About Us
La Huella Teatro is founded in 2004 by Alejandra Rojas, an actress from Antofagasta and trained in Santiago. The impronta of La Huella Teatro is the search for an identity theater, deeply connected with the human and geographical landscape in northern Chile and that also values memory as an invaluable cultural element. Its creations are nourished by research in the field, from which an own and open playwright arises to its staging through the search of diverse languages.
Another of its significant characteristics is the desire to take quality theater to places of difficult access to artistic manifestations. Thus, there have been performances in Easter Island, Visviri, Ollagüe and Punta Arenas, among other extreme cities in Chile. Its work has been awarded by the National Fondart on several occasions, in creation and circulation and in 2007 obtained the Bicentennial Fondart for the Creation of Excellence for the project “Xi Wang, The Other Homeland”. From a professional form of production that has meant the collaboration of private companies through the Law of Donations for cultural purposes.
Some of its plays are: “Xi Wang, The Other Homeland”, “Chajnantor, Mirar Hacia Atrás (Look Back)”, “Partir (Depart)”, “Baile Ausente de un Arcangel (Absent Dance of an Archangel)” and the latest production (2017) is “Wukong the Great Journey of the Monkey King ”, a family staging.
In 2012, its director was awarded with the Linterna de Papel Award for Regional Arts, performing in Santiago with the staging: “Baile Ausente de un Arcángel”, “Chajnantor Mirar Hacia Atrás”, in the recognized Matucana 100 space.
In January 2014, “Baile Ausente de un Arcángel” was performed in Santiago in the “Scenic Memory” theater cycle of the “Museum of Memory and Human Rights” (Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos) and also in the Cielos del Infinitos Festival in the city of Punta Arenas in the far south of the country
From Visviri to Rapanui
One of the objectives that mobilizes us as a company is to go where the theater does not go. We believe that theater is an art in continuous movement, which is nurtured through empirical knowledge of other ways of being and doing. That is why our first great challenge was to go to Visviri in 2004 with the “Botitas Negras” performance. At more than 4,300 meters high we could share with the community what it was like to live the theater near the volcanoes.
After multiple performances in different communes of northern Chile, we decided to cross the ocean looking for cultural exchange with one of the richest ethnic groups in traditions and mysticism of our country. We arrived in Rapa Nui with our Andean story Allqu Yana, in 2007. We worked side by side with the community, conducting training workshops for teachers of the two high schools of the island.
HAMLET (Act III, scene II): “… the end of dramatic art, whose object, in both its origin and the centuries that have passed, has been and is to present, as it were, a mirror of humanity; show virtue its own features, vice its true image and at each age and generation its physiognomy and its hallmark ”.
(William Shakespeare)
“For all the teachers of the Escuela Imagen Theater, it is an honor and a matter of pride to witness the successful contributions of our former students to the cinema, TV and the national scene. Now, when these cultural creations take place outside the capital city, responding to the imperative need to procure a soul to the most remote regions of our territory, we are not only pleased, but also, we gladly join such important companies. Yes, because as the poet said: «a people without art is a town without a soul».
Of all the groups formed in our school that work throughout the country, perhaps the most emblematic are, in the far north “LA HUELLA TEATRO” of Antofagasta, 1,361 kilometers away from Santiago and in the far south “TEATRO ACHEN”, from Coyhaique, 1,642 kilometers away from the capital city. Founded by former students and with casts of actors trained in the school, they are professional centers that revolve within their regions and bordering countries, with a national and regional repertoire, combined with research and workshops in cities and towns in which they present their plays.
Alejandra Rojas Pinto since arriving at the school expressed her intention to turn her knowledge and creativity into her hometown, Antofagasta. Once she graduated, she participated in the artistic life of Santiago, studied abroad, and then set up her operations center in the north of the country, organizing workshops, seminars and festivals. Based on participants in a workshop that invited me to develop in 2003, the La Huella Teatro emerged. Inspired by the motto of Máximo Gorky: «Describe your village with sincerity and you will be describing the whole world», Alejandra revives stories and myths of her region, processes them as a theater performance and shares them with the north, center and south of Chile.
As in the theater one goes meteorically from teacher to colleague, I have had to get to know and share this particular experience closely, carrying out workshops, as a playwright and editor of stagings made by “La Huella ” and I have enriched myself with them artistically and humanly.
Thanks to Alejandra and casts for their determination, quality and intention of their work! Thanks also to those who have morally and materially supported their projects! ”
Gustavo Meza W.
Playwriter, director and ATN President
“The name of the company cannot be more exactly and it absolutely describes the mission that has been proposed. The theater that La Huella performs is beautiful, honest, deep and absolutely necessary for the development of the community.
The Huella Teatro is not looking for simple entertainment but deep communication with its audience.
With Chajnantor staging, the company goes further into the anthropological search path and creates a mysterious virtual bridge with our ancestors.
For me it has been a privilege to participate in this profound journey. Thank you.”
Jaime Lorca. Compañía Viajeinmóvil Director