pepe álvarez-colón
%202.png)
© photos by Pepe Alvarez
A Dos AGUAS/ Gable Roof (2013)
Pieza de teatro-documental desarrollada en el proyecto de desarrollo comunitario ¨Teatro y Cine Documental por el Caño¨ comisionada por la Corporación del Proyecto Enlace del Caño Martín Peña y auspiciada por Urban Waters Small Grants otorgada por la agencia de Protección Ambiental (EPA). El proyecto buscaba ofrecer talleres de video documental y teatro en combinación con actividades y talleres de educación ambiental a jóvenes estudiantes de la Escuela Albert Einstein y residentes de Barrio Obrero en Santurce. Los participantes, no solo recopilaron material visual, entrevistas y anécdotas de sus familiares y vecinos para construir la historia del sector a través del video-documental sino que participaron de talleres y excursiones ambientales para conocer más sobre los problemas de higiene y salud pública causados por la contaminación del Caño Martín Peña y la falta de atención gubernamental a los cuerpos de agua que circundan el sector.
A Dos Aguas was a documentary theater play developed in Teatro y Cine Documental por el Caño, a social and development program sponsored by the Caño Martín Peña ENLACE Corporation to create awareness among the residents of Barrio Obrero about the environmental, social and health issues caused by the contaminated waters of Caño Martín Peña, a heavily contaminated mangrove channel located within the San Juan Bay National Estuary. In collaboration with the ENLACE personnel and the members of the G-8 (a nonprofit organization composed by the eight Communities living alongside the Caño Martín Peña) Pepe Alvarez and Arnaldo Rodriguez-Bague worked for one year with a group youth residents of the the Dominican community of Barrio Obrero to create a site-specific theater piece developed around an experimental documentary film made by the participants. The fragments of the film projected on the walls were combined with live narrations and performance gestures addressing how the enviro-mental and health issues are related with social inequality, poverty and marginalization.
© photos by Pepe Alvarez
In this documentary theatre piece the act of constructing a wooden house in front of an audience (as a metaphor for community building) is intertwined with poetic gestures, live narrations and projected videos telling the history of Barrio Obrero and how the health issues caused by the contaminated water of Caño Martín Peña are the results of a long history of economic and social inequality. The phrase "A Dos Aguas" or "gable roof" was used here in its double meaning: to designate the construction of a house with double fall-down roofs and to express the feeling of being "in two waters" or "between two waters". The water, as a metaphor of both death and connectivity conjoins issues of migration by showing recorded interviews of their relatives narrating their experiences migrating from the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico with the trope of the environmental by including testimonies of how the polluted water of the channel has brought sewage and disease into their homes.
In this documentary theatre piece the act of constructing a wooden house in front of an audience (as a metaphor for community building) is intertwined with poetic gestures, live narrations and projected videos telling the history of Barrio Obrero and how the health issues caused by the contaminated water of Caño Martín Peña are the results of a long history of economic and social inequality. The phrase "A Dos Aguas" or "gable roof" was used here in its double meaning: to designate the construction of a house with double fall-down roofs and to express the feeling of being "in two waters" or "between two waters". The water, as a metaphor of both death and connectivity conjoins issues of migration by showing recorded interviews of their relatives narrating their experiences migrating from the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico with the trope of the environmental by including testimonies of how the polluted water of the channel has brought sewage and disease into their homes.
© video: cámara Ryan Pérez; editing Arnaldo Rodriguez-Bague
Barrio Obrero, P.R. June 5, 2013
The Process
Teatro y Cine Documental por el Caño (2012-2013)
Photos: Arnaldo Rodriguez-Bague
In collaboration with the ENLACE personnel and some community leaders of Barrio Obrero we integrated environmental education activities to our artistic workshops in order to give the students information about the importance to restore Caño Martín Peña's ecosystem and ENLACE's dredging plan to restore water flow of the channel.
In collaboration with the ENLACE personnel and some community leaders of Barrio Obrero we integrated environmental education activities to our artistic workshops in order to give the students information about the importance to restore Caño Martín Peña's ecosystem and ENLACE's dredging plan to restore water flow of the channel.
Workshops
For the documentary film workshops we developed collaborative exercises based on the participatory GIS model (Geographical Information Systems) to develop and follow a collective map in order to travel the neighborhood, conduct interviews, collect family anecdotes and visual materials. We also took boat tours through the less affected areas of the mangrove channel and visited other non-contaminated mangroves in Puerto Rico to learn more about mangrove landscape.
© photos by Arnaldo Rodriguez-Bague
Woodworking Workshops: The Construction of the House
© photos by Arnaldo Rodriguez-Bague
Beyond taking courses about how to plant and maintain community-orchards with the ENLACE personnel we ask the school's industrial education teacher if he can organize a woodworking workshop for the participants. The participants constructed with him a modular wooden house following the model of the original houses that first stablished in Barrio Obrero.
Los Mangles Son Nuestros
(short video)
For the third stage of the project, we showed them the short film Las playas son nuestras (1989) by Puerto Rican dancer and choreographer Viveca Vázquez as a reference of an experimental video piece that deals with environmental issues. Vieques is one of the islands of the Puerto Rican archipelago that was occupied by the U.S. Navy from 1941 to 2003 causing health issues and environmental destructions. The students, instead of reading the video in terms of the US military occupation of the island they interpreted the video as the travails of their Dominican families emigrating to Puerto Rico risking their lives in a dangerous travel by water. The students decided to remade Las playas son nuestras from their perspectives of second and third generation Dominicans that were born in Puerto Rico. With all these interviews, and videos collected the participants produced an experimental documentary film that links the health and environmental problems with issues about social marginalization and economic inequality.
For the third stage of the project, we showed them the short film Las playas son nuestras (1989) by Puerto Rican dancer and choreographer Viveca Vázquez as a reference of an experimental video piece that deals with environmental issues. Vieques is one of the islands of the Puerto Rican archipelago that was occupied by the U.S. Navy from 1941 to 2003 causing health issues and environmental destructions. The students, instead of reading the video in terms of the US military occupation of the island they interpreted the video as the travails of their Dominican families emigrating to Puerto Rico risking their lives in a dangerous travel by water. The students decided to remade Las playas son nuestras from their perspectives of second and third generation Dominicans that were born in Puerto Rico. With all these interviews, and videos collected the participants produced an experimental documentary film that links the health and environmental problems with issues about social marginalization and economic inequality.
© camera and editing Gabriel Coss and Arnaldo Rodriguez-Bague