By Brianna Vitands/Murphy News Service

A teddy bear, a Bible, and a button-up shirt. These are among the “recuerdos” — or nostalgic items — that remind the actresses in “Antígonas: tribunal de mujeres” of their deceased children, uncles, and brothers.

The actresses in the play, directed by Carlos Satizábal of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, are women who have experienced the trauma of losing a loved one in the political genocide in Colombia, and are using theatre as a forum for political discourse. The play took place at the Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis March 14th.

The play incorporates the individual stories of lawyers who were assassinated for defending human rights, survivors of the political genocide of Patriotic Union members, with those of students who were wrongfully accused of being members of rebellious movements. By telling the stories, it is possible for these women to heal, as well as open up a political discourse around the atrocities they experienced because of the political conflict in Colombia.

The political genocide of Patriotic Union (PU) members, who discouraged the use of violence, occurred primarily in the ‘80s and ‘90s. The political party was co-founded by the rebel guerilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), and in the mid ‘80s the party experienced systematic disappearance of its members and leaders, who were assassinated by cartel members, right-wing paramilitary groups, and government agents.

Between 1986 and 1990, 4,000 to 6,000 PU members were assassinated, and by the early ‘90s the party was practically extinct. A report by the National Centre of Historic Memory, a group created in 2011 to compensate victims and return stolen land, said nearly 220,000 people have been killed in Colombia since 1958 due to the political conflict, and nearly 80 percent were civilians.

There has been concern about whether the play’s political content spurs more violence against the actresses and writers involved. Satizábal reminded the audience that to him, fear was the principal enemy.

“In a short time we have done many presentations, the functions are always very full, there are many students, many university professors, organizations for human rights, and the public in general,” Satizábal said.

“We haven’t had any reaction from the armed forces, the (Colombian) army, or DAS (Administrative Department of Security). I don’t think we are going to have any problem because we are very well-known people in our theatre.”

The play was presented here as part of The State of Iberoamerican Studies Series: Human Rights Across the Disciplines/ Human Rights in Theatre, organized in cooperation with the University of Minnesota and the College of St. Benedict, as well as Teatro del Pueblo. The project incorporates the extraordinary experiences of genocide survivors into theatre, art, and mixed media.

“The recovery of memory over traumatic experiences is perhaps the most important element toward the establishment of peace, justice, and restitution in Latin America,” Luis Ramos-Garcia, an event organizer and professor in the department of Spanish and Portuguese, said. “All of my U of M graduate advisees, and on-site human rights researchers, are dedicating their efforts toward those goals.”

The play utilizes mythology as a method of storytelling, referencing the Greek daughter of Oedipus, Antigone, who is best known for seeking a proper burial for her brother and being killed in the process. Similarly, the women in the play never found out what happened to their loved ones, and it is assumed that many of the young men and women are buried in unmarked, mass graves.

One woman in the audience said it was emotional to watch, and asked how the actresses could resist crying in public.

“Lloramos mucho,” one woman replied, “We cry a lot. But this has always been the refuge we have.”

Reporter Brianna Vitands is studying Spanish and journalism at the University of Minnesota.