Cartagena is a city of festivals. From January onwards there is music, film and literature. Thousands of artists and movie stars descend on the Old City to admire colonial grandness on a quaint scale, mingle over martinis in San Diego and the sunlit lobby of the Santa Clara hotel. But there is another Cartagena few high rollers see: the Nelson Mandela shanty in the sprawling industrial south of the city and home to almost a million people.
In Nelson Mandela live the cooks, the street vendors, domestic help, and some of the contemporary dancers of Alvaro Restrepo’s Colegio del Cuerpo. “I choose my students from the ‘estrato T’,” claims the 54-year-old founder of this country’s most acclaimed contemporary dance academy. “The ‘estrato T’ meaning ‘strata of Talent’.”
Restrepo’s work provides an opportunity for kids with few options to find meaning through dance.
When it first opened back in 1997 as an academic foundation, Restrepo had returned to Colombia after six years of dancing professionally in New York. A student of Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham, Restrepo created Athanor Danza, and set out to rent floor space for an ambitious social project that would motivate marginalized youth through dance. “Cartagena is a city that dances,” says Restrepo as he passes through Bogotá on his way to Baku, Azerbaijan, where he was invited by Colombia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to perform for the start of diplomatic relations between the countries.
The Colegio del Cuerpo quickly got its first students and having recruited French dance director Marie-France Delieuvin to help with the lessons and choreography, Restrepo began to campaign for funds from the city, the Ministry of Culture and French government so that he could keep his students dancing in a 16th century cloister not far from the yellow clock tower of the historic centre. Nohra Pastrana, the First Lady during the government of Andres Pastrana (1998-2002) championed the cause of the Colegio del Cuerpo, as did Spain’s international cooperation agency, the AECID, and the Government of Japan. Restrepo and Delieuvin started offering grants and scholarships to hundreds of youngsters with creative potential but limited economic means. “In Colombia we have to change a culture of survival for a culture of life,” claimed Restrepo in an interview back in 2000 when I first met him in white linen and sandals.
More than a decade later, the objective to harvest talent in youngsters who have suffered displacement as a result of the conflict or are vulnerable to vice has remained. Yet the foundation has grown and Colegio del Cuerpo now operates satellite projects in community schools across Cartagena and maintains international partnerships with other charitable entities inspiring youth such as Buskaid Soweto String Ensemble (BSSE) in South Africa. “When you educate the body, you educate for peace,” remarks Restrepo. “The body is a habitat.”
Having exchanged social and creative visions, Restrepo invited Buskaid founder and violinist Rosemary Nalden, along with 27 musicians from the townships, to perform at the Adolfo Mejía Theatre. The event was hailed as an important artistic milestone for Cartagena, and Colegio del Cuerpo was invited to Pretoria and Johannesburg, South Africa, to perform their ‘Pasos Perdidos’ (Lost Steps). According to Restrepo, Cartagena and Africa aren’t that removed, as the port city endures its own “silent apartheid.”
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From the first 500 students who signed up to dance at the Colegio del Cuerpo, Restrepo chose 20. Some of the graduates have moved on to become professional dancers in their own right, although the director is adamant that the objective continues to be education over employment. “It’s the difference between having or being,” says the dancer. “The biggest reward is always yourself.”
I first made contact with Colegio del Cuerpo 18 years ago while on assignment with Cartagena’s boxing legends. Escaping the heat of the ring and noise of the streets, I entered the cloister San Francisco to see a young dancer glide gracefully across the floor with her arms extended. Viridiana Calvo was 11 then and took a bus two hours from Nelson Mandela to learn how to dance.
Along with other students, Viridiana was taking her first steps to becoming a talented dancer and model citizen. Calvo graduated from University, is now married and lives in Europe. Through the thousands of youngsters Restrepo and Delieuvin have taught and inspired, Colegio del Cuerpo has grown in reputation, size and prestige. The contemporary dance company is a standard at the Ibero-American Theatre Festival in Bogotá and counts with a repertoire of 15 works. Colegio del Cuerpo is no circus of the sun, but a school in the sun, which outgrew the dark cloister to a lighter and larger facility in Cartagena’s north.
Plans are underway for the construction of a new multi-million dollar dance complex along the Cartagena – Barranquilla highway and which will be home to Colegio del Cuerpo’s new workshops in costume and stage design. Creating “green architecture” is the objective of Colombian architect Leopoldo Combariza and friend of Restrepo’s foundation. The complex and beautiful design was donated to Colegio del Cuerpo so that money can be raised for its completion through private donations and World Bank funds.
While the barrios of Cartagena are rife with talented youngsters driven to dance, as much as 70 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. As the city expands, so does the misery. “The city continues to be a receptacle of displacement,” laments Restrepo, adding that a “new poor” migrates to the city everyday in search of opportunities. Confident that Colegio del Cuerpo will continue to offer a democratic space for youngsters, the ghetto mentality in the city isn’t relegated to the slums. Cartagena’s traditionally white elite have shunned the reality of an Afro-Colombian city, where dance is a pivotal cultural expression.
“Young people don’t see hope,” claims this director. “Colegio del Cuerpo is social sculpture.” Despite facing obstacles to maintain the Colegio as a sustainable entity for youth in Cartagena as well as working hard against prejudice and racial bias, Restrepo believes that one can create a masterpiece by believing in others. “Colegio is my best work of art.” Honest words which for years to come will inspire new generations to dance, for hope.
