"JULIO CORTÁZAR: LETTERS 1977-1984": letter to Viviana Marcela Iriart. The story behind the letter / Viviana Marcela Iriart, April 22, 2013, photographs by Eduardo Gamondés, translation by Luciana Valente
Julio Cortázar not only was kind enough to agree to an interview in Caracas in late September 1979, when I was a 21-year-old unknown exiled freelancer, writing for free for Semana - a dying magazine - but he was also extremely generous for sending me a letter to thank me for the interview once it had been published, saying beautiful words that only a wonderful person like him could write and that, of course, I did not deserve.
Cortázar was in Caracas to participate in the First International Conference on Exile and Latin American Solidarity in the 70s (October 21-29), which opened in Caracas and then continued in Mérida, bringing together the greatest writers of the time: Mario Benedetti, Eduardo Galeano, Antonio Skarmeta, Ernesto Cardenal…
I signed the interview using a pseudonym (the name was chosen by the editor in chief) because Cortázar was one of the most famous and combative opponents of the Argentine dictatorship; my mother and my sisters were living in Argentina and I feared they could suffer retaliation. Cortázar, with his characteristic humanity, understood my fears when I explained the situation.
When we met at the Anauco Hilton Hotel lobby, we did not kiss in the cheek, in Argentine style, but shook hands instead, in Venezuelan style, because that was the first thing I had learned after ending up hovering in mid-air several times with the person I was trying to kiss staring back at me in surprise. Cortázar, who had been in Venezuela several times, seemed to know about this custom quite well.
He did not ask why I had been forced to live in exile and I did not tell him about it. I admired him too much to waste time talking about myself. I only wanted to hear his thoughts. He was with Carol Dunlop, who looked charming with her big tender eyes full of amazement like a little girl, and Cortázar was very patient when I attacked intellectuals who urged people to fight but hid behind their books when bombs started falling. Of course, he was not like that, but I had met so many who were during my last months in Argentina, while trying to run away, that intellectuals disgusted me. Cortázar, who seemed to intuitively know I was bleeding out in exile, responded to my attacks with patience and great gentleness.
He looked very young and handsome (and he was 65 years old), but he seemed to be a very sad man - although at some points in the interview I say he smiled like a child - he seemed very worried and physically exhausted.
When the interview finished and we were both standing, saying goodbye, when I saw that he was starting to walk and that he would be out of my life forever, I somehow plucked up the courage - even though I was extremely shy - to stop him and say:
- Cortázar, could I ask you a favor?
- Of course! —he answered kindly.
- Can I give you a kiss?
Cortázar burst out laughing with surprise and joy, and for the first time I saw his eyes sparkle happily. Carol, by his side, smiled at me with a knowing look in her big eyes.
- Sure! —he answered with a wonderful smile and leaned so that I could reach his cheek.
A kiss, an interview, a letter. Who could ask for more? Cortázar was my best gift in exile (together with Joan Báez, but that is another story).
What Cortázar did not know - and had no reason to know and actually never knew - was that I had been forced to live in exile for being a pacifist and the editor of a small, underground culture magazine, Machu-Picchu, where I had expressed my opposition to the war with Chile in September 1978. The result was persecution, secrecy, asylum at the Embassy of Venezuela in Buenos Aires and exile - in that order. And lacking any political militancy, I was very naive to think using a pseudonym was enough to hide from the dictatorship.
Because Alberto Boixadós, an Argentine writer who supported the dictatorship and whose book “Arte y Subversión” (Art and Subversion) includes a chapter dedicated to attacking Cortázar called “Gabriel García Márquez, Carlos Fuentes, Julio Cortázar, Mario Vargas Llosa. ¿Son francotiradores o constituyen ejército regular?” (Gabriel García Márquez, Carlos Fuentes, Julio Cortázar, Mario Vargas Llosa. Are they free agents or part of the regular army?), can be read - even today! - in the Argentine neo-Nazi blog calledWeltanschauungNS:
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Alberto Boixadós published the book “La Revolución y el arte moderno” (The Revolution and Modern Art) in 1981 and, continuing his attacks on Cortázar, he says:
“Revolutionary passion leads him to distort the truth reaching the absurd.
In an interview to Cortázar performed by Viviana López Osornio for Semana magazine #581, November 1979, in a corner of the Anauco Hilton Hotel on the occasion of the first International Conference on Exile and Latin American Solidarity in the 70s, he answers: ‘For me what is and has been traumatic is a phenomenon which not everyone considers and which, in the case of an exiled artist, is fundamental. It's what I would call the cultural exile (…)”
This demonstrates two things.
First, how much Cortázar’s words bothered the Argentine dictatorship and its followers, because “Semana” was a bankrupt magazine (it closed a few months later) and therefore had very few readers and very little influence on Venezuelan political life, and because the interview had been performed by an absolutely unknown and insignificant person in 1979.
However in 1981, when the book came out, I was an active opponent of the dictatorship through my pro bono work at Amnesty International and the “Coordinator for Human Rights in Argentina” (created by part of the Argentine exiles in Venezuela); I had stopped using the pseudonym in 1979 and had become a small public figure - just as insignificant, but for the dictatorship any flea could mean the risk of getting a huge bump.
Second, that there were traitors among Argentine exiles in Caracas, because only the people around me knew that that interview to Cortázar had been performed by me and it had never been republished with my name. (Besides, in 1980 I adopted my mother's surname, Iriart, and I have been known by that name since then.) Who were those traitors?
Living in exile, among other things, was always like walking down a mined road - you never knew when you could explode into pieces, because the dictatorship never stopped persecuting us. Or if the helping hand that was extended to you was actually the one that was trying to kill you.
In the interview, Cortázar says sorrowfully: “Because here I can tell you this, but no one will listen to me in Argentina, nobody will read it. You can publish it, but unless someone takes it there by carrying it in their pocket, no one will be able to read it there.” I thought the same thing. How wrong we were! We had forgotten about traitors, handing our heads on a plate for money, envy, ambition, perversion or mere hatred.
Cortázar was not invited to Alfonsín's investiture when democracy returned to Argentina in December 1983. And if anyone deserved to be invited for how he had fought and for all he had given and all he had stopped doing for himself and sacrificed for Argentine democracy, it was him.
Cortázar was also betrayed by democracy.
And I only hope that traitors have been punished, either by justice or by life, and if they have not, so be it: they will always be a piece of shit under a military boot or a democratic shoe.
Cortázar is still one of the greatest writers of all times, in the whole world. One of the most loved human beings. And I live in peace.
And now that the letter he sent me in 1979 has become part of the book “Julio Cortázar: Cartas 1977-1984” (Julio Cortázar: 1977-1984 Letters), which contains 5 volumes with almost all the letters Cortázar wrote in his life, I can only say once again: Thank you, Cortázar, for letting me be part of your life.
April 22, 2013
© Photographs by Eduardo Gamondés
Translation:
Julio Cortázar: "A day in my life is always a beautiful thing, because I am very happy to be alive" / interview by Viviana Marcela Iriart, Semana Magazine, Caracas, September-November 1979 / Photos by Eduardo Gamondés. Translation by Luciana Valente
JULIO CORTÁZAR AND LATIN AMERICA: "WE MUST FIGHT AGAINST CHAUVINISM"
His deep, nasal voice answers the phone, without intermediaries, just by lifting the receiver. Cortázar. His voice is serious, as the image I have of him, in which he is always forty years old - impossible to imagine him older (yet his biographers say he was born in 1914). He tells me he wants to see the magazine before agreeing to an interview. For some reason neither he nor we understand, the magazines we left at the hotel never reached his hands. He still suggests meeting at Central Park, at the opening of the First International Conference on Exile and Latin American Solidarity in the 70s, in which he would participate.
And there he was, drawing people's attention, whether he liked it or not - he was the tallest person in the crowd. And there he was, with that copper beard and mustache he has been wearing for so long, with the seriousness he displays in newspapers and magazines, and yet with a charm I had never imagined. There he was, Cortázar. A human being like you and I, yes, with two eyes, a mouth, two hands, virtues, flaws, desires, longings.
The interview took place in a corner of the Anauco Hilton Hotel in the presence of the advisor of Semana magazine, Jorge Madrazo, photographer Eduardo Gamondés and four or five of the writer's fans, who were secretly (or not so secretly) immersed in the conversation.
He spoke slowly, warmly and his green eyes scanned ours as his words opened at the center of our minds, remaining there long after spoken.
And he remained within us when night came and found us in different places. As an invisible, wished-for presence, always there since that first meeting.
ABOUT LITERATURE AND POLITICS
"Well, of course it bothers me to be called upon to give political opinions more than literary opinions, because I am a literary animal. Just as the French often refer to someone as a thinking animal or a philosophical animal, I am a literary animal. I was born for literature, and I only assumed this ideological commitment that you've seen in me after a very slow, very difficult and sometimes very painful process. Because, since literature is my true vocation, there are times when political circumstances – having to come to this Conference, write articles with political content, attack the Argentinian or Chilean Junta, deal with cases of missing, dead or tortured people, or answer some of the enormous amount of correspondence I get, because people think that I can always say something helpful – well, there are times when – I admit it because it's true – I become greatly discouraged. Because I say, 'Well, will I ever be able to write a novel?' Ideally, I would like to have a year or two of tranquility, to write a novel that I've been playing with in my head for a long time. That's why I'm becoming more of a short story writer, because that's something you can write on the plane, at home, on the street..."
EXILE CAME ALL THE WAY TO FRANCE
"I've lived outside Argentina for 28 years, but I had never considered myself an exile until the Videla coup. I had never considered myself an exile because for me exile is a compulsive thing, and I was living in France because I wanted to. Because it is a country I like, where I feel good and where I could write without any difficulties or problems. And suddenly, when the military coup happened, I realized I had become a true exile. So now I have this feeling that all exiles have, where the negative side is very strong, it's a heavy weight. This led me to reflect on the problem of exile for the first time. That's when I realized that if I or any other exile fall into the stereotype of exile being essentially negative and devastating, we are letting the dictatorship that exiled us win. So I set out the issue very clearly - it's crazy, it's illogical, it can't be scientifically applied, but instead of moving forward, I move backwards, I reverse the motion and understand exile in positive terms. I said it in Paris and it made many people smile: I said that it was as if Videla, having exiled me, had given me a grant to write outside of Argentina. And the best way for me to respond to that exile is to give the most that I can give as a writer, and that's what I'm trying to do.
But when an exile arrives completely broken, either because he himself suffered - even physically - before he could leave or because there are a lot of dead, disappeared, tortured people around him, you cannot ask him to begin his life in exile with a smile, saying "This is alright." No, because it's horribly wrong. I urge all men and women who haven't lost their senses, when the time comes to think about the new life that is beginning, at that moment I urge them not to fall into stereotypes and say, "I am a victim, I am an exile, I have been unjustly thrown out of my country," which will gradually lead to bitterness and to an overwhelming nostalgia. I urge them – when that first traumatic shock is over – to feel like a full man or woman once again."
THE SOUTH, THE WALL AND BEYOND… (1)
"Yes, because what is the point of five nostalgic Argentines getting together, grilling meat, drinking mate, listening to Susana Rinaldi, Mercedes Sosa or Gardel (according to taste) and indulging in nostalgia for a past that we want to revive? I do that too, but that does not stop me from waking up in Paris the next day, and getting in touch with a lot of people who are not Argentine and carrying out my work.
So this is a subtle matter, it is not very simple and, of course, not all people are equally equipped at a mental or intellectual level. And a blue-collar worker, who is more limited from a cultural perspective - because, due to his status, he hasn't been able to study – that man is really the one who is most at risk in exile. If a worker has to live in Sweden, just the language problem is like a death threat. And that's when nostalgia, Gardel, memories and photos become his only defense. And I think all of us can do a lot through publications, events, meetings, to make them feel they are not alone."
(1) In reference to verses from the famous tango “Sur” (South). For this interview, south means Argentina, wall means execution walls, and beyond means the concentration camps and death flights by the Argentine dictatorship.
CULTURAL EXILE
"For me what is and has been traumatic is a phenomenon which not everyone considers and which, in the case of an exiled artist, is fundamental. It's what I would call the cultural exile: it's terrible to realize that in your own country there is a barrier of censorship that means, for example, that I cannot publish any more books in Argentina. So you realize – and this is what's most frightening for me – that you are exiled, but on the other side, in your country, there are 26 million people who are exiled from you. I am separated from my readers, but my readers are separated from me: my last book of short stories in Argentina could not get published because there were two stories that annoyed the Junta. And, for me, this is not just a personal matter: there are 150 magnificent Uruguayan, Chilean and Argentine writers that cannot be published in our country.
In Chile, starting on September 11, 1973, a generation of young people was taken by the Junta and enrolled in fascist schools run by the military. Six years have passed and they have lived their critical years (between 12 and 18) under that regime, thousands and thousands of Chilean boys and girls who, right now, believe in the Junta, believe in National Security, believe that all of us are traitors. They believe that Chile is a country which is unjustly attacked and threatened. It's not their fault, poor things, because in six years they have become the same as what Hitler did with the Hitler Youth, or Mussolini with the "Balillas". Well, that is for me one of the most frightening things, and we can do nothing, intellectually. Because here I can tell you this, but no one will listen to me in Argentina, nobody will read it. You can publish it, but unless someone takes it there by carrying it in their pocket, no one will be able to read it there."
A WRITER AND HIS COMMITMENT TO THE REVOLUTION
"I keep an open mind regarding writers' work. I think there can be pure writers who don't introduce any political message into what they do. I think that's possible, and that their work can be revolutionary if it is a creative, refreshing work, a beautiful work. All that I demand in such cases is that the person making pure literature show in their personal conduct that they are not an escapist. That if they do not include politics in their work, it is only because their vocation is for example to write sonnets, in which politics have no place. But they have to prove, through their conduct, through their personal responsibility, that they are entitled to write those sonnets.
Look, I have so much fun writing pure literature... Next year I'll publish a book, which I'm now finishing, where there are one or two stories with political content; all the others are fantastical tales. And I think I'm entitled to write them, because my readers know who I am. So why should I feel compelled to bring politics into everything I write? If I did, my literature would be very bad - I am well aware of this. Not every man is born for action, not every man – how should I put it? – has the physical skills to dare to play a role at the action level. Not every man is born to be a soldier of the revolution. There may be a man with an interior life, with a shy nature, which leads him to write a work that only sings to the revolution. But I do not think you can demand active militancy from everyone."
VIETNAM AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT BY IMPERIALISM
"I think that denouncing human rights violations which occur in socialist countries is a positive thing, as long as you're absolutely certain about what you're denouncing. Because, when it comes to human rights violations in those countries, I on principle examine the record very carefully, because I know very well how much information from imperialism alters, changes and modifies things.
I do not forget that, for example, following the last stage of the Nicaraguan revolution in the Herald Tribune in Paris, you could find a discussion of how the Yankees prepared the American reader to be against the victory of the revolution. They referred to Somoza as a tyrant, a dictator, but when they spoke of the advancing columns, the spoke of 'the Marxist columns.' Every eight or nine paragraphs they would drop that word, so that a good lady in Minnesota or Detroit would say: 'My God, the Communists!' So, when it comes to Vietnam, I am waiting to see García Márquez, who was there doing a survey, so that he can tell me how things are. I do not trust press releases. But when in Russia or the other countries of the socialist sphere there are flagrant violations of human rights, I speak up."
A UNITED LATIN AMERICA: REALITY OR UTOPIA?
"I'll say it in a sentimental way, almost like Rubén Darío would: in my heart, Latin America exists as a unit. I am Argentine of course (and happy to be), but essentially I feel Latin American. I feel at home in any country in Latin America. I perceive local differences, but those are differences within unity. That's on a personal level. In geopolitical terms, we have this pernicious divide-and-conquer policy, one that Americans have long applied. Promoting nationalism and rivalries between countries to better dominate them, destroying Bolivar's dream of the "United States of South America" and encouraging the creation of different countries which are proud, self-confident, and ready to go to war for reasons that do not stand to serious analysis. This is a reality.
And I think one of the major duties of the political left, of revolutionary writers, is to try by every means to fight this chauvinism, which makes an Argentine child in school learn that he is much better than a Chilean or Paraguayan child. Indeed, in my previous visit I spoke with ordinary Venezuelans and their idea about Colombians, their contempt, their hatred terrified me. The same, of course, occurs on the other side. This proves that ‘divide and conquer’ works, that the Yankees continue to promote it because it works to their advantage, and local dictatorships are happy to help them."
THEN HE SPOKE ABOUT LIFE AND DEATH
"A day in my life is always a very beautiful thing, because I'm really happy to be alive. I have no intention of dying, I have the impression I'm immortal. I know I'm not, but the idea of death does not bother me, nor does it scare me. I deny its existence, so that helps me to live in a way… how can I put this? Under the sun, in a solar way.
I am very glad to be alive. And there is something few people think about: it is such a marvel that we all are human beings, that we are at the top of the zoological ladder by purely genetic chance. Because you are not responsible for being who you are. We come from a very long genetic chain, and when I see a chicken or a fly, which were born within the same genetic chain, I marvel at being a man and not a chicken. I am a man, with all its good and bad aspects. And I'm glad that I have had a conscience, that I've been able to see as much as a conscience can see of this planet. And I'll stop speaking."
He uttered those words after spending more than half an hour with us, telling us anecdotes and smiling, sometimes like a child. Yes, he is a human being like you and me, he needs to move his mouth in the same way you and I do in order to speak. But he is Julio Cortázar.
Semana Magazine, Caracas, September-November 1979
© Photographs by Eduardo Gamondés
Translation:
CARLOS GIMÉNEZ : trayectoria 1963-1992 / fragmento de la biografía "Carlos Giménez el genio irreverente" (2023) de Viviana Marcela Iriart
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| Carlos Giménez y Giorgio Strehler (Piccolo Teatro di Milano), Italia. Foto: Ángel Acosta o Aníbal Grunn |
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| El mítico productor de Broadway Joseph Papp, José Antonio Rial y Carlos Giménez, Nueva York, preparando el estreno de La Muerte de García Lorca en inglés, con producción del primero, escrita por el segundo y dirigida por Carlos. Fuente: Margarita Irún . |
ALGUNOS PREMIOS Y CONDECORACIONES
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| Williams López, Carlos Giménez, Javier Zapata, Jorge Borges, Cosme Cortázar |
1) Primer Premio, Festival de Teatro de Cracovia, Polonia, 1965. Otorgado por ITI-Unesco.
2) Mención de Honor, Festival de Varsovia, Polonia, 1965. Otorgado por ITI-Unesco
3) Premio “Dionisio D´Argento”, en el Festival de las Cinco Tierras, en 1975, en Peruggia, Italia.
4) “Metzli de Plata”, Festival Internacional de Teatro, 1981, México
5) Mejor Director, Festival de la ciudad de México, 1989.
6) Orden Francisco de Miranda, Presidente de la República, Venezuela.
7) Premio Primera Clase Orden Andrés Bello, Venezuela,
8) Premio Nacional de Teatro, Venezuela, 1990.
9) Mención de Honor, Festival Latinoamericano de Manizales, Colombia, 1968.
10) Mejor Grupo Extranjero, otorgado por “El Heraldo” de México, 1972
11) Miembro Honorario” otorgado por el Teatro de la Universidad de San Marcos de Lima, Perú, 1979.
12) Orden Nacional al Mérito en grado de Comendador de Colombia, Presidente de Colombia, 1991.
13) Orden al Mérito Juan de Bolívar y Villegas, Municipio Zamora, gobernación del Edo. Aragua, Venezuela, 1990.
14) Orden Samán de Aragua, Primera Clase, gobernación del Edo. Aragua, Venezuela, 1988.
15) Condecoración Gobernación del Edo. Aragua, Venezuela
16) Premio María Teresa Castillo, Caracas.
17) Premio General San Martín, otorgado por el Festival Latinoamericano de Teatro de Córdoba, Argentina, 1990.
18) Premio Córdoba, Argentina, Mejor Director, 1969.
19) Diez (10) Premios “Mejor Director” Juana Sujo, Venezuela.
20) Cinco (5) “Mejor Director” Escenario Juvenil, Venezuela
21) Cinco (5) Premios “Mejor Director” Municipal de Teatro, Venezuela
22) Nueve (9) Premios Mejor Director CRITVEN, Venezuela
23) Veintidós (22) Premios Meridiano de Oro, Venezuela.
24) Premio Casa del Artista, Venezuela.
EN ARGENTINA
3) Recital de Poesía Nueva Latinoamericana y Española
6) Un acto en la poesía y Poesía mimada
8) La Partida
9) El Cementerio de Automóviles
10) El gran circo Aracarta (o Clavelina)
12) Ensayo de Cámara
14) Poemas de Amor
15) Gigi
16) Antígona
19) El Día que Llovió para siempre
21) Crónica para el teatro y la poesía
23) El Jardinero
24) España, aparte de mí ese cáliz
25) Canto a mí mismo
26) La muerte de Saverio el Cruel
27) Encuentro para una sola voz
28) Picnic en el campo de batalla
29) Los amores de Don Perlimplín y Belisa en su jardín
31) El Golpe
32) Fuenteovejuna
33) El Reñidero
EN VENEZUELA
34) La Orgía
35) Don Mendo 71
36) La Celestina
38) Venezuela Tuya
42) Café Concert
43) El séptimo Ángel
44) Fiebre
46) María Estuardo,
48) Divinas Palabras
50) Señor Presidente
51) El Candidato
57) Bolívar
58) La Gaviota
59) Agualinda
61) Tu país está feliz (reposición)
62) La máscara frente al espejo
63) El pasajero del último vagón
64) Macbeth
65) La Honesta persona de Shechuán
66) Memory
68) Cervanterías
69) La vida es sueño, de Calderón de la Barca
70) Abigail
71) El Embrujado
73) Canción tonta
74) La Celestina (nuevo montaje)
75) La Tempestad
76) Casas Muertas
77) Todo está como siempre ha sido
78) Cipango
79) El Coronel no tiene quien le escriba
80) Fuenteovejuna
83) Peer Gynt
84) El campo
87) Próspero. Memoria de 20 años
88) Mujer en Kabaret
EN ESPAÑA
90) Venezuela, Teatro y Futuro
91) Magnus e hijos S.A
92) La Juanbimbada
EN ESTADOS UNIDOS
95) The Death of Garcia Lorca (en inglés)
96) La tempestad (nuevo montaje. En español)
EN PERÚ
EN MÉXICO
98) Fantoche
99) Torquemada
100) Gala Artística, Primera Cumbre Iberoamericana
EN NICARAGUA
101) Antígona
COPRODUCCIONES INTERNACIONALES
1) Estados Unidos: La tempestad y La Celestina, con Joseph Papp.
2) España: Cipango con el INAEM-Ministerio de Cultura.
3) Italia: El Coronel no tiene quien le escriba y Fuenteovejuna, con el Festival de Dos Mundos de Spoleto.
4) Unión Soviética: El Inspector. Producida por Carlos Giménez y dirigida por el director ruso Adolf Shapiro. Con la Unión de Teatristas de la URSS.
INVITACIONES PARA DIRIGIR QUE NO PUDO CONCRETAR
1) Intiman Theatre, para dirigir “Chuo Gil” de Uslar Pietri (en inglés). Seattle, Washington, Estados Unidos
2) Giorgio Strehler- Piccolo Teatro de Milano, Italia, para dirigir en Nueva York.
3) Grupo Satyricón de Moscú, para dirigirles en esa ciudad.
FESTIVALES E INSTITUCIONES CREADAS
ARGENTINA
1) Festival Latinoamericano de Teatro de Córdoba
1984-1992: fundador, director general.
2) Festival Nacional de Teatro de Córdoba, 1966 y 1967: creador, director. El primero se realiza. Del segundo es expulsado por la dictadura militar.
3) Primera Semana de Adhesión al Día Mundial del Teatro
Córdoba: creador, director general.
4) Primera Reunión de Directores de Teatros de la provincia de Córdoba: creador, director general.
5) Grupo El Juglar, Córdoba: fundador, director, productor, actor, dramaturgo.
6) Casa del Teatro El Juglar, Córdoba: sala de teatro. Director. Productor.
7) Grupo el Club de los Corazones Unidos: fundador, director, productor.
VENEZUELA
1) Festival Internacional de Teatro de Caracas (FITC)
1973-1992: fundador, director general
2) Fundación Rajatabla (1971-1993): fundador, director, productor, escenógrafo, actor, iluminador, dramaturgo.
3) Instituto Universitario de Teatro de Caracas (IUDET)
4) ASSITEJ (Asociación Internacional de Teatro para la Juventud).
5) Acuerdo de San José de Costa Rica
6) Asamblea Venezolana de Teatros Independientes: creador.
7) Comité Permanente del Teatro Latinoamericano
8) Taller Nacional de Teatro (TNT): creador, productor, profesor.
9) Centro de Directores para el Nuevo Teatro (CDNT): fundador, productor.
10) Teatro Nacional Juvenil de Venezuela (TNJV): fundador, productor, director
11) Primera Muestra Nacional de la Asamblea Venezolana de Teatros Independientes: creador, director, productor.
12) Muestra Nacional de Teatro de la Asamblea Venezolana de Teatros Independientes: creador, director, productor.
13) Festival Pirandello: creador, productor, director general.
14) Festival Experiencia Shakespeare: creador, productor, director general
15) Festival Goldoni: creador, productor, director general
16) Festival de Directores para el Nuevo Teatro (CDNT): creador, productor
17) Primero Singular (ciclo de monólogos): creador, productor.
18) Primer Taller de Formación Teatral Rajatabla: creador, productor, profesor
19) Núcleo Dramático Experimental Febrero 28: creador, productor, profesor.
20) Rajatabla Danza: creador, productor.
21) Rajatabla Cine: creador, productor. Entre otros proyectos, quería filmar la vida de Simón Bolívar.
22) Grupo Milenio 3 Producciones: creador, productor.
COMPAÑÍAS E INSTITUCIONES CON LAS QUE TRABAJÓ
1) Joseph Papp, The Public Theatre, Nueva York, Estados Unidos: director e iluminador.
2) Instituto Internacional de Teatro-ITI-Unesco: IV Sesión Mundial del Teatro de las Naciones, 1978: director general
3) Compañía María José Goyanes, Madrid: director
4) Sociedad Canaria de las Artes Escénicas y de la Música (SOCAEM), Islas Canarias: director
5) Festival de Teatro de Spoleto, Italia: director e iluminador.
6) Ateneo de Caracas (1971-1984): Director General del Departamento de Teatro
7) Fundateneofestival (1988-1993): director general
8) Teatro Universitario de Lima y Asociación Cultural Arena, Perú: director
9) Compañía Nacional de Teatro, Nicaragua: director
10) Comedia Cordobesa, Argentina: director, productor, autor
11) Taller Ateneo de Caracas: director, iluminador
12) Grupo Ateneo de Caracas: director, iluminador
13) Teatro Teresa Carreño/Fundacademus/Ateneo de Caracas, Caracas: productor.
14) Compañía Nacional de Teatro de Venezuela: director e iluminador.
15) Teatro Nacional de Repertorio, Caracas: director y productor.
16) Taller Nacional de Teatro, Caracas: creador, director, productor.
17) Compañía Jorge Palacios, Caracas: director e iluminador
18) Compañía Àngel Acosta, Caracas: director, dramaturgo, iluminador
19) Teatro de la Ciudad, Caracas: iluminador
FESTIVALES INTERNACIONALES (1965-1992)
1) Festival Mundial de Teatro de Nancy, Francia
2) Festival de Teatro de las Naciones, Nancy, Francia
3) Festival Latino de Nueva York, Estados Unidos
4) The First New York International Festival of the Arts, Estados Unidos
5) International Theatre Festival, Chicago. Estados Unidos
6) Encuentro Internacional de Teatro, Montreal, Canadá
7) Festival Internacional de Teatro de Cracovia, Polonia
8) Festival Internacional de Teatro de Varsovia, Polonia
9) Festival Internacional de Teatro, Brokslav, Polonia
10) Encuentro Internacional de Teatro de Marsala, Sicilia, Italia
11) Primer Festival Internazionale di Teatro delle Cinque Terre
Peruggia, Italia
12) Festival de Dos Mundos de Spoleto, Italia
13) Festival de Nora, Cagliari, Italia
14) Reseña Internacional de Teatro, Milán, Italia
15) Encuentro de Teatro Latinoamericano, Roma, Italia
16) Festival Internacional de Teatro, Belgrado, Yugoslavia
17) Festival de Horizonte, Berlín, Alemania
18) Festival de las Artes. Reykjavic, Islandia
19) Festival de Sydney, Australia
20) Encuentro Internacional de Teatro, Barcelona, España
21) Festival Iberoamericano de Teatro de Cádiz, España
22) Encuentro Cultural Canario-Venezolano, España
23) Festival de Teatro de Manizales, Colombia
24) Primer Encuentro de Teatro Latinoamericano, Puerto Rico
25) Primer Festival de Teatro Latinoamericano, Ecuador
26) Festival Cervantino de Guanajuato, México
27) Festival Latino Americano, México
28) Festival Latino de Nueva York, Realizado en México
29) Festival Internacional de Teatro, La Habana, Cuba
30) I Muestra Internacional de Teatro, Montevideo, Uruguay
31) Festival Latinoamericano de Teatro de Córdoba, Argentina
32) III Fiesta Nacional del Teatro, Buenos Aires, Argentina
33) Encuentro Internacional de Teatro, El Salvador
34) Festival Internacional de Teatro, San José, Costa Rica
35) Festival Internacional de Teatro de Caracas, Venezuela
36) Festival de Teatro de las Naciones, Caracas, Venezuela
GIRAS INTERNACIONALES (1965-1992)
1) 1) Argentina
2) Australia
3) Bélgica
4) Bolivia
5) Canadá
6) Colombia
7) Costa Rica
8) Cuba
9) Chile
10) Ecuador
11) El Salvador
12) España
13) Estados Unidos
14) Francia
15) Gran Bretaña
16) Grecia
17) Islandia
18) Italia
19) México
20) Nicaragua
21) Países Bajos
22) Perú
23) Polonia
24) Portugal
25) Puerto Rico
26) República Dominicana
27) República Federal Alemana (hoy Alemania)
28) República Democrática Alemana (hoy Alemania)
29) Suiza
30) Unión Soviética (hoy Rusia)
31) Uruguay
32) Venezuela
33) Yugoslavia
PROFESOR
1) Departamento de Arte dramático de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras (UNAM), 1973, Ciudad de México.
2) Escuela de Arte Teatral de Bellas Artes (INBA), 1973. Ciudad de México.
OBRAS PRODUCIDAS
1) El Juglar: todas, aunque no se ponía el crédito, pero era quien conseguía el dinero.
2) Rajatabla: todas, aunque pocas veces se puso el crédito, pero era quien conseguía el dinero.
3) Manuela: coproducción del Ateneo de Caracas, Teatro Teresa Carreño y Fundacademus.
4) El Inspector: coproducción del Ateneo de Caracas con la Unión de Teatristas de la U.R.S.S. y Fundateneofestival
5) El Reñidero: Comedia Cordobesa, Argentina
6) El Campo: Teatro Nacional de Repertorio, Caracas
7) Milenio 3 Producciones, Caracas: una.
8) Febrero 28 Núcleo Dramático Experimental de la Fundación Rajatabla: una.
OBRAS DE TEATRO ESCRITAS
1) El Golpe
3) Memory
DRAMATURGIA VERSIONES
3) El Día que llovió para siempre
4) Fuenteovejuna (1970)
5) La máscara frente al espejo
6) Macbeth
8) La Celestina
9) El Coronel no tiene quien le escriba
IDEAS
1) Martí, la palabra, escrita por Ethel Dahbar
2) La Fragata del Sol: obra de teatro y guión cinematográfico escritos por José Antonio Rial
3) Volver a Guayaquil, no se escribió
1 ESCENÓGRAFO
4) El Candidato
6) La Charité de Vallejo (compartida)
7) Macbeth (compartida)
8) El Pasajero del último vagón (compartida)
ILUMINACIÓN
1) Fuenteovejuna (1970, compartida)
4) El Candidato
11) Bolívar
12) Agualinda
14) Enrique IV
15) Macbeth (compartida)
16) Casta Diva
17) La vida es sueño
18) El Pasajero del último vagón (compartida)
19) Fuenteovejuna (1990, compartida)
20) La Tempestad (1987)
21) La tempestad (1991, compartida)
MUSICALIZADOR
UNITARIOS PARA TELEVISIÓN
1) Lunes de Gala, programa emitido por Venezolana de Televisión (canal del estado): 1972-1982 (las fechas no son exactas): aproximadamente cien (100) unitarios teatrales escritos y dirigidos por él. Algunos programas:
1.1. La vida es sueño, de Calderón de la Barca- Con el actor español Francisco “Paco” Rabal
1.3. Las Troyanas, de Eurípides. Con grandes actrices venezolanas.
1.4. Zapatos viejos, autor original
1.5. Pablo Capitán, versión. Con Ángel Acosta.
PELÍCULAS PARA TELEVISIÓN
1) La Fragata del Sol: película para la televisión filmada en los Médanos de Coro, Venezuela. Transmitida por Venezolana de Televisión.
2) Todos los gatos son pardos: película para la televisión que no pudo terminar por un accidente que casi lo mata mientras filmaba.
ASOCIACIONES DE LAS QUE ERA MIEMBRO
1) Comité Científico del Instituto de Teoría y Crítica del Teatro Latinoamericano, Canadá
2) Federación Internacional de Teatros Independientes, Estocolmo: representante de América Latina
3) Consejo Nacional del Teatro, Caracas
4) Aveprote, Caracas: Secretario General
5) Fundación Artistas por la Vida, Caracas
6) Casa del Artista, Caracas
7) Consejo Asesor del Teatro Infantil Nacional (TIN)
8) Teatro Nacional de Repertorio de Venezuela
ACTOR
1) Numancia
5) Crónica para el teatro y la poesía
8) El día que llovió para siempre
10) Recital de Poesía Nueva Latinoamericana y Española
12) Los amores de Don Perlimplín y Belisa en su jardín
13) Picnic en el campo de batalla
14) El otro Judas
LIBROS
Rajatabla 20 años (1991), de Blanca Sánchez y David Rojas
Carlos Giménez, Tiempo y Espacio (1993), de E.A. Moreno Uribe
Carlos Giménez, Antes y Después (2003), de E.A. Moreno Uribe
¡Bravo, Carlos Giménez! , prólogo de José Pulido, textos de Carlos Giménez, entrevistas de Viviana Marcela Iriart (2016)
Carlos Giménez, el genio irreverente (2023) , biografía de Viviana Marcela Iriart
PREMIOS CREADOS
1)María Teresa Castillo, con el auspicio de Encyclopaedia Britannica y el Ateneo de Caracas, 1984.
2)Marco Antonio Ettedgui, con el patrocinio de la Fundación Rajatabla, 1990.
Fragmento del libro CARLOS GIMÉNEZ EL GENIO IRREVERENTE, aproximación biográfica de Viviana Marcela Iriart, Ed. Escritoras Unidas & Cía. Editoras, 11 de marzo de 2023.
Lee gratis el libro haciendo click abajo:
CARLOS GIMÉNEZ EL GENIO IRREVERENTE
Carlos Giménez en la web
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