50 years after the coup

Popular leadership in the experience of the Popular Amateur Experimental Theater

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to establish a reflection on the experience of the Amateur Popular Experimental Theater as a theatrical initiative linked to the Chilean process of Popular Unity, where this experience is configured as a concretion of the cultural ideas that the government headed by Salvador Allende had. Throughout the paragraphs, the materialization of popular leadership in the T.E.P.A. project will be deepened, through its writings, characters, themes and popular reception, that is, its concrete interaction with the marginalized sectors of society. Isidora Aguirre, precursor of the T.E.P.A., is configured as a playwright connected to the social reality of Chile, at the same time that she makes explicit her adherence to the Popular Unity, contributing to this project through the cultural tool, a space that is not limited to showing a or another theatrical work, but it is born from the same people and is configured as a vehicle to raise awareness and educate the population about ideas and measures of the popular government through what Aguirre called "political propaganda in theatrical form." It is pertinent to resume this theatrical experience fifty years after the coup, since these projects that were born deep within the people with a horizon of collective transformation cannot be omitted. The investigation is part of the conception of popular theater developed by the T.E.P.A. and its rooting in the heart of the people, their daily realities and problems.