Work “Bru or the Exile of Memory”
Aware that “memories die if they are not remembered,” the actress and playwright Amalá Saint-Pierre He immersed himself in the difficult task of telling, based on his childhood memories, the story of Rose Bridgeher grandmother who passed away in 2021 and one of the most prominent painters and engravers in Latin America.
The work, performed by Saint-Pierre herself alongside the actor and playwright of the work Francisco Paco Lopez-both founders of the Collective Machine Two– and with the staging of the National Arts Award Hector Noguerareconstructs through memories, documents and images some of the moments that marked the life of the Chilean-Spanish artist, such as the Spanish Civil War, the trip on the Winnipeg, exile or the Chilean dictatorship.
“Roser meant to me what any grandmother means to a granddaughter, but with the particularity that she was not only a great painter, but she was one in a century as turbulent as the 20th century. Little by little she began to forget… My responsibility as an artist and as a granddaughter was to rescue this memory before she experienced her own exile into the world of oblivion,” says Saint-Pierre. “This work is an interpretation of Roser’s life by her granddaughter, highlighting milestones that marked her personal and artistic life in Chile and Spain,” adds director Héctor Noguera.
Born in Barcelona in 1923, Bru arrived in Chile in 1939 aboard the Winnipeg, fleeing the Spanish Civil War, and that same year she entered the School of Fine Arts in Santiago. From then on, she built a prolific career marked by her social commitment and where memory, injustice and fragility played a central role.
In 2015, she was awarded in Chile with the National Prize for Plastic Artsin 2018 with the Gold Medal of Merit in Fine Arts in Spain and in 2020 with the Creu de Sant Jordi in Catalonia.
“The work speaks of the importance and need to keep memories alive: individual and collective, as an act of reparation for society. It is a work about historical memory but told through the life and work of Roser Bru, especially from the search for two paintings: one stolen during the Pinochet dictatorship, which we follow like a thriller, and another about Roser’s own memory, which summarises her most important moments over almost a century,” adds her granddaughter.
Released in 2019 and praised by critics and audiences, BRU or the exile of memory It has been presented at the GAM Center, the Santiago a Mil Festival, the FINTDAZ Festival in Iquique, the Lluvias de Teatro Festival in Valdivia, the U. de Talca Extension Center, the Lo Prado Cultural Center, and the Municipal Theater in Ovalle, among others. On this occasion, it will be presented at the theater of the Cultural Center of Spain in Santiago (CCESantiago) in a single performance, with free admission and prior registration, the Tuesday, September 3 at 7:30 p.m. The CCESantiago theatre has also just been renovated, with substantial changes to the stage and technical aspects.
“Roser is a fundamental part of the cultural and emotional history of the cultural center. It is a bond that will always be maintained. It was a relationship of many years, which was generated from the beginning, because she was a passenger of the Winnipeg, a republican exile, a prominent engraver and painter. She was always at the center of the Chilean artistic scene, she was a collaborator, friend and project partner,” says Lily Duffau, Programming Coordinator of the CCESantiago.
This cycle through Santiago will end at the theater of Cultural Center of Puente Alto he Friday, September 6 at 7:30 p.m.also free upon registration. It is worth mentioning that in June the Puente Alto Cultural Centre hosted an important exhibition of engravings by Roser Bru that toured Chile from north to south.
BRU or the exile of memory will culminate with its first international tour in Spain in November of this year, kicking off the commemoration of the 10 years of the Mákina Dos Collective in 2025.
ARTISTIC CARD
A work by the Mákina Dos Collective | Direction: Héctor Noguera | Stage director and technical chief: Julio Toloza | Original idea, dramaturgy and acting: Amalá Saint-Pierre and Francisco Paco López | Dramaturgical adaptation: Amalá Saint-Pierre, Francisco Paco López and David Meneses | Visual and projection design: Delight Lab | Musical composition: Diego Noguera | Lighting design: Ricardo Romero | Lighting designer: Nicolás Zapata | Costume and props production: Nicoletta Fuentealba | Original production: Carolina Cabezas | Touring production: Julio Toloza, Amalá Saint-Pierre and Francisco Paco López.
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