THEATRE-URUGUAY: Black Performers Increase Presence

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Raul Ronzoni

MONTEVIDEO, Jun 9 1998 (IPS) - After years of discrimination, Uruguayans of African ancestry increasingly are making their presence felt in the theatre world.

There are some 190,000 black citizens among the country’s 3.1 million population who for years have felt excluded in a varierty of sectors.A study published by the National Institute of Statistics has documented that Afro-Uruguayans receive inferior salaries and suffer a higher rate of unemployment than whites.

“At least in the arts, our presence has now grown,” said Beatriz Santos, president of the Cultural Center for Peace and Integration. Before, it was limited only to “certain artistic productions…such as playing the drums an dancing at carnival, although we are very proud of these traditions because they are part of the roots of our race.”

The recent theatrical inroads by Afro-Uruguayans began in 1994, with the production of “The Eviction on Blacks’ Street.” The play, written by Jorge Cardozo, recalls the actual eviction of numerous black families who for years had lived in an old building known as ‘Medio Mundo’, which considered a symbol of Afro- Uruguayan artistic expression. The incident took place during the period of the military dictatorship, which ruled Uruguay from 1973-1985.

The country’s major black percussionists and dancers, indisputably the stars of the annual Uruguayan carnival, used to hold rehearsals in the building.

“The eviction symbolized the indifference of the system towards an ethnic group that has made important contributions to Uruguayan culture, and was a reflection of the lack of commitment toward a people who gave their lives and blood during the struggle for independence,” Santos added.

Theater critic Jorge Arias says that the play leaves the audience with a feeling of guilt. “We do not exploit blacks as such, but we have rejected their live s and their culture,” he wrote. “Blacks are seen as strangers, as if they were somehow incompatible with the rest of the population.”

It was a white lawyer, Andres Merino, who first set about to end this exclusion of blacks from the threatre when, in 19673, he formed the Black Independent Theatre company.

Ruben Rada, a very successful black musician in both Uruguay and Argentina, told IPS that in this country, the history of blacks in written by whites. Rada too has moved upward in the entertainment world, becoming the first black in the history of Uruguayan television to host a prime-time variety show. He also has a leading role in the Argentine TV series ‘Gasoleros’, and has his own musical theater productions in both Buenos Aires and Montevideo.

The black presence in television was pioneered in 1985 by Isabel Oronoz, who was an anchorwoman on the prime-time news program of Uruguays state-owned televis ion channel. Today she has a weekly news magazine on that same channel.

Almost two decades earlier, Merino went to jails and the marginal sectors of the city where most Afro-Uruguayans live in search of his actors. His intention w as to teach literacy and educate through theater. In addition, he taught languages, African cultures and led a chorus.

Instead of teaching European classic subjects, he drew from the rich African traditions from Uruguay, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, the Dominican Republic, Cuba and the United States.

In the face of the rejection of black traditions on the part of some Uruguayan intellectuals who questioned them as authentic national expressions, Merino argued that Black Uruguayans were part of the most Creole sector of the population.

He also pointed out that the word “tango” derived from the to use of the word by Blacks to refer to the drum. He also argued that the tango comes from the colonial “candombe” of the 1760s, which later gave rise to the first tangos, allegedly composed by Afro-Uruguayans starting in 1875.

Merino died in 1982 and theater company disbanded for lack of leadership and ec onomic resources, said Andres Castillo, president of the Uruguayan Actors Socie ty (AUA) and author of several of the plays staged by the company.

Castillo said Merino had beren unable to complete his mission because Afro-Uruguayans never were able to develop a the kinds of ties that would have allowed them to function as a cohesive group. To this day they remain in a situations of social, economic and cultural exclus ion, he added.

Still, Santos saw signs of change and pointed to Rada’s burgeoning career, the success of Oronoz and also that of black actress Angela Alvez, the protagonist in Adriana Genta’s play Estrella Negra.

Estrella was a slave who was abandoned by her owners in 1811. Alone and with an infant child, she struggles to survive. In the process, she meets Uruguayan st atesman and intellectual Jose Artigas, whose ideas shape her vision of her own freedom as well as that of oppressed peoples.

The success of the play in 1996 reinvigorated Alvezs work and career. She considers that directors need to take risks in order to create more opportunities for Afro-Uruguayans. If they don’t it will be very difficult, “because black actors are usually called to play the roles of servants.”

Santos stated that an amateur group is reviewing plays to bring to the stage. Among these are El Mundo de Juan (Juan’s World), which is a tribute to Juan Angel Silva, one of the countrys most well-known black percussionists. (FIN/IPS/rr/ag/cr/mg/mk/98)