The successful text by Gabriel Calderón, the Uruguayan playwright, closes the MEI programme. So far, the festival has hosted 2,200 spectators during 37 shows

 

The third edition of the Ibero-American theatre festival Muestra Escénica Iberoamericana (MEI) closes with three performances of ‘Ana contra la muerte’ (Ana against death) offered in the municipalities of El Sauzal and Candelaria. The festival started with the Uruguayan theatre, a country that also closes the programme. This initiative by the Department of Culture of the Island Council is managed by the island Minister of Culture, Enrique Arriaga, and is organised through the Auditorio de Tenerife. Tickets are available at www.meitenerife.com.

Arriaga is pleased that "more than 2,200 spectators have attended the 37 performances held so far in twelve municipalities of Tenerife". He added that "the MEI festival is a clear example of our commitment to a local culture based on municipalism."

This weekend at 8:00 p.m. in the Teatro El Sauzal, the première in Spain of ‘Ana contra la muerte ’(Ana against death) continues to be staged during two performances that will be held on Saturday, the 2nd of October and on Sunday,  the 3rd of October. The last chance to see this acclaimed piece that has been translated into Italian is on Wednesday, the 6th of October at 8:00 p.m. in the Cine Viejo, Candelaria.

‘Ana contra la muerte’ was written and directed by Gabriel Calderón, the renowned Uruguayan playwright. The play proposes that the chances of death are extremely high, but those of never having been born are by far higher. Every person who is born and lives are not only a miracle of nature through its complex biological mechanisms. He/she is also a statistical miracle since the odds of not being born or of dying quickly have always been our cons.

According to Calderón, we reject death not out of fear, not out of grief, not because it is unnatural. We reject it because we are the unnatural ones; because death is a rule to correct the marvellous exception we are." Thus, the author considers that death returns us to the statistics, like the minerals and stardust that inhabit worlds where nothing is counted because there is nothing."

‘Ana contra la muerte’ was premièred in Tenerife on Wednesday, the 29th of September in the Auditorium Infanta Leonor, Arona. The play arrived in Spain after offering eight performances in the Teatro El Galpón, Uruguay. It is the story of a woman who understood that she had to resist death as long as she could, and even longer. The play begins with a mother and all the things she has to go through to try to save her son's life.

It's about telling the most complex things in the simplest way. It is about projecting from a stage the essence and power of the experiences we sometimes go through, allowing us to perceive and reflect on that which is unbearable if we look at it directly. This sad story told with love encourages the audience to watch on stage the difficulties of the story and its edges through the power of three great actresses of the Uruguayan theatre: Gabriela Iribarren, Marisa Bentancur and María Mendive.

This third edition of the MEI festival has taken place between 2 September and 6 October. The programme was staged in 12 municipalities and offered 14 shows from Latin America, Spain and Portugal. This year, the venues were the Paraninfo de la Universidad de La Laguna and those of the municipalities of Adeje, Arona, Candelaria, El Rosario, Guía de Isora, Los Realejos, Puerto de la Cruz, Tacoronte, Tegueste, Vilaflor and El Sauzal.

Of the twelve companies that have participated during this edition, three were from Chile (Niño Proletario, Silencio Blanco and Colectivo Cuerpo Sur), two from Uruguay (El Galpón and Marea Productora) and one each from Colombia (11 Paredes), Argentina (Diego Casado), Nicaragua (Teatro Justo Rufino Garay), and Portugal (Hotel Europa Teatro); three from the Canary Islands (Delirium, Ángulo Producciones and Unahoramenos).