“The wounds do not go away, but through painting, movement, dance, we can look at them compassionately”

When shows, hugs and contact with people were put on hold during the pandemic; Lourdes Carlín turned to the expressive arts to heal. And she, among inherited traces, ropes, dances and silences, created “between boxes”, an intense show that brings together a group of brave women from different disciplines who together try to “untie” from love and their experiences, knots that take their breath away and prevent them from moving forward.

“As an expressive arts therapist, I work with different art modalities, such as voice, music, poetry, collage, spoken word. During the pandemic I dedicated myself to creating a lot with my hands and that led me to ask myself questions in solitude, in the pause. In those silences, I began to paint the boxes of fruit that arrived at my house during confinement. I gave them images, texture. I was inspired by a teacher I had, named Michelle Llona.“, comments the flamenco teacher and school director Gypsy Soul.

“In those moments of searching, of calm, I made many collages, various images of older, sensual and observant women appeared. Also girls, nature, earth colors. The boxes served as a ritual for me to be able to honor my aunt, my mother, who was 93 years old, and to honor myself. I felt that my body – metaphorically – was a box, in which I kept my fears, which suffocated me and I could not control. They were moments of absolute introspection“, remember.

The staging has Carlín in general direction and his daughter, Luciana, in the stage consultancy. There is also the perspective of Nishme Súmar, and the participation of Olga Bárcenas, Cecilia Almendrades, Mónica Fernández, Andrea Salazar, Laura Piaggio, Patricia Gutiérrez, Mabel Sánchez and Úrsula Franco.

“Each one has a small box that she chose, painted and put phrases in. It’s like repainting your own canvas of life. The box represents our body from which we never separate. It has sensations, emotions, noises, smells from the past, sound memories, and a voice that bothered you or hugged you. They are going to dance on stage with their own box and discover on stage the answers to the questions: What is suffocating me in it? How is my breathing? What are the fears that imprison me? What can I get out? of it that does not belong to me? How can I manage to lighten up?”, he details.

This is the second performance that Lourdes Carlín directs. The first was Mujer de flamenco, after graduating as an expressive arts therapist.

“LThe first scene is called “Inherited Traces” and everything that women carry. Sometimes we don’t take the time to feel what we’re afraid of, what’s stopping us from breathing fluently, or why we have such a racing heart. From that process we began to work on how to untie those knots. And from music, from dance, from great conversations in which we held ourselves, we realized that we could choose and paint our own story and untie those knots together and know that always among women we feel clear and supported.”, he nods.

“Between boxes,” says Lourdes, gives her the opportunity to embrace and accept her own story with the certainty that everything she experienced was worth it. The musical framework is provided by Ernesto Hermoza (flamenco guitar), María Elena Pacheco (violin) and Lourdes Carhuaz (voice).

“I made it like a communion, like a marriage between my stories as a flamenco teacher and expressive arts therapy. That allowed me to understand that wounds do not go away. They are small scars that often open again when something happens, but through painting, movement, and dance we can lighten them. and look at them compassionately“, sentence.