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Therapy on stage
BARCELONA CITY COUNCIL|25 July 2011
Theater becomes in 'Mucha Mujer' the tool for women with social problems in the Raval neighborhood to regain their confidence and autonomy and reclaim their role in society.
"The Mucha Mujer theater has helped these women regain the strength to move forward and perhaps also to find their artistic vocation"
As therapy or as a way to disconnect. In "Mucha mujer", theatre becomes the tool for women with social problems in the Raval to regain their autonomy and confidence and reclaim their role in society.
After the success of its first edition with the performance of the play Allà, on guardas la força de la teva humanitat, the theater workshop begins again for a dozen women.
Andrea was one of the first women to participate in "Mucha mujer". Transsexual and with drug addiction problems, this Raval resident has made this project her therapy to get out of the world of drugs, and nine months later she can say that she has recovered a good part of her self-esteem and has redirected her life. And all from the theater.
"My environment has changed, I have new friends..." this new artist acknowledges on stage. Like her, about twenty women with various social problems participated in the first edition of the "Mucha mujer" project, which closed with the performance of the play Allà, on guardas la força de teva humanica.
"My environment has changed, I have new friends..." this new artist acknowledges on stage. Like her, about twenty women with various social problems participated in the first edition of the "Mucha mujer" project, which closed with the performance of the play Allà, on guardas la força de teva humanica.
With actress and director Laura Settecase, the project uses theater as a tool to strengthen the autonomy of the participants, create new bonds between them and promote the integration of these women into their environment.
Working with questions
To do this, the classes revolve around play, creativity and improvisation exercises, which have served to build the final show. "We work from a driving question that generates new questions and also some answers," explains the director of "Mucha mujer".
Questions that probe into the personal stories of the students, such as Marcia, a Brazilian living in Barcelona, who the workshop has helped to relate better to people, and has given her the impetus to get out of the situation she was suffering from.
"It has helped me a lot in dealing with people, especially if I have to do a job interview, because you come from a reintegration and people have a lot of discrimination in this regard," says Marcia.
Space for reflection
In addition to a space where you can find your most artistic self, "Mucha mujer" is, for Marcia, a place where you can become aware of everything around you: "Sometimes we live so fast that we don't have time to reflect, to think, to remember. And here we can do it."
After the success of the first edition, the second workshop began last March, with new women and many personal stories behind them. "It helped me open up to the world," explains Anna, a student in this second edition. "I was very closed off in myself and these classes made me jump, laugh and live again."
She also sees theater and this workshop as a space where you can find yourself again and meet new people. "You meet people who may have been, in one way or another, lost like you were at some point, and that helps you too."
Whether as therapy or as a way to disconnect, the theater of "Mucha mujer" has helped these women regain the strength to move forward and perhaps also to find their artistic vocation.
