Since 1982, Tadeco Teatro has been committed to everyone’s right to the language of art

Today we act and tomorrow we have to sweep the room. In an independent artistic group you have to do everything, especially if the work is not monetized, assume Margarita Hernández Navarro and Gustavo Ávila, members of the board of directors of Tadeco Teatro, which turned 42 this April 23, and with this demonstrates that utopia is possible.

Both scenic creators are the most senior members of that company, whose presentations are sustained with voluntary cooperation, based on the conviction that art should not be charged.

She has been part of the group for 26 years and he for 33. It has not been an easy road, but we are not complaining. To maintain a project like this you need a lot of dreamer and Quixotesays Margarita Hernández. And also a lot of foolishness and resistanceadds Ávila.

Tadeco Teatro will celebrate its anniversary this weekend at the Albergue del Arte, its headquarters since 2009, located at Alberto Zamora 32, Villa Coyoacán neighborhood. He will do so with the staging of two of his most recent productions: The spotted cat and the swallow Sinhá y Antigone today.

The first is a puppet show for all audiences, from 2024, and will be presented today at 6:00 p.m. and Sunday at 2:00 p.m., while the second, from 2020, based on the Greek classic, on Saturday, at 7:00 p.m.: 30 hours. There will also be a photography exhibition by Verónica Barragán, open until the end of May. Entry to everything is free, with prior reservation by calling 55-5554-6228.

The company was born in 1982 in the country’s capital, at the initiative of América and Judith Villavicencio Salgado, workers of the Mexican Union of Electricians (SME), who took on the task of calling Juan Manuel Martínez, who was their first artistic director.

For more than four decades this artistic and educational initiative has focused on scenic creation, in a community context of horizontal organization, where the projects are multidisciplinary in nature. Its name is derived from this community work, since Tadeco is an acronym for community workshop, explains Margarita Hernández Navarro.

We continue working as a non-profit group, forming supportive and critical audiences, based on research, training and learning from exchanges with performing arts groups from all latitudes (they are members of the Ibero-American network Cruzando Fronteras), to continue sharing and resuming theater as a professional professionhe points out.

It has not been easy for the group to survive from the ranks of independence, especially since it was not able to establish a permanent cast for a long time. Even so, the average they keep one is between four and five years.

Gustavo Ávila says that when he joined, more than three decades ago, there were permanently between 10 and 15 people, but that ended, especially for economic reasons, but also for lack of reasons; There is no longer a vocation for the artistic, what matters now is making money.

Another of the bills has to do, precisely, with the scarcity of economic resources. However, Margarita Hernández Navarro clarifies that it is an area that they have managed to overcome thanks to the fact that the company is the owner of the Art Hostel and, from it, they have managed to establish a community dynamic.

We generate a community network in which we help each other. The shelter and the group have given us a lot financially and emotionally. This causes the same colleagues to return to space.he emphasizes.

We think first about the project than about the money; If we think about money first, we no longer did it, because we are not a company. We are a civil association, but business wise we would be bankrupt. There is always someone who supports with somethinghe adds and states that even the public has given food in exchange for seats.

One of these supports also comes from the workshops taught there, including photography, yoga, chess, documentary film, aerial and contemporary dance, theater, dubbing and acting, some of which do charge and the teachers leave some contribution.

Tadeco Teatro’s commitment, according to the stage creators, is aimed, on the one hand, at ensuring that everyone has access to this artistic expression, which is why the motto is not to have a ticket office. Another is that it be a theater that is understandable to everyone, even if it is a classic work.

We are convinced that theater makes us see other possible worlds, and we do not want that to be prevented by a box office or a language. We must all have access to the language of art and culture.