There are three moments, 1892, 1954 and 2023, that would serve as a guide to understand paradigm shifts in the history of Colombian culture. At least these three scenes are set in the historic heart of Bogotá, just a few blocks away. First, the inauguration of the Teatro Colón, the country’s most emblematic cultural scene, inaugurated to commemorate what was then known as the “Discovery of America”; the second, the year in which for the first time an Afro woman, Delia Zapata Olivella, appeared on this stage, until then destined for the elites; and most recently, the opening of Colombia’s largest cultural complex, the National Center for the Arts (CNA).
They are all connected and come together in this huge 17,000 square meter building that connects to the Colón and which, in the words of its director Iván Benavides, “is more than a showcase, it is a space for the defense of the Colombian Pop culture.” Zapata, a dancer and folklorist who grew up watching plays from the chicken coop, as the cheapest chairs in Colón are called, now has a room dedicated to her work and her name. “Delia Zapata (1926 -2001) was not only the first black woman to enter the stage of the Colón, but also the pioneer who undertook major international tours with our traditions, our music and our dances,” adds Benavides.
Iván Benavides, Director of the National Center for the Arts poses for a portrait in Bogotá March 22, 2023.VANNESSA JIMENEZ
Now in the CNA, the original room of the Colón converges with the famous curtain of the mouth, which includes characters from various classical operas such as Hamlet, Rigoletto and Faust; and the Delia Zapata room, with its own stage curtain: the image of the artist in full dance, waving a dress that turns into a flower, surrounded by fishermen on a raft. In this space, the atabaques and drums of the Cabildo Cultural Corporation, a production of contemporary Afro dance from Cartagena, inaugurated the National Center for the Arts. “Delia is the heart of this place and represents the defense of tradition, women, Afro, the dignity of artists and the internationalization of our arts,” adds Benavides, a renowned cultural manager and producer of Colombian musicians.
Another woman well remembered by Colombians also has a place in this cultural complex. There is a room named after Argentinian Fanny Mikey, founder of the Bogotá Iberoamerican Theater Festival, dedicated to innovation and artistic experimentation. Mikey, godmother of Latin American theater whose funeral was a theatrical celebration in Bogotá in 2008, is a figure dear to Colombians. Expanded artworks on the climate crisis will be presented in the room, another of the axes that the center will have, and presentations of Afrofuturism. There will also be a third rehearsal room for orchestras.
The cultural complex that stands out in the center of Bogotá puts the country in line with the cultural infrastructure of other Latin American countries due to its size. It was compared to the San Martín Cultural Center in Buenos Aires, the Gabriela Mistral Cultural Center in Santiago de Chile, and the Ciudad de las Artes Cultural Complex in Rio de Janeiro. The construction of the work, designed by Medellín studio Aqua & Terra Arquitectos, began in 2016 and passed through the governments of Juan Manuel Santos and Iván Duque. In total, more than 123,000 million pesos have been invested, about $250 million at the current exchange rate. In 2022, then-President Duque inaugurated the facilities, but it was not until this week, already in the government of Gustavo Petro, that the doors opened.
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Delia Zapata Hall of the National Center for the Arts in Bogotá. With kind approval
The 2023 artistic program includes 280 events of various types of shows. 1,500 artists and 80,000 spectators are expected. His sustainability model is the sum of state funds and international cooperation plus rental income. For Benavides, the building will not only be a place for the presentation of shows, “but it will be a place of encounter, creativity and dialogue with communities, with territories and with the planet”.
The aim is to present “the fruit of processes or the processes that trigger them” on the stages. For this reason, laboratories work with indigenous peoples of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, with Afro communities of Tumaco and Urabá; Among other things, they are preparing a play with deaf communities and another with blind people. However, this does not take up any space for the presentation of established artists of classical music and opera, explains Benavides.
“This is more than an initiation, it is like founding a house. We want this place, which is ultimately a workshop, a laboratory and a projection room, to also be a home,” says Benavides, while in one of the rooms a group of representatives from indigenous communities celebrates Water Day and the culture harmonized complex.
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