El rumor del incendio / Proyecto La Rebeldía

“This research, this project, is far from be- ing an exhortation to take up arms; it is an attempt to recover the idea of utopia and the possibility of creating new thoughts that allow us to imagine more just worlds. To see the painting contained in the sketch and risk some ideas on the future. Let’s just hope they sail; we’ll know later if they reached their destination.
One does not question the reasons of the heart, one abides them.”

Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol, 2010

Our concern in doing this project had so much to do with discovering who and how our parents were (in the broadest sense, not just the bloodline one). We also wanted to understand how to transform our country, under the premise that it should be transformed, based on the idea of find- ing, in utopia, something in common which inspired us. For this we decided to recall a historical period of the country that for many reasons seemed destined to oblivion: the social movements of the 60s and 70s. A period defined by Rubén Ortiz as: the “awakening of conscience” of the youth, and youth itself as an instrument for the “awakening” of the entire society. We tried to give voice to different political figures of those years, in order to have a broader view and understand that the social movements of the 60s and 70s were not just ‘68. To think of Mexico as an immense territory with a great diversity of contexts that gave armed struggle important nuances. We also wanted to speak about a woman: Margarita Urías Hermosillo, fighter, normal school graduate, intellectual, scholar, researcher and mother of Luisa Pardo. Margarita’s life not only gave a voice to a woman in a history commonly remembered as “masculine”, it also linked us profoundly with the project in a personal way and determined the time frame in which the play happened.
However, our queries not only focused on content but also on form: We wanted to find out how one could represent (present?) the past. How to represent something that did
happen to someone, an event from reality? How to present (represent?) people without turning them into caricatures or solemn characters? We were interested in how one could speak about something so political without it becoming propagandistic, melodramatic or trivial. The result was a combination of audiovisual and scenic dramaturgy, using the first, second and third grammatical persons.

As a project, La Rebeldía was split in three distinct art objects.

One of them was the play El rumor del incendio [The rumor of the fire], preceded by a blog named El rumor del oleaje [The ru- mor of the waves]. Before the premiere of the play, in fortnightly installments, we published the advances of our research on social movements and guerrillas in Mexico, in addition to political and quotidian reflections of a
central character to the project: Commander Margarita (who alluded to Margarita Urías).
The third element is El rumor del momento [The rumor of the moment], a book made up of contributions by 24 persons and the play’s text. From the coexistence of different
voices, we wanted to configure an object that would remain in the world, in contrast to the ephemeral nature of the staged.
During the play the following songs were used: “Tus ojos” by Los Locos del Ritmo, “No tengo tiempo (de cambiar mi vida)” by Rockdrigo González, “Cenizas” by Los Terrícolas, and a song from the documentary The Frozen Revolution by Raymundo Gleyzer.

Coordinación general y texto General coordination and text: Luisa Pardo y Gabino Rodríguez • Asistente general General assistant: Mariana Villegas • Con Cast: Francisco Barreiro, Luisa Par- do y Gabino Rodríguez • Diseño e investigación iconográfica Iconographic research and design: Juan Leduc • Video Video: Yu- lene Olaizola • Diseño de Iluminación Lighting design: Marcela Flores y Juanpablo Avendaño • Iluminación en gira Lighting on tour: Sergio López Vigueras • Video en gira Video on tour: Car- los Gamboa • Maquetas Models: Francisco Barreiro • Actores en video Video cast: Harold Torres, César Ríos y Mariana Vi- llegas • Asesoría técnica en video e Isadora Technical advisor and Isadora: Emiliano Leyva • Producción Production: Dirección de Teatro de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México en colaboración con Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol.

El rumor del incendio premiered on September 2, 2010 at Foro Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, UNAM. It was presented in many states of Mexico and in more than fifteen countries and venues such as Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Brussels; FIBA, Buenos Aires; Wiener Festwochen, Vienna; Festival d’automne, Paris; Theater Spektakel, Zürich; Festival TransAmériques, Montreal; HAU, Berlin; Santiago a Mil, Santiago; Bienal de teatro, São Paulo; DeSingel, Antwerp; Cena Contemporánea, Brasilia; TBA, Portland; FIAC, Salvador de Bahía; Temporada Alta, Girona; Dialog, Wroclaw; among many others. It was granted the ZKB Förderpreis Award 2011 at the festival Theater Spektakel, Zürich.