sábado, enero 31, 2015

Mesoamérica Resiste participates in the Daupará Indigenous Film and Video Festival in Colombia: Putumayo Edition

Publication and Photos by--- 2014 Daupará Team, Kinorama CopyLeft & Polinizaciones 

Traditional Lunar Calendar in Sibundoy
In 2009 the idea came up to create an annual exhibition and intercultural dialogue between indigenous filmmakers and the Colombian public, with the intention of contributing to the process of acknowledging and strengthening indigenous peoples. And so the first Indigenous Film and Video Festival in Colombia was born, called “Daupará – To See Beyond”, as an initiative to distribute, reflect on, and encourage processes of indigenous self-representation through film in Colombia. Since then Daupará has alternated between being in Muisca territory one year, where the capital of Bogota is, and every other year within another indigenous territory.

In 2010 it took place in Popayán, at the same time as the First Continental Summit of Indigenous Communication, in the indigenous reserve of La María, Piendamo.
Mural against mining in San Andres.
In 2011 it returned to Bogotá and it gathered together for the first time a delegation of communicators, filmmakers, and academics from different regions of the country for an Encounter of Knowledges that took on topics of audiovisual public policies, indigenous communication, indigenous narratives, independent distribution and communication, amongst others. For 2012, reflecting the current state of the indigenous communication process in Colombia, Daupará was proposed as a space of encounter and articulation between Wayuú communication collectives and was held in La Guajira.
Film screening with elders in Sibundoy.

In 2013, back in Bogotá, Daupará had a wide showing of national and international audiovisual material. Communicators from all over the country participated, from Arhuaco, Wiwa, Uitoto, Kamentza Biya, Kankuamo, Wayuu, Sáliba, and Nasa communities, and it also included participation from other indigenous peoples and lands: Kichwa from Ecuador, Wayuu from Venezuela, Mapuche from Wallmapu and Diné (Navajo) from the US.

Painting classes in Nueva Esperanza
It was at the end of this Festival, in the Encounter of Knowledges, which is a space for dialogue about current topics in indigenous audiovisual communication in Colombia, that all of the indigenous and intercultural collectives participating in Daupará elected the Putumayo School of Intercultural Communication as the host site for the 2014 Festival.

Getting ready to paint in
Nueva Esperanza
Our friends at the Putumayo School of Intercultural Communication organized the Festival with 8 communities from different indigenous groups in the upper, mid, and lower parts of Putumayo, some rural and some urban areas. The 6th Daupará Festival featured local, national, and some international participants, including indigenous communicators, filmmakers, and community leaders. Throughout the Festival there were workshops and presentations of murals, photography, song, dance, and theater. Many of these offerings were from people who came from other places, like Guatemala and Ecuador, and from other parts of Colombia like Chocó, Antioquia, Cauca, Bogotá y Huila.
Communications workshop
 in Nueva Esperanza

Another special feature of this year's Festival was that it was a traveling show, moving between different areas of Putumayo. And the most special part of the Festival was that it was a training process for Nasa, Inga, Cofán, and Siona youth who participated in the whole tour, along with people from other indigenous communities and communication collectives from other parts of Colombia. At every stop of the Festival, the Beehive's Mesoamérica Resiste banner was present, and we did storytelling with it in many locations.

Reading Huellas & Raíces Newspaper
in Nueva Esperanza
The 2014 Daupará Indigenous Film and Video Festival began in the ancestral territory of Carlos Tamabioy in the upper Putumayo region, in the land of the Inga and Kamentza Biya peoples. The festival team arrived in the town of Santiago where they were welcomed by many communities and communication collectives from the region. In this opening space people shared local artistic and cultural initiatives that are underway, like different process of recuperating memory, artistic initiatives, houses of collective thought, cultural festivals, and reading rooms that promote literacy. In this space they also talked about the current struggles against the San Francisco-Mocoa highway, which is part of the Trans-Amazonian highway of the Initiative for the Integration of the Regional Infrastructure of South America (IIRSA), and the soliciting of environmental licenses for gold mining in El Valle by the multinational company AngloGold Ashanti. In upper Putumayo Daupará also visited the communities of San Andrés and Sibundoy, hosting film screenings, screen printing on clothing, and presentations of the Mesoamérica Resiste graphics campaign, all of which helped people share their experiences with each other.
Painting in Kiwnas Çxhab Nasa Reserve

From the Andean region of upper Putumayo, the Festival continued to the Amazonian Footshills of central Putumayo, with the second stop in the capital city of Putumayo, Mocoa, where the Festival took place in Nueva Esperanza, a settlement of displaced people. Nueva Esperanza is a neighborhood made up of 230 displaced indigenous, rural, and afro descendant families from different parts of the country who started arriving there about 13 years ago due to violence related to the armed conflict, drug trafficking, mega development projects and mining.
Mesoamérica Resiste workshop in
Kiwnas Çxhab Nasa Reerve.

The people of Nueva Esperanza have had to organize themselves and have been fighting for their rights since the first families arrived. The Association of Displaced People of Nueva Esperanza has formed committees of elders, women, and children, as well as a newspaper called Huellas y Raíces (Footprints and Roots). Along with learning about Huellas y Raíces and sharing experiences, women, children, and others in the community did a Historical Memory workshop with photography, muralism, and graffiti, and in the evening there were screenings of the different films that were part of the Festival.
About 20 oil 18-wheeler trucks 
cross the Putumayo River daily.

From the Amazonian Foothills the Festival descended finally to the biggest region of Putumayo, the Amazonian plains. In the city of Puerto Asís it crossed the Putumayo river by boat to be able to arrive at its third stop, in the Kiwnas Çxhab Nasa Reserve where during the day there was a discussion about Journalism in Situations of Risk and Territorial Defense, a presentation of the Mesoamérica Resiste graphic was done, the painting of various murals and graffiti occurred and some activities about communication in the form of games with the children of the reserve, at night there were film screenings for the community.
Learning through play in
Nuevo Amanecer

The next day we crossed the Putumayo river again to return to Puerto Asís, this time to the neighborhood of Nuevo Amanecer. Nuevo Amanecer is a community on the outskirts of Puerto Asís founded by indigenous peoples from different parts of the Putumayo river who have been displaced by violence, aerial fumigations, and oil companies. Another project of IIRSA related to the displacement of families that live in Nuevo Amanecer today is the canalization of the Putumayo river, which is to facilitate the entry of large cargo ships into this river that is populated by diverse communities of humans and ecosystems. The inhabitants of Nuevo Esperanza are predominantly Siona, but there are also Embera Chamí, Cofán, Nasa, and Murui families. During the day there was a conversation about the importance of communication in these communities, followed by a presentation of Mesoamérica Resiste. At night there were screenings of a variety of films from the Amazon, as well as from other places.
Embera Chamí music in Nuevo Amanecer.

From Puerto Asís we traveled along the Trans Amazonian highway that is under construction as part of IIRSA, passing through Orito to arrive at the Cofán Ethno-Education Boarding School of Santa Rosa de Guamuez. Along the whole route from Puerto Asís, through Orito and to the Valle del Guamuez and la Hormiga, we could see oil pipelines carrying the poorly named black gold away from the region. Around the community of Santa Rosa del Guamuez there are petroleum extraction installations that belong to ECOPETROL, which is contaminating water and land throughout the Colombian Amazon and in areas very close to indigenous communities where they never did any kind of consultation, much less have they respected the widely recognized opposition to petroleum extraction.
Oil extraction within Cofán community
of Santa Rosa del Guamuez.

Although it's been in existence for 12 years, the Beehive's Plan Colombia graphics campaign still shows a reality that continues to exist in Putumayo's territory. Although happening in a very difficult context, this place had some of the most special elements of the Festival, as this community was the host of the second bi national gathering (Colombia-Ecuador) of the Cofán people which had started just a few days before, and as part of the final activity of the last day, the Daupará Festival arrived and presented to the community the film “Nuestra Madre Tierra Enferma", a co-production between the School of Intercultural Communication and this community. All of the Cofán people present at the gathering were able to view the work that had been done to raise awareness about the problems with the oil companies in this region. The next day there was a communications workshop in the form of games with many children and adolescents from the community, and amongst the games, smiles and acrobatics, the dynamics helped emphasize the importance of communication in all aspects of community life.
Play and communication in
Santa Rosa del Guamuez.



With much sadness and nostalgia of the lovely week, after finishing the tour of the 6th version of Daupará each group and delegate said goodbye and returned to their communities and territories to keep walking the paths we are on, now with new experiences and knowledge to carry with us. For many people on the 2014 Daupará Festival team, this trip was just the beginning of getting to know Putumayo, and some people on the team, including ourselves as bees, are planning other activities with these communities to keep weaving and walking together this year.
Cofán Indigneous Guard.

This year Daupará returns to Bogotá and from there they will decide which territory will host it for 2016. One thing was clear after this last Daupará, that even with less of a budget and less support, the Festival was able to really reach impacted communities and support the process of training indigenous youth from four different areas of Putumayo in communications. We hope the Putumayo School of Intercultural Communication gets recognition for how it has raised the bar of Daupará from being not only a showing of audiovisual material, to also being a process that supports the training of indigenous communicators and raises awareness of the issues and the resistance movements in indigenous communities.

lunes, enero 12, 2015

Mesoamérica Resiste participe en la Muestra de Cine y Video Indígena en Colombia Daupará: Versión Putumayo


Publicación y Fotos de--- Equipo Daupará 2014, Kinorama CopyLeft y Polinizaciones

En el año 2009 surge la idea de crear un escenario de exhibición anual y diálogo intercultural entre realizadores indígenas y público colombino, con la intención de contribuir al proceso de reconocimiento y fortalecimiento de los pueblos indígenas. Nace entonces la Primera Muestra de Cine y Video Indígena en Colombia “Daupará  - Para ver más allá”, como una iniciativa para difundir, reflexionar y fomentar los procesos de auto representación indígena en Colombia. Desde entonces Daupará se alterna realizándose un año en territorio Muisca, donde queda el Capital del gobierno del Estado y el siguiente en territorios de los pueblos indígenas.
Mural en San Andrés.

En 2010 se dio en Popayán, sintonizándose con la Primera Cumbre  Continental de Comunicación Indígena,  en el resguardo indígena de La María, Piendamo. En el 2011 vuelve a Bogotá y reúne por primera vez a una delegación de comunicadores, realizadores y académicos, de diferentes regiones del territorio nacional para un Encuentro de Saberes que abordó temas de política púbica audiovisual y comunicación indígena, narrativas indígenas, difusión y comunicación propia, entre otros.
Proyección de películas en San Andrés.
Para el 2012 de acuerdo con la coyuntura del proceso de comunicación indígena en Colombia se plantea Daupará como un espacio de encuentro y articulación entre los colectivos de comunicación del pueblo Wayuú.

El 2013 de nuevo en Bogotá, Daupará se presenta con una amplia muestra audiovisual nacional e internacional. Participan comunicadores de todo el territorio nacional, del pueblo Arhuaco, Wiwa, Uitoto, Kamentza Biya, Kankuamo, Wayuu, Sáliba, Nasa, y se contó con la participación de realizadores indígenas de otros territorios y pueblos indígenas: Kichwa del Ecuador, Wayuu de Venezuela, Mapuche del territorio Wallmapu, Navajo de Estados Unidos.
Taller de fotografía en Nueva Esperanza.
Es al final de esta Muestra, en el Encuentro de Saberes, el cual es un espacio de diálogo en torno a temáticas coyunturales en la comunicación audiovisual indígena en Colombia, donde con la participación de todos los colectivos indígenas e interculturales que hacen parte del proceso Daupará se elige a la Escuela de Comunicación Intercultural del Putumayo como el anfitrión del festival para el año 2014.


Leyendo Periódico Huellas y Raíces 
en Nueva Esperanza
A través de nuestras amigas de la Escuela de Comunicación Intercultural del Putumayo se articuló la muestra  con ocho comunidades de distintos pueblos indígenas en el alto, medio y bajo Putumayo, unos rurales y otras urbanas. La VI Muestra Daupará contó con invitados locales, nacionales y algunos internacionales, entre los que se encontraban comunicadores indígenas, realizadores audiovisuales y líderes comunitarios. Hubo talleres y trabajos de muralismo, fotografía, canto, danza y teatro la realización de toda la muestra. Muchas de estas personas venían de otras partes como los países de Guatemala y Ecuador, y de Colombia del Chocó, Antioquia, Cauca, Bogotá y el Huila.  

Tejiendo en Resguardo Nasa
Kiwnas Çxhab
Otra particularidad de la Muestra de este año es que fue itinerante y viajó entre distintos territorios de una buena área del departamento. También lo más especial de la Muestra es que todo el recorrido fue un proceso de formación de jóvenes Nasas, Inga, Cofán y Siona que participaron en todo el recorrido al igual de personas de distintos pueblos indígenas y colectivos de comunicación de otras partes del país. Durante todo el recorrido de la Muestra un telón de Mesoamérica Resiste estaba presente y se colgaba y trabajaba en distintas partes.

Mural de Manuel Quintín Lame
en Resguardo Nasa Kiwnas Çxhab
 La Muestra de Cine y Video Indígena en Colombia Daupará 2014 inicio en el territorio ancestral Carlos Tamabioy del Alto Putumayo, en el territorio de los Pueblos Inga y Kamentza Biya.  El equipo de la muestra llegó al municipio de Santiago donde fueron recibidos por las comunidades y colectivos de comunicación de la región. En este primer espacio se compartieron las iniciativas artísticas y culturales locales que se van caminando como procesos de memoria comunicativos y artísticos, casas de pensamiento, festivales y salas de lectura. También en este espacio se informó sobre las luchas vigentes en contra la vía San Francisco-Mocoa que es parte de la carretera Trans Amazónica del IIRSA y las solicitaciones para licencias ambientales para minería de oro por parte de la empresa multinacional Anglo Gold Ashanti en el Valle. En el Alto Putumayo Daupará también visitó a las comunidades de San Andrés y Sibundoy donde se proyectaron películas, se estampo ropa usando la técnica de seriagrafía y se presentó la campaña gráfica de Mesoamérica Resiste, todo esto facilito el compartir de experiencias.

Transporte de camiones sobre el Rio Putumayo. Se trasportan al rededor de 20 vehículos diarios
De la región Andina del Alto Putumayo se siguió al Piedemonte Amazónico del medio Putumayo con la segunda parada en la ciudad capital de Putumayo, Mocoa en donde se realizó en el asentamiento de desplazados Nueva Esperanza. Nueva Esperanza es un barrio conformado por 230 familias indígenas, campesinas y Afrodescendientes desplazadas desde hace unos 13 años de distintos lugares del país las acciones violentas en el marco del conflicto armado, el narcotráfico y los megaproyectos y minería.
Recibimiento en Nuevo Esperanza, 
Puerto Asís.
A raíz de esto las personas de Nueva Esperanza han tenido que organizarse y luchar por sus derechos como lo han hecho desde que llegaron las primeras familias. Además de comités de mayores, mujeres y niños que existen, también está el proceso que se ha forjado del Periódico Huellas y Raíces de la Asociación de Desplazados de Nueva Esperanza con quien se tuvo un intercambio de experiencias. Además de compartir con Huellas y Raíces con mujeres, niños, niñas y otras personas de la comunidad se realizó un taller de Memoría Histórica desde la Fotografía, muralismo y grafitis, ya por la noche hubo proyecciones de las distintas películas que se traían como parte de la Muestra.

Detallando Mesoamérica Resiste
en Nuevo Esperanza.
Del Piedemonte Amazónico finalmente se bajó a la región más grande del Putumayo, la planicie Amazónica. En el municipio de Puerto Asís se cruzó el río Putumayo en lancha para poder llegar a la tercera parada fue en el Resguardo Nasa Kiwnas Çxhab donde de día hubo un conversatorio sobre Cubrimiento Periodístico en Situaciones de Riesgo y Defensa del Territorio, una presentación de la grafica de Mesoamerica Resiste, se pintaron varios murales y grafitis y unas dinámicas de comunicación por medio del juego con los niños y niñas del resguardo y de noche se realizaron las proyecciones del material audio-visual a la comunidad.
Pintando en Nuevo Esperanza.

El día siguiente, cruzamos de nuevo el río Putumayo volviendo a Puerto Asís, esta vez al barrio de Nuevo Amanecer. Nuevo Amanecer es una comunidad en las afueras de Puerto Asís fundado por personas indígenas desplazados de distintas partes del río Putumayo por la violencia, las fumigaciones aéreas y las petroleras. Otro proyecto del IIRSA relacionado con los desplazamientos de las familias que hoy en día viven en Nuevo Amanecer es es proyecto de canalización del río Putumayo que se pretende hacer para facilitar la navegación de buques grandes sobre el río ondulado de poblado por diversas comunidades de humanos y ecosistemas. Aunque la comunidad de predominada mente Siona también hay familias Embera Chamí, Cofán, Inga, Nasa y Murui. Durante el día hubo una conversación de la importancia de la comunicación en los procesos de las comunidades seguido por una presentación de Mesoamérica Resiste. Por la noche hubo proyecciones de una variedad de películas de la Amazonia y también otras personas. 
Pintando en Institución Etnoeducativa
 Santa Rosa del Guamuez

De Puerto Asís salimos por la construcción de carretera Trans Amazónica que se está construyendo como parte del IIRSA pasando por Orito para llegar al Internado Etno Educativo Cofán de Santa Rosa de Guamuez. Por todo el camino de Puerto Asís, pasando por Orito y hasta el Valle del Guamuez y la Hormiga, se veían los oleoductos llevándose el mal llamado oro negro de la región. Alrededor de la comunidad de Santa Rosa del Guamuez  hay instalaciones de extracción petrolera por ECOPETROL, que en toda la Amazonia colombiana sigue contaminado el agua y la tierra y en zonas supremamente cerca de las comunidades indígenas donde no se han hecho ninguna tipo de consulta mucho menos que se ha respetado el deseo ampliamente reconocida de oponerse a la extracción petrolera.
Taller de comunicación lúdica en
Resguardo Cofán de Santa Rosa del Guamuez.

Aunque ya tiene sus 12 años de existencia, la campaña gráfica nuestra de Plan Colombia sigue mostrando una realidad que aún existe en el territorio del Putumayo. Aunque dentro de un contexto muy difícil, este espacio tuvo de los elementos más especiales, desde días antes esta comunidad era anfitrión al segundo encuentro binacional (Colombia-Ecuador) del Pueblo Cofán, y como parte de la actividad final del ultimo día, llegó la Muestra de Daupará y presentó a la comunidad la película “Nuestra Madre Tierras Eferma”, una coproducción entre la Escuela de Comunicación Intercultural y esta comunidad. Todas las personas Cofán presentes en el encuentro pudieron apreciar el trabajo que se realizó para visibilizar la problemática de las petroleras en ese territorio. El día siguiente se realizó el taller de comunicación por medio del juego con muchos niños, niñas y adolescentes de la comunidad, entre los juegos, risas y maromas, se volvió a recalcar la importancia de la comunicación en todo aspecto de la vida comunitaria con solamente dinámicas lúdicas.
Extracción petrolera adentro del
Resguardo Cofán de Santa Rosa del Guamuez.

Con mucha tristeza y nostalgia de la semana tan bonita, al terminar el recorrido de la sexta versión del Daupará cada grupo y delegadx se fue despidiendo para volver a sus comunidades y territorios para seguir por los caminos que vamos andando ahora con nuevas experiencias y conocimientos para llevar al andar. Para varias personas del equipo de la Muestra de Daupará 2014 este recorrido apenas fue un primer conocer del  Putumayo y entre las personas del equipo, incluyendo nosotras las abejas, se está planeando distintos actividades con las comunidades para seguir tejiendo y caminando este año. 

Mural en la Institución Etnoeducativa 
Santa Rosa del Guamuez
Este año Daupará retorna a Bogotá y de allí se decide a qué territorio seguirá para el año 2016. Algo queda claro con este último Daupará, que con menos presupuesto y apoyo se logró hacer una Muestra que realmente llegó a las comunidades impactadas y aportar al proceso de formación en comunicaciones a jóvenes indígenas de cuatro pueblos del Putumayo. Esperamos que se reconozca cómo la Escuela de Comunicación Intercultural del Putumayo subió la barra del Daupará de no ser solamente una muestra de material audiovisual sino un proceso que aporta a la formación de comunicadores indígenas y visibiliza la problemática y procesos de resistencia de las comunidades indígenas.

Geochoreographies, confronting the Quimbo Hydroelectric Project using the body, the land, and everyday actions in Defense of Territory


In our work with the youth of Jaguos por el Territorio we've been able to experience many creative expressions used as valid tactics in the struggle for the defense of territory; muralism has been one of the most important strategies as well as photography and theater. This year the Jaguos collective received financial support to collaborate with diverse allies in the creation of an art process for land defense called Geochoreographies.

Geochoreography comes from the words geography, or the study of space, the environment, land and territory, and choreography, or the organization or structure of actions within a space. Geochoreographies is made up of two simultaneous processes, one body and the other audio-visual.

The body process consisted of 16 workshops that took place over 4 months in four municipalities nodes of actions, with training in performance arts, theater, puppets, and contemporary dance. The nodes of action were in La Jagua (Garzón), Gigante, El Agrado, and countryside of Paraguay (Oporapa). In La Jagua there were also participants from Tarqui, and in El Agrado there were participants from El Pital. Each hub was its own working group, with a diversity of ages, experiences, knowledge, and interests.

The audio-visual process is still ongoing. Since August, 15 workshops have taken place in La Jagua, with youth from La Jagua, Paraguay, El Pital and Garzón participating. The workshop facilitators for the audio-visual process were the artist La Cloud and professors from the Mother Earth Teaching Program at the University of Antioquia. During this process they've created various shorts about different themes related to territory, including fishing, coffee growing, and displacement. The audio-visual training process will continue in 2015, and will culminate in the First Street Film Screening Series in the middle of this year. This traveling film series will be the official premiere of all the material created in the workshops, and have an open call for film entries from everywhere but directed primarily to audio visual material from Huila, Caquetá and Putumayo.

Just like the diverse participants, each workshop facilitator came from a different background and had experiences and knowledge to offer based on where they are from. The performing arts teacher, Fernando Pertuz from Bogotá, led all of his teaching through workshops about Practices of Resistance. The theater teacher, Lucenith Castillo, who comes from the group Esquina Latina in Cali, started with exercises to analyze reality that gave a basic foundation for presenting scenes through Theater of Neighbors (community/neighborhood based theater).

The contemporary dance teacher, Eduardo Oramas, led workshops in scenic improvisation, and our friends from the Colibrí Collective shared their experience with puppetry in Cauca with a workshop called How to Give Life to Metaphors. Each group evolved in its own way, and the results were very distinct. Struggles in defense of territory were ongoing during the course of these workshops and so they were a big influence. The workshops continued, but also the struggles for land continued in all the many ways that people practice resistance.

In La Jagua on November 1st a blockade began on the road to Tarqui, which effectively paralyzed the Escalereta resettlement work in the neighborhood and the oxidation ponds in La Jagua, as well as their respective areas of preventive archeology. This blockade demanded compliance with ruling T-135 of the Constitutional Court, which ordered Emgesa to immediately open a new census of the affected population. The blockade lasted until November 25th, when there were no longer guarantees from the State, which through ESMAD (riot police) was going to use violence against people to move them. The blockade coincided with a gathering of Ríos Vivos [the Living Rivers Social Movement], and people from the Ríos Vivos Movement arrived from all over Colombia: from Bajo Sinú (Córdoba), the Cauca River Canyon (Antioquia), the Sogamoso River (Santander), the north of the Department of Cauca and also from Neiva, Oporapa and Isnos, Huila. At the same time, the final action of Geochoreographies was taking place in La Jagua, which included a night of street theater in public space in town. During this action more than 300 people joined hands and created a human spiral, to close with an activity of offering and a fire at the site of Las Peñas on the Yuma (Magdalena) River. The next day there was a paseo de olla con sancocho (an outing to cook stew by the river) for everyone, that included demonstrations of throwing fishing nets, artisanal miners showing samples of their work, hanging a banner on the cliffs, puppet theater, rock painting, tubing on the river, and spelling out the phrase “ríos vivos” with our bodies on the warm rocks by the side of the river.

The group from El Agrado and El Pital, who were mostly adolescents and some children, did two days of action. The first day was in public space in a rural area at the bridges over the Yaguilga creek and the Balseadero Bridge over the Yuma River, and the second day was in parks in El Agrado and El Pital. During the geochoreography at the bridges they did some spontaneous graffiti, a human spiral, a presentation of River Theater (as oppose to street theater) called “the Bombarded Frog” and decorated the Balseadero Bridge with paper lanterns and a banner. On both days of action they made dozens of purple fabric bands painted with the names of native species of flora and fauna that are impacted by the Quimbo Hydroelectric Project, raising awareness at the bridges and in the main public parks about the other affected populations that aren't being recognized by the company Emgesa. In the parks they presented a couple of works of invisible theater, the Burial of the Land and the Displaced Fishing Net, and made a human spiral that incorporated the public.

In Gigante children and youth from the Casa de la Cultura theater group did an invisible theatre intervention in the market plaza that grabbed a lot of attention. Some pretended to be working for a multinational company, selling bottles of water from Páramo de Miraflores or from the Yuma River for 1 million Colombian pesos each to people in the market, while groups of thirsty children followed them around begging for water. At the same time, another group was walking around the market gifting hugs and bracelets that say Territorio Matambo (Matambo being the patron Peak of the region) and inviting people to the next play happening in the central park after mass. In the park they made another human spiral, and did a play where the Ceiba of Freedom came to life, talking to the people of Gigante from the heart, inviting them to liberate the land. This activity culminated with a paseo de olla con sancocho in the El Arado creek.

In Oporapa, San Ciro and Paraguay they presented the river-serpent, a 25 meter long blue puppet that wove through the streets until it confronted a dam that blocked its path. They also did the street coreographies of Los Macheteros y Los Cafeteros (The Machete Wielders and Coffee Growers), as well as human spirals. Between the Geochoreographies of Oporapa and San Ciro they took a break at the El Guayabo Creek, and in Paraguay after the presentation there was a community stew cooking where everyone was invited. These last actions coincided with protests against the COP20 in Lima, Peru, and also the participation of representatives from ASOQUIMBO and Ríos Vivos in the People's Summit on Climate Change in Lima. All of the participants in the final presentations received posters, Territorio Matambo bracelets and a Certificate of Participation.

Geochoreographies as a project has come to an end, but the audio-visual process is just taking a break and will be continued in 2015, ending its first cycle in the middle of the year. After much work and reflection it is clear that these kinds of projects in rural communities are needed and desired, especially those that are impacted by extraction projects. We hope to evolve this first experience into an arts and communication school for the defense of territory, in the not too distant future. It is clear to us that there is no lack of interest or energy for participating in these projects in the communities that relate to an intangible cultural inheritance that reinforces rootedness to the land. Now the challenge is to facilitate a second round, and deepen political formation and artistic and cultural creation as tactics for direct action and for personal and collective transformation of communities in the process of defending their territory, their lives, and life itself.