Karlik Danza Teatro // Teatro del Silencio
Teatro del Silencio is a company that brings together actors, dancers and musicians. It was created in 1989 by Mauricio Celedon in Santiago de Chile. From the beginning, the Company has oriented its investigation and work toward a theatre of gesture and emotion, which combines dance, theatre, modern pantomime, music and circus arts, with the determination to create a theatrical language accessible for everybody, together with a reflection on our times.
This definite theatrical involvement has convinced a large audience of a different age, culture, history, nationality and language, who has appreciated the originality of the universal language that lets it travel in time and in space, with no barrier nor frontier.
This theatre, which goes beyond the word has realised five creations: « Gargantua », free adaptation of the text by Rabelais, « Transfusión », a street mime-drama inspired by the life of the migrants at the beginning of America (1990), « Ocho Horas » based on the history of a class struggle in Chicago at the origin of the International Labour Day, May 1st (1991), « Malasangre o las Mil y unas noches delPoeta », a spactacle based on the tumultuous life of the French poet Arthur Rimbaud (1991), and « Taca Taca, mon amour »: inspired by the crucial events occurring in Europe during the first part of the century, and presented on the huge table football (1993).
Since 1992 Teatro del Silencio has presented its creations to a great public in the Hexagon and the European Union, in the North Africa and on the festivals of the Latin America.
In 1995, Mauricio Celedón was entrusted for the direction of « Candides » (an open adaptation of the famous text by Voltaire) for the French Company Cirque Baroque.
In 1997, Teatro del Silencio presents « Nanaqui- Dossier N° 262 602 – El Hombreque se dice Poeta », a frenzied rock pantomime and circus-theatre show, dedicated to Antonin Artaud, co-produced by France and Chile.
The year 1999 is a decisive step in the evolution of the company. Teatro del Silencio settles down in France, in the city of Aurillac, thanks to a double support of the Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication / Direction régional des Affaires Culturelles d'Auvergne and of the city of Aurillac.
The same year Teatro del Silencio creates « Alice Underground » a circus theatre spectacle inspired by Lewis Carroll's work. « Alice Underground » will be presented in Europe and Latin America for four years.
In 1999, Mauricio Celedón directs « Palabra de ángel » for the Spanish Company of Karlik Danza Teatro and in 2002 « Amloii o como lo dijo Hamlet » for the Spanish companies of Karlik Danza Teatro and Sarmakanda.
In 2003 he gives birth to a new circus creation « O Divina laCommedia – Inferno », inspired by the famous Dante's work and some other texts like: The crusade of the children by Marcel Schwob and The Evangelism according to Saint Matthew.
With this latest creation the evolution of our investigations makes us confront with the text and leads us into this new dimension of a physical theatre, a circus theatre associated with the word.
In 2003 and 2004 Teatro del Silencio realises the project « Dante ou La Divine Comédie de la Rue », in France, Italy, Spain and Poland with the support of the “Culture Program 2000 – Education and Culture“ of the European Community, presented on the initiative of the Festival of Aurillac.
In 2004 the meeting with the amateur theatre from Aurillac - the companies GIAT and Bella Done – will give birth, under Mauricio Celedon's direction, to an unusual creation: « Le Cas Büchner », inspired by Woyzeck and other Büchner's writings.
Karlik danza teatro was founded in Cáceres in 1991, under the artistic direction of Cristina D. Silveira and the administration and technical direction of David Pérez Hernando, with the objective to find a scenic language, which could pass beyond the learnt and assimilated techniques.
Looking to the future
To the entire world,
To the bright project,
To the noble horizon that is worth it,
is – today, tomorrow and always –
the law of the young people
During the first years, with a classical, deeply rooted technique, the company needed to tell stories from the inside and to let the body provide with what was “unlearned”. That is why with few interprets and long periods of research, they would produce such spectacles like: Trilogía Gea 1992, Huéspedes 1994, Al otro lado 1995 or Cajade Papel 1997.
During those years the company enters much deeper into the contemporary dance collaborating in its spectacles with choreographs like Graciel Meneu, Pedro Berdayes or the Costa Rican Sandra Berdejo and Alejandro Tossati.
In 1998 Karlik danza-teatro makes another jump in its creative evolution with “Medea” of Fermín Cabal, produced for the Festival de Teatro Clásico de Mérida.The dance united with the gesture, with the creation of characters following the thread of a plot of a play, gives Cristina D. Silveira
a new incentive to carry on her scenic research and it is together with the Chilean director Mauricio Celedón with whom she goes in any depth into the basic and primitive emotions of the man, which are the core that generates the movement, the word, the gesture and any other technique or element inside a process of creation.
For this French company, Teatro del Silencio, she carries out the choreographies of its productions Alicia Underground (1999) or la Divina Comedia (2003).
Working with actors, acrobats and dancers, connecting and learning from these different disciplines, makes her choreographic language develop and turn into a universal
language where the interpret has a lot to say and contribute. With this trust in the interpret, Cristina D. Silveira carries out choreographies for other companies, theatrical mostly, which start to understand as well the importance of what the body has to say inside the character.
Some reference spectacles: Extremadura Ajo de Peces (for the Expo in Lisbon), Amentos (Feval), Poeta Hambriento (European Project among Spain, Austria and Poland), Las Aves, Agripina or Las Parcas (Festival de Teatro Clásico de Mérida).
It is normal that this entire foray into the physical theatre, into the dance of gesture and the theatricalacrobatics, has a repercussion throughout the new creations of the company. In 1999 "Palabra de Ángel" was premiered, a spectacle which at the door of the new millennium, stage an angel with an apocalyptic message and with the love as a unique hope of salvation.
Beautiful, Intense and Exasperated, as Pedro Labra wrote in the diary El Mercurio of Santiago de Chile, “the staging merges dance, performance, music, chant, poetry and lights, to create a collection of oneiric visions, of a stunning and painful beauty and of a physical intensity, which passes directly to the deepest parts of the conscience...”
In 2000 "Amloii, como lo dijo Hamlet" comes, a spectacle which captivates the public thanks to the good move of starting from the well-known story of Hamlet, which permits the conceptualization and the synthesis, and which manages to displace the conventional development of the action for the advantage of a thread of arguments which abstraction does not conflict with the preconception of a public who is not used to alternative realisations.
As the Diary Hoy underlined; “The final result is impressive. In the staging, the actors give, as they did it in the repetitions, a great dose of power and passion, leaving a big pat of themselves in the performance.”
This play, still on tour, has been awarded with many prizes in different festivals.
With both creations directed by Mauricio Celedón, with choreographies by Cristina D. Silveira and co-produced by the Junta of Extremadura, Karlik danza-teatro starts to flourish beyond the national territory, assisting International Festivals like Festival Internacional de Manizales and Festival de Medellín (Colombia), Festival Teatro a Mil and Temporada Estación Mapocho (Chile), Festival Londrina and Curitiba (Brazil), Festival Mercosur (Argentina), Festival of Perigueux and Aurillac (France) or Festival of Covilha (Portugal), among others. And more then twenty National Festivals in Spain like Festival de Teatro Clásico of Alcalá, Festival FIT of Cádiz, Festival de Teatro Clásico of Cáceres, Festival Contemporáneo of Badajoz, Festival Madrid Sur, Festival de Otoño of Madrid, Festival Mim of Sueca, Festival of Loja,Festival of Sagunto, among others.
The latest production of the company, "Prometeo del Fuego a la Luz" of Memé Tabares, came in 2004, as entrusted by the Festival de Teatro Clásico of Mérida. Directed by Cristina D. Silveira and Memé Tabares, is certainly one of the most complete spectacles of the company.
