argia.eus
INPRIMATU
Forced to enjoy art
Amancay Gaztañaga @lagatadepandora 2022ko abenduaren 23a
PAULA ESTÉVEZ

As if Leonidas himself had directed, at eleven o'clock in the morning we are ending the warming after the black curtain of the stage. Around 300 teenagers, forced to watch theater. Force, what ugly word. The words theatre and compulsory should never be written in the same phrase, but here are the ESO students from three centers and a few teachers, forced to watch theater.

Young people come in screaming like wild animals that have been released for a short time. We are very hot. We know we're few in front of all of them, it won't be easy, but the material we have is good and we're in an unbeatable company.

We hold hands. The moment the lights go out, the beads take over in the room. How many times have these young people come to see theater? How many times are they forced? How many times of pleasure? Do you know that pleasure and theater are compatible? The three actors moved on stage.

In silence, in the dark, we have taken a hole above the table, while telepathically we have said “a moment, they will be silenced”. With the first laughter of the characters, the scene lights turn on. From now on we are unstoppable until the end of the play, a steamer Titana in continuous advancement.

Ten of these 300 have sat in the last armchairs. They are not silenced, they are not silenced and they are not silenced. The rumours of the children of patriarchy have helped us to the end.

It's always punishing teenagers and ready. How do we want these teenagers to enjoy the theater if we don't teach them to enjoy?

Today's has been laborious, I have been left with the feeling that we have pushed. A teacher has come to me as students leave the room. He asked me how much he's gone, that they haven't seen him, they've gone to coffee.

Before I get home I have to call my mother, “What has happened today in the theater?” I replied that “the ten of them have always boycotted themselves, mother.” She told me how she learned: the nurse who shares the custody of our grandmother has been sent a letter from school. Today the students have behaved badly in the theater and say that it will not stay that way, that there will be punishment and retaliation.

It's always punishing teenagers and ready. How do we want these teenagers to enjoy the theater if we don't teach them to enjoy? How do we want that respect for culture to be demonstrated, if sometimes they do not teach it themselves? How do we want us to enjoy a play if cultures are integrated into an educational system that is not worth a bell pepper?

No, forgive, but no, what has happened today has been a reflection of society. What these ten have done is a simple repetition of what they see. Do they deserve punishment? So we all deserve. Will institutes be punished for not leaving space within that system to the play itself or to the theatre? If those ten had also come out for coffee…

It does not irritate me in this view. But hope. The village Gaztetxoko will give us a space to meet these ten students to talk about what they and us have felt.

P.D. : I know it's not easy to be a teacher, I've lived it at home. But if we have to dignify that delicate and bitter work, the education system has to fundamentally change it.