Carlos Giménez (born in Córdoba, Argentina, on April 13, 1946, Aries) is the founder and director of the Caracas International Theater Festival, together with María Teresa Castillo, one of the major drivers of culture in
Venezuela, who has not hesitated to support him since 1971, when the first
festival was held, and who then hired him as Art Director for the Caracas
Athenaeum, an institution she has helped create and of which she is the
president. Carlos is also the founder and director of the Rajatabla
Group, with which he has traveled around the world, winning hundreds of
awards, and which put Venezuelan theater at the center of the global theatrical
stage.
Working
as a director since he was a teen, in 1965 he participated in the First
Nancy Theater Festival with his group El Juglar. He was
19 years old and he achieved something impossible at the time: without any
previous performances in Buenos Aires, he gained international exposure
directly from Córdoba to Europe. After that, they traveled to Poland, where the
group shared the Honorable Mention with East Germany in Warsaw
and received the First Prize in Krakow. Back in Argentina he
faced the indifference of the capital's theatrical world towards his
achievements in Europe. In response, Carlos created in Córdoba the First
National Theater Festival, but was excluded from its organization in 1967,
when political repression was starting in his country. This event decided him
to abandon his home country.
This
interview took place in the context of the Pirandello Festival, which is held in every auditorium and every
space within the Caracas Athenaeum, and which he is in charge of organizing.
According to Carlos Giménez, the “main idea for organizing the Festival
comes from the need to connect theater as a social event within the community
it is inserted in”—in this case, the significant Italian immigrant
population—, to involve private business in cultural activities, to take
culture to all social classes, all aspects in which Venezuelan theater has
stayed a bit on the sidelines. With this purpose, the Caracas Athenaeum plans
to organize annual festivals about other important figures in world
theater.
If you
had to create a minimal autobiography, what aspects of your life would you
choose?
My
arrival to Venezuela in November 1969. Because this defines a lot, not only
professional aspects in my life, but also personal aspects, that is, what I was
going to do with my life and my career.
Then, as
this event divided my life in two, going back to my experiences in Argentina,
one of the most important moments was my high school graduation in 1964 and my
departure to Europe. There I discovered a world that was completely unknown to
me and I was dazzled by it, which meant, at least for me, that I was not going
to stay locked within the parameters set by the city or the country I was born
in. I realized there was a mismatch between what I wanted and what my
environment, my habitat, gave me.
During
that time, I met Jack Lang, who is the director of the World Theater Festival
in Nancy, and now Minister of Culture in France, so that was how in 1964 I came
into contact with international festivals, which was going to be really
important, because Jack Lang invited us to participate in 1965 in the First
World Festival in Nancy. This invitation also extended to the group of people
who at that time were in Europe without having constituted the El Juglar group
yet - the creation of which is another important moment in my life, even though
El Juglar never had neither the influence nor the impact that Rajatabla has had
in Latin America. This participation was extremely important if we consider
that this group that went to the Nancy World Festival and to festivals in
Warsaw and Krakow, Poland, in 1965, was a provincial theatrical group that had
not left Córdoba to go to Buenos Aires, but to participate in these really
important events.
Moreover,
1965 was the year when all the movements which would have a huge impact in the
theatrical world started all at the same time, like Nancy, Grotowski, Eugenio
Barba, Jack Lang, Els Joglars from Barcelona and La Comuna from Portugal. In
Poland, we presented a play which won one of the awards of the International
Theatre Institute (ITI-UNESCO), called “El Otro Judas” (The Other Judas) from
Abelardo Castillo, one of the most eminent Argentine intellectuals from that
time and director of “El Escarabajo de Oro”. With this play that I directed we
won the Honorable Mention together with East Germany in Warsaw and, in Krakow,
we received the First Prize.
How important
was your success in Europe for your career?
It was
crucial. That moment and then the cold reception we had in Argentina when we
presented the same play decided me to leave my country.
And did
you come directly to Venezuela?
No, I
started in 1968 with what would be another fundamental event in my life: a tour
by land from Córdoba to Caracas, which took us 3 months. We went to the
main mining centers in Bolivia, where we presented our shows. I vividly
remember the experience we had in Chorolque, a peak that is 5,000 meters
above sea level and has the highest tin mine in the world. There, since there
was no electricity, we performed using the miners' lights - that is, surrounded
by 40 miners who provided us light with their helmets while we performed a
children's play. This tour meant a terrifying discovery of Latin America, not
just skin-deep. We came into contact with utter poverty in Latin America. We
also performed in fishing centers in Peru, we did a wonderful tour around Peru,
we performed in Colombia and in 1968 we arrived at the Manizales Festival. In
this festival, we presented a play called “La Querida Familia” (The Dear
Family), a baroque anthology by Ionesco, and the jury formed by Ernesto Sábato,
Pablo Neruda, Jack Lang, Miguel Ángel Asturias, awarded us the prize. However,
we still couldn't get to Venezuela - we only managed to do that after
participating in the Second Manizales Theater Festival in 1969, where we met
Omar Arrieche, Director of the Barquisimeto Educational Experimental Theater,
who got us a visa to enter by land.
(...)
Excerpt from the book INTERVIEWS
Caracas, Intermedio Magazine, May 1984
INTERVIEWS, with graphic design by Jairo Carthy, is available on AMAZON in paperback and ebook versions.
