A Triptych of Political Violence in Colombia

Abstract

In 2014, the Colombian company Mapa Teatro released the avant-garde play The unaccounted: a triptych, which was performed in very important artistic events in Colombia, Brazil and Europe until 2019. Staged as an ending of the trilogy Anatomy of political violence in Colombia, which was started by the company in 2010, this play links and faces up the ways of political violence in Colombia from the second half of Twentieth century so far: the guerrilla, drug trafficking and the paramilitary. One common factor in these problems is a disturbing relation between celebration and violence, made possible through three regimes of festive alteration. These would be fiesta as a revolution, as a boom and as passion. Therefore, the work shows that if something begins as a fiesta or celebration —be it intimate, private or public— it could end in tragedy as a result of political violence. At the same time, a fact of violence could be clothed with celebration.