pérez

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