The River and The Devil

It is said that during colonial times, in the Bolivian Andean Plateau, the colonizers were speaking of the river Desaguadero as diabolical, as an evil body of water. By calling the river ‘the Devil,’ they aimed at transforming the uncontrollable forces of the river into an evil force to be extracted. More than 500 years later, the accumulation of layers of continuous destruction and extractivism resulted in the ongoing desertification of the river; the transformation of its body from water to salt. In The River and The Devil, the figure of the Devil will be discovered rather as the river’s guardian, as a force that cannot be fully mastered. Can the uncontrollable forces of the devil be a tool for resilience? 

The River and The Devil is both a dance piece and a collective storytelling. Paula Almirón invites the audience to dive in a circulation of words, sounds, gestures and objects; to tell the story of a river inside its ruins. Navigating the ruins of a river implies accepting to live with remnants and with broken bodies, and to make sense of the senselessness. A choir of voices reading like a wave, reminding us that history is not linear, but rather different fragments being constantly modified. The river turned into broken pieces, hiding and moving towards us unannounced.

In a sensorial atmosphere, and embraced by a soundscape created by sound artist Vica Pacheco with a set of hydraulic sculptures, The River and the Devil honors different mythological and secret figures: winds, swirls, sacred places, foam and other forces that since deep times have been taking care and protecting the river. Where do these figures go now that the river has dried out? What remains after the river’s disappearance? We’re left with beliefs, the whistling of spirits and broken stories being told in the dark.