Migrant Bodies in Alliance: from the Metaphor-Body to the Subject-Body in "Venimos de muy lejos" by Catalinas Sur

Abstract

In 1983, as the Argentinian military dictatorship ended, the Grupo de Teatro Comunitario Catalinas Sur was founded in the Buenos Aires neighbourhood of La Boca. The neighbours’ desire to claim back their right to appear in the public space of the state through the intimate space of memory leads to the composition of Venimos de muy lejos (1989). This work pays homage to all generations of Europeans who migrated to Argentina in the 19th and 20th centuries, and it has been staged every year since 1990, when it was first presented at the Plaza Islas Malvinas. In 2013, it was turned into a documentary film that bears witness to the history of the political and cultural resistance carried out by the communitarian project. Both on screen and on stage, "Venimos de muy lejos" transfigures into a diverse body through the mixture of genres and registers (interviews, testimonies, live performance clips and edited films) and scenic languages (cocoliche, Italian and Spanish folk songs, Uruguayan murga, puppets and circus). Such a body is composed of many voices and many speakers and, as it moves on the open stage of the road, it is no longer a show for few but a real experience for all.