Artist Partner Program presents

SILENC

IO B

LAN

CO

Chifl

ón, el silencio del carbon

FEBRUARY 2&3, 2017 . 8pm

CAFRITZ FOUNDATION THEATREat The Clarice

THE CLARICE AT UMD

APPARTIST PARTNER PROGRAM

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Artist Partner Program presents

SILENCIO BLANCOChiflón, el silencio del carbon

This performance will last approximately 50 minutes with no intermission.

SYNOPSIS

PROG

RAM

A shaft collapses. A young coal miner is thrown out of work. His only chance to keep working for the company is to head to the region of Chiflón del Diablo, notorious for being one of the world’s most dangerous mines. Scenes of daily life invite us inside the intimate and fragile situations of the characters: a coal miner’s daily heroics, his wife’s unconditional waiting and uncertainty about his return. It is a story forgotten by history, or rather buried in the depths of coal mines, immersed in a truly dark silence.

Derrumbe. Un minero joven es expulsado del pique de carbón en el que trabaja. Su única opción de seguir trabajando es irse a la galería del Chiflón del Diablo, conocida por su siniestra fama. Escenas del cotidiano nos invitan a conocer la intimidad y fragilidad de los personajes, el heroísmo diario de un minero del carbón, y la incondicional espera e incertidumbre de la mujer, al no saber si su minero volverá o no. Se trata de una historia olvidada por la Historia, o enterrada en lo más profundo de las minas del carbón, inmersa en un verdadero silencio negro.

Directed and conceived by ......................................................Santiago TobarProducer .......................................................................................... Dominga Gutiérrez

Performers ...............................................................................................Rodolfo Armijo Felipe Concha

Dominga Gutiérrez Consuelo Miranda

Astrid Roldán

Co-creators ...................................Santiago Tobar & Dominga Gutiérrez

Sound design .................................................................................... Ricardo Pacheco

Technical production ......................Santiago Tobar & Antonio Armijo

Graphic design ......................................................................................... Carolina Díaz

Join the artists for a conversation with the audience following the performance

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SILENCIO BLANCO is a collective of mixed media artists based in Santiago de Chile. The members are best known for their hand-built puppets painted white and constructed with a newspaper base, and for performing in silence against original sound scores. They use this montage to represent the human in everyday situations and familiar gestures. The bunraku and marionette puppeteers transmit the human movement through the puppet, provoking illusion and suspended belief so that it appears as if even the heartbeat of the characters can be heard.

The group was formed in 2010 by puppeteers Santiago Tobar and Dominga Gutiérrez, who met while students at the legendary Theater School of the University of Chile. The current members include seven puppet artists and sound artist-composer Ricardo Pacheco. They work collaboratively and to date have created three full –length works, De Papel, Pescador and Chiflón, employing puppets and more recently also film. Tobar serves as Artistic Director and head puppet maker. Prior to forming Silencio Blanco with Gutiérrez, he was master puppeteer with Compañía Teatro Milagros, collaborating with artistic director-designer Aline Kuppenheim in the company’s award-winning multimedia works El Capote and Sobre la Cuerda Floja (Over the Tightrope).

Most recently the company completed a two-week creative residency at The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland, the alma mater of Jim Henson. For more information about the artists please visit http://silencioblanco.cl

La Compañía Silencio Blanco se ha distinguido por su minucioso trabajo con marionetas de sencilla confección pero con una gran capacidad expresiva, concentrándose en personajes con los que se adentran en la vida de personas sencillas y oficios solitarios, explorando desde la gestualidad y sin necesidad de un texto, su profundo mundo emocional.

En sus montajes representan sensaciones propias del ser humano a partir de situaciones cotidianas por medio del gesto, asegurando que el movimiento humano transmitido a una marioneta puede provocar una ilusión tal al punto de transmitir los latidos del personaje.

Al prescindir de cualquier texto, la Compañía que nace el año 2010 con la obra De Papel, consigue abarcar un vasto público, sin límites de idioma; ni límite cultural, social, o etario para el espectador. Para mas información visiten http://silencioblanco.cl

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

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“Chiflón” is Spanish for the common name miners give to the natural draft that flows through a shaft. It is also the name of the notorious mine of Lota, in central Chile’s Bío Bío region along the Gulf of Arauco. The mine operated from the mid-1850’s until the 1990’s, and at one time it employed more than 1,500 miners and produced 250 tons of coal a day.

The work Chiflón revisits a history of coal miners through their representation as story characters. For their research, the creators re-read the short story Chiflón del Diablo (The Devil’s Blast) by Baldomero Lillo (1867-1923), the great Chilean writer, naturalist and eyewitness to the world portrayed therein, settling on a miner’s wife as the protagonist.

Not wishing to betray the reality of mining’s profound silence, they traveled to Lota, for the notorious mine Chiflón del Diablo, an eleven hour drive by car from the capital.

They were captivated by the sensitivity and charisma the people showed them, talking, inviting them into their homes, sharing memories, experiences, and their sadness, pains, and hopes. It was clear that Lota’s residents, the ex-miners and their families, are living treasures for the story about coal, a mystery full of secrets and humanity. They presented the visitors an interior silence; the dark silence.

The experience grew into a two-year creative investigation, involving repeated trips to Lota, interviewing and hand-building many of the puppets used in Chiflón with help by the townspeople.

The endeavor became to shape the human fiber of their story characters, by means of the aesthetic and symbolic details in constructing and manipulating the puppets. Chiflón, El Silencio del Carbón (Silence of the Coal) is their representation of a part of history that lives and exists in anonymity and is forgotten, while for decades it fueled the economic development of the national arenas of transportation, energy and export.

PROG

RAM

NOTE

S

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“Chiflón” es el nombre que los mineros suelen dar al proyecto natural que fluye a través de un eje. También es el nombre de la mina con siniestra fama de Lota, en la región central de Chile del Bío Bío, cerca del Golfo de Arauco. La mina operó desde mediados-1850’s hasta los 90’s, y en un tiempo empleaba a más de 1.500 mineros y produjo 250 toneladas de carbón por día.

El proyecto Chiflón quiere revivir parte de la historia de los mineros del carbón a través de sus personajes emblemáticos. Para esto los creativos hicieron una re lectura del cuento “El Chiflón del Diablo’’ de Baldomero Lillo – gran escritor chileno, naturalista, y testigo ocular del mundo que retrata - eligiendo como foco central e hilo conductor al personaje de la Mujer minera.

Con el fin de no traicionar la realidad silenciosa, viajaron al pueblo de Lota, donde se encuentra el famoso pique del Chiflón del Diablo, unas once horas en coche desde la capital.

Fueron cautivados por la delicadeza y el carisma de la gente, quienes conversaron con ellos, les invitaron a sus hogares, les contaron sus recuerdos, experiencias, sus penas, dolores e ilusiones. Se dieron cuenta que la gente de Lota, los ex mineros y sus familias, son hoy día un tesoro de la historia del carbón, un misterio lleno de secretos y humanidad. Les presentaron su propio silencio; el silencio negro.

La experiencia se convirtió en un período de dos años de investigación creativa, implicando a repetidos viajes a Lota, para entrevistas y construir a mano muchas de las marionetas utilizadas en Chiflón con la ayuda de los habitantes de la ciudad.

Se plasman, por medio del detalle estético y simbólico, en la construcción de la marioneta y del gesto en movimiento, la delicada fibra humana en los personajes de la historia. Hablan de una parte de su Historia que vive y existe en anonimato, que ha sido silenciada en la memoria, pero que fue sin embargo el seno en el que se basó el desarrollo económico durante décadas, tanto en materia de transporte y energía como en términos de exportación.

NOTAS DEL PROGRAMA

This work is a tribute to the people of Lota and the whole mining community, to all the families affected by the solitude of coal mining, the women in anguish waiting for their fathers, brothers and husbands, as well as the forgotten who have toiled extracting the resources that fuel the nation’s long period of industrial growth.

—El Mostrador, Chile

Esta obra es un homenaje a la población de Lota y a todo pueblo minero, a todas las familias de esa ciudad marcadas por la soledad de los piques, la angustiante espera de las mujeres por sus padres, hermanos y esposos, así como el olvido hacia esas personas que extrajeron con su esfuerzo el combustible que industrializó un largo periodo de nuestra historia.

—El Mostrador, Chile

Members of Silencio Blanco taught in Jennifer Barclay’s ‘Viewpoints’ class this week, exploring in silence the power of using the body to express ideas on stage. On Saturday, the company will teach puppet-making at a Family Art Day presented in partnership with Langley Park Community Center. The workshop is free and open to the public. Registration information can be found at theclarice.umd.edu.

FROM

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& C

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MCA Chicago is curator and lead organizer of the Silencio Blanco Southern Exposure tour, which continues through March 2017 to FUNDarte, Miami, Florida; The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, College Park, Maryland; The Theater, Raritan Community College, New Jersey; The Weis Center, Bucknell University, Pennsylvania; HERE Arts, New York City; Center for Art of Performance at UCLA, Los Angeles, California; and Boom Arts, Portland, Oregon.

Tour support for Silencio Blanco: Chiflón, El Silencio del Carbón is made possible through Southern Exposure: Performing Arts of Latin America, a program of Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts. For further information, visit www.midatalnticarts.org or www.southernexposurearts.org. Additional touring support is made possible in part by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Chile/National Council of Culture and the Arts, and the Performing Americas program of the National Performance Network with funding provided by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. For further information, visit the NPN website at www.npn.org.

Y gracias al auspicio y patrocinio de la Dirección de Asuntos Culturales del Ministerio de Relaciones Internacionales y el Consejo Nacional de la Cultura y de las Artes.

CREDITS

The Artist Partner Program engages national and international visiting artists who are committed to sparking exploration and discovery through participatory arts experiences.

To learn more, visit theclarice.umd.edu/app.

NURTURE THE FUTURE OF THE ARTS

UMD Jazz Studies students and bassist Kris Funn during a jazz clinic with APP Visiting Artist Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah

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