Bio

Sandra María Ortega is a Dramatic arts researcher, play directress and actress. Phd in Theatre Studies at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona UAB and Professor of drama and artistic studies at the School of Arts ASAB in the Distrital University Francisco José de Caldas in Bogotá. Her main subjects of research are the political imaginaries and their representations; body, history and body politics; and the dramatic and scenic criticism of the contemporary theatre. She is a member of the line of research “Estudios críticos de las corporeidades, las sensibilidades y las performatividades”. Some of her writings and publications are Del paraíso al matadero (2020), Geografías del cuerpo híbrido en las representaciones del teatro colombiano contemporáneo (2019), Coragyps sapiens: una propuesta de revitalización y reconstrucción simbólica del cuerpo social desde el teatro (2018), La figura del "cuerpo animal" en el teatro sociohistórico contemporáneo colombiano (2017). As an actress, she has participated in outstanding international festivals of theatre —Spain, France, United Kingdom, Brazil, Chile and Venezuela —. Moreover, she has won several awards, the most relevant: "Tucán de Oro, FIT", Cádiz, Spain 1993; "Reconocimiento de la UNESCO, FIT", Bogotá, 1994; "XXXIV Salón Nacional de Artistas", Bogotá, 1992.

Project

In recent years, I have focused my interest on the poetic mechanisms of the theater to narrate the unspeakable — the most atrocious facts of political violence in my country —, from there my book Of Men and Beasts appears. During my stay at Faber I will work together with researchers of Latin America and Europe on the discussion about the political violence and its relation with theater, its theoretical referents and the creation of a research network on the subject, the network RITLE —Red de Investigadores del Teatro Latinoamericano y Europeo—. I will give a lecture on the political violence in contemporary Colombian theater and conduct a play reading on this topic. Moreover, I will work together with the Dr. Francesc Foguet on the organization of the first congress on political violence and theater that will take place in Bogotá in October 2021.