We met Amparo through the Residencies in Utrecht (RiU) programme, an initiative to connect inspiring international artists with many different social, educational and cultural layers in that Dutch city. A few years back she had come to the Netherlands as part of a touring dance production featuring at-risk youth from Buenos Aires connected to the “Danza/ Grupo KM29″ programme. This is an institution for young people and women in a situation of social vulnerability: drug abuse, problems with the law, homelessness. (KM 29 is a location underneath a freeway overpass in Buenos Aires where many of the participants reside.) For many years, Amparo has offered dance activities there, first only for the young people. More recently, she has started to involve the teachers of the institution as well as relatives (the mothers and grandmothers of the young girls, some neighbours). Amparo: “It was especially in this context where I understood that through dance it is possible to produce relevant transformations, not only at the personal level – in the perception of ourselves – but also at the level of the community – in the perception of others and in our relation with others.”
Amparo has developed similar projects in other contexts as well, such as Panama, the United Kingdom, elsewhere in Argentina, and now in The Netherlands. In the second half of 2019 and through the early months of 2020, Amparo became artist-in-residence at Fifth Season, an arts institution based on the premises of large facility for forensic psychiatry that, to put it mildly, is not popular among the nearby villagers. The main reason for this was the recent murder of a young woman by one of the facility’s patients. Over the months that Amparo worked with patients, care providers and villagers and living on the premises, she met several times with Eugene to share her experiences and exchange ideas over coffee or tea. It was a wonderful way for us at ICAF to find out about her groundbreaking social-artistic work. We also learned about her deep interest in philosophy, neurophysiology, political science and the unusual link between these intellectual topics, activism and dance. Amparo was going to let you experience her thinking and practice in a hands-on workshop at ICAF-8. Unfortunately, that could not take place, but who knows what may happen in the months to come. For now, we are very pleased to let Amparo introduce herself in this next video in which she reads a special message for the ICAF community…