This year at PAPAYA we teamed up with the Department of Hispanic, Portuguese and Latin American Studies at the University of Bristol to create a brand new initiative that brought together students & artists, academia & the arts!
The Department gave each HiPLA Papaya Fest Fellow one free ticket to a PAPAYAFest show and asked them to write a 250 word review (in English, Spanish or Portuguese) for the PapayaFest website. Fellows had the opportunity to interview the artists and/or organisers post-show. Here are the reviews by our fellows:
LETTERS TO MY DEAD MOTHER - By Ivor Starkey
It is nigh on impossible to live after grief, Freud tells us, until the work of mourning is
complete. Only by confronting the dead are we able to mature and move on. In Ana Borges’ Letter To My Dead Mother we see this work take place before our very eyes: grief in a grey Modern world of Covid, Instagram reels and WhatsApp.
Through the minimalist scenes on the stage (props are limited to a chair and mask), as well as through her harrowing performance, she invites the audience to actively participate and reflect. To see another’s sense of loss quickly brings back memories of those we have lost ourselves- the play becomes a form of communal ritual.
Bridging continents, traditions and languages, Borges has created a performance that is
intimate and personal whilst remaining distinctly Anglo-Latin. Moving through stages of horror, humour and ridiculousness, the audience is subjected to a cross-section of death ‘warts and all’. There is no pretence - Borges tells us that death is never an easy passing away. These are difficult subjects to discuss, but such is their nature. A real conversation about death and grief is uncomfortable.
The show was followed by a Día de los Muertos ceremony, in which each member of the
audience was invited to write a letter to our dead. After being shaken by visions of Ana’s
grief, there was an opportunity to pursue our own work of mourning. I think each member of the crowd left the Wardrobe Theatre marvelling at life.
CHILE ESTYLE (Film) - by Angus Macdonald
Papaya Fest to me is a great celebration of inclusion, and Pablo Aravena’s film ‘Chile Estyle’ fits into that same narrative. This is a story about graffiti and how street art has acted as a constant thread in Chile’s history and culture, but what’s so special about this film is that it’s created through a lens of humanity. This is a beautiful collection of stories about people, each changing their physical surroundings through graffiti, to make themselves and others seen. We follow graffiti artist Cekis, to watch him paint a mural on a grey house on the outskirts of Santiago. Afterward, Aravena shows the man who lives there expressing how grateful he is and that now he walks out of his house with joy and pride, onto a street that had once been forgotten. Then we’re taken to see Indigenous people using graffiti to highlight their struggle to define themselves, but also women resisting sexism and misogyny through painting. What I found particularly moving was near the end of the film, where Aravena showed concentration camps used under the dictatorship. These grey walls were filled with painting and writing to express the horrors that occurred to the people here, to make the place, and those that died there, more human. This film is filled with humor and color but underpinned with human goodness which makes it so fantastic. There is such a joy to Chile Estyle and Papaya Fest that I hope others can experience too.
JEEZUS! - by Iris Murray
A vibrant and hilarious celebration of sexuality, dancing alongside an insouciant mockery of the Westen world and traditional religiosity, Jeezus! seamlessly and continually flits between comedic value and a reflection of the homosexual, adolescent experience. With a simple backdrop and minimal props, Sergio and Guido brought something truly biblical to the quaint stage of The Old Market Theatre in a truly side-splitting showcase in which homosexuality meets religiosity.
Jeezus! had the honor of being the finale of the PapayaFest’s theatre programme, a week long commemoration of Anglo-Latinx art, theatre and music in central Bristol, and no wonder!
Tucked into the corner of the pleasantly olde-worlde venue, I discovered a tribute to modernity and LGBTQ+ pride, with the musical reaching an extensive cohort of different people who, together, had the honour of experiencing the fictive reenactment of the actors’ own experiences of social and religious pressure. The musical was filled with sexual puns and comically coded innuendoes, ensuring that the crowds sound of hysterics never ceased throughout the entire performance, as the actors rewrote social and religious discourse in a modern interpretation of Christianity.
And on that quaint stage of The Old Market Theatre, toasting to the end of the 2024 PapayaFest, also known as “the best fucking reception!” (wise words from Guido himself), I found the best fucking display of togetherness, religion, nonchalance, and the priceless experience of pure joy.
A HUGE thanks to our fellows for being part of PAPAYA Fest 2024.
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