CULTURE-ARGENTINA: Using Art to Promote Social Development

By Marcela Valente Reprint | | Print |

Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES, May 24 2001 (IPS) - After years of dedication simply for the love of art, a dance troupe from a community centre in a poor suburb of the Argentine capital has made a splash dancing tango in a theatre in the upscale neighbourhood of Recoleta.

The dance troupe, “Viejas Locas” (Mad Old Ladies), emerged from Puertas al Arte, one of the six community centres set up by the Crear Vale la Pena (Creating is Worth It) Foundation in low- income areas and slums in the greater Buenos Aires.

The community centre where the women rehearsed their tango performance is located in the poor neighbourhood of La Cava, in the district of San Isidro to the north of Buenos Aires proper.

The women, who range in age from 25 to 50, put on their show to rave reviews from critics and standing ovations from the public at the Recoleta Cultural Centre, with nothing but an old wardrobe, rickety chairs and a few other commonplace items as stage props.

The performance, and especially the place where it was held – La Recoleta, the city’s richest district – marked a milestone for the Foundation, which has been offering courses in dance, music, theatre and the manufacturing of musical instruments, while training teachers in the arts, in poor areas of the city for 10 years.

“Making it to La Recoleta, at the other extreme from La Cava, was really something for us,” the president of the Foundation, Inés Sanguinetti, told IPS. She expressed her enormous satisfaction at seeing that dream come true after years of working with groups of amateur artists on the road to becoming professionals.

Sanguinetti said the Foundation’s aim was “to recover the artistic and creative skills of people from poor neighbourhoods who are neither delinquents nor incompetent, but who have simply fallen outside the educational and labour systems.

“The starting-point for our work is what people have, not what they lack. We invite prominent artists to help create artistic endeavours, based on the idea of bringing about working situations that break down the distances and put the artists on an equal footing with our people. There is no charity involved here,” she said.

Sanguinetti, who sees poverty as a product of a lack of employment opportunities and income, says social exclusion occurs when people are not only poor, but are left outside the cultural networks that would enable them to keep their ties alive with the institutions of society.

“Full citizenship is impossible without investment in culture,” she maintained.

Sanguinetti, a dancer and choreographer, along with a group of friends and colleagues set up the non-profit Crear Vale la Pena Foundation after finding that cultural values were actually stronger in poor communities than in wealthy parts of the city.

“Where consumerism is impossible, art is the engine of social life. That’s why a project like ours grew in such an incredible manner,” said Sanguinetti.

The number of participants in the Puertas al Arte (Gateways to Art) programme has expanded to 800, while some 400 people are on waiting lists. Around 80 volunteers and 40 teachers are active in the art workshops, more than half of whom received their training at the Foundation.

This year, the Buenos Aires city government’s office on informal education began to award graduates of the Foundation’s courses certificates which will help them win the recognition they need to work as professionals.

“When we began to put out feelers to gauge the level of interest, we discovered that in the neighbourhood there were already groups that got together to watch and discuss videos, play guitar – with perhaps a string missing here and there – put on children’s plays, organise dances in the streets and even hold literary contests,” recalled Sanguinetti.

The discovery that creative urges were strong even in the slums spurred the group to set up the Foundation, in order to provide a channel for the development of individual artistic skills and group musical and theatre projects.

The Inter-American Development Bank has granted the Foundation a three-year package of 300,000 dollars. Even greater support is received from Avina, a Swiss foundation that “acts as a partner to leaders in civil society who are working with innovative ways to improve Latin America’s development perspectives.”

But Sanguinetti especially underlined the high level of community participation in the Foundation’s art courses and teacher training workshops, the commitment of volunteers, and the contribution from dozens of subscribers who pay monthly dues to keep the project on its feet.

At the start, she said, the Foundation tried to hold performances in the centre of Buenos Aires to show the public what the organisation was doing and reach out to other sectors of society, “but we always failed.”

However, things have changed “since it came to me a few years ago that the key lay in inviting well-known artists to help our people make the leap,” she explained.

Among the renowned artists who have responded to the call were a U.S. musician who gave a course on drumming, a children’s theatre director, and Susana Tambutti, the famous local choreographer who suggested that the Viejas Locas put together a show with the aim of breaking into the Buenos Aires art scene.

Since seeing the results achieved by the dance troupe’s sheer sweat and dedication, many well-known artists have expressed an interest in donating their time and expertise to the Foundation.

“I just saw a video of youngsters choreographing a dance, and I was totally impressed,” Nora Moseinco, a stage director who was invited to collaborate, told IPS.

The homemakers who created the Viejas Locas dance troupe said they often went to rehearsal upset after arguing with their husbands, who saw their artistic activities as a loss of time and money, a “luxury” that was only for the rich at this time of economic crisis in this Southern Cone country, where unemployment has hovered around 15 percent for years.

“My husband sometimes asks me what I do here all day, and says why don’t I look for a job,” commented one of the dancers, Lorena Estela. “But I have a lot of goals to achieve, and I love dancing with my heart and soul, so I told him: ‘you either put up with this, or you don’t, but I have the right to do what I like’.”

For Olga González, 38, the Foundation is like a second home. “I think this is something that has to spring from your heart of hearts, in order for you to leave the kids at home and the house all messy. A while back, my husband told me ‘today is the last time you’re going’, but here I am, I’m still coming,” she said with a smile.

Sanguinetti pointed out that the dancers, housewives without a high school education, have huge talent and dedication. Two of them have already graduated from the courses on dance and music education, and now earn salaries as teachers at the Foundation.

“I tell my husband that this is a future employment opportunity as well,” said Lorena, who is also trying to become a teacher. Although that is a much longer-term goal, requiring great investment in time, effort and money, she is determined to avoid ending up cleaning other people’s houses.