EVENT
Teatro la Re-sentida: Oasis of Impunity
NYU Skirball
From NYU Skirball:
“Brilliant … a harrowing artistic response to Chile’s recent wave of social unrest, [it] raises uncomfortable questions about power, art and ethics.” – A. J. Goldmann, The New York Times
Chile’s Teatro La Re-sentida returns to NYU Skirball with Oasis of Impunity, which The New York Times hailed as one of the top European productions of 2022 when it premiered at Berlin’s Schaubühne. Provocatively theatrical and rigorously choreographed, this interrogation of state violence is an extreme work of art that is all the more powerful for the delicate artistry of its execution.
In late 2019, Chile was convulsed by social unrest after a fare hike on the Santiago subway inspired mass demonstrations and riots against rising inequality. The government declared a state of emergency and deployed the army to restore law and order. In the first weeks of unrest, 29 people died and nearly 3,000 detained, including hundreds of women and children, according to a report issued by the National Institute for Human Rights. Since then, there have been numerous reports of security forces torturing and raping protesters.
To develop Oasis, the Company held a series of theater labs and workshops in Chile. Two hundred people participated, including many survivors of the state-sponsored repression and brutality. This resulting production is an investigation into the origins and mechanisms of such violence.
Darkly comic in some places, poetic or balletic in others, Oasis of Impunity raises issues related not only to Chilean society but to all global democracies now questioning their history.
La Re-sentida (The Resentful) is an internationally renowned collective of Chilian artists who view theater as a critical instrument with major political responsibility. Their work embodies the pulses, visions, and ideas of their generation and assumes as their duty the desecration of taboos, along with reflection generated through provocation. They have performed in more than 17 countries.
This production contains strobe lights, haze, high-volume sound effects, nudity, and graphic depictions of physical and sexual violence. Performed in Spanish with supertitles.
