Bogotá Prison Pageant, Part III

Every year, the national women's prison in Colombia puts on a beauty pageant in which each cell block elects its own candidates to represent them - a queen and a queen mother. Our artists were down in Bogotá for the pageant in 2011, and what you're about to hear is from the interviews with the contestants and inmates there. This material was performed and recorded live at 92YTribeca in NY. First up is Donnetta Lavinia Grays as Jeimi (Willy) and next up is Florencia Lozano as Jessica. Maria Elena Ramirez closes out this episode as Ana Yolanda, Queen Mother for one of the cell blocks. Interviews for this episode were conducted by Adriana Mejía. The performances you just heard were directed by Steven Cosson. Thanks for listening. Subscribe, rate, review!

Click HERE for our research photos from the pageant!

TO SUBSCRIBE TO THE LET ME ASCERTAIN YOU PODCAST SERIES ON ITUNES, PLEASE CLICK HERE!

Bogotá Prison Pageant, Part II

Our artists conducted interviews with the women in El Buen Pastor, the national women's prison in Bogotá, Colombia. Every year, the prison hosts a beauty pageant in which each cell block elects its own candidates to represent them - a queen and a queen mother - and they work together to create costumes, floats and dances for the main event, which is kind of like Carnival. Our last Bogotá Prison Pageant episode focused on the High Security section of the prison. The prison is divided into different cell blocks according to crimes committed. This week, we're heading into the General Population at El Buen Pastor to give you an intimate look into these women’s daily lives and their preparation for the pageant. This material was performed and recorded live at 92YTribeca in NY. First up is Ana Lamadrid performing an inmate, followed by our Associate Artist Jenny Morris as a Canadian prisoner. Matt Dellapina performs an interview with Mauricio, a pastor who works with the inmates, and the episode closes out with Flor De Liz Perez as the Queen Mother of Cell Block 9. Interviews for this were conducted by Alejandro Jaramillo Hoyos, Lorena Lopez, and Adriana Osorio. The performances you just heard were directed by Steven Cosson. Thanks for listening. Subscribe, rate, review!

Click HERE for our research photos from the pageant!

TO SUBSCRIBE TO THE LET ME ASCERTAIN YOU PODCAST SERIES ON ITUNES, PLEASE CLICK HERE!

Bogotá Prison Pageant, Part I

The beauty pageant that takes place in the national women's prison in Bogotá, Colombia is the subject of this week's podcast episode. Steve Cosson spent a month visiting the prison during the lead up to the pageant, working with a group of Colombians, playwright José Rivera, and songwriter/musician Hector Buitrago of the Latin Grammy Award-winning band Aterciopelados. They interviewed the pageant's contestants, other inmates, and prison staff. In this podcast, you’ll get a chance to hear some of our raw interviews, which were translated into English and performed for the first time at the 92YTribeca in June of this year. Our first interview, performed by Vanessa Aspillaga, is with a woman serving time for being part of one of the various guerilla groups who are part of a long-standing armed conflict with right-wing paramilitaries. Next up is Carolina Ravassa playing an inmate who is incarcerated for her part in an attack on the presidential palace in Bogotá in 2002. The attack did not succeed in hitting then President Alvaro Uribe, though one missile overshot the palace and landed in the nearby neighborhood of El Cartucho, killing a number of people. To close this episode, our Associate Artist KJ Sanchez performs an inmate who, while she proclaims her innocence, was convicted of working for the paramilitaries through her political office. These interviews were conducted by Lorena Lopez and Alejandro Jaramillo. Thanks for listening - subscribe, rate, and review us!

Click HERE for our research photos from the pageant!

TO SUBSCRIBE TO THE LET ME ASCERTAIN YOU PODCAST SERIES ON ITUNES, PLEASE CLICK HERE!

A Glimpse Behind the Prison Wall

In a recent Let Me Ascertain You event, Jeanine Serralles gave an astonishing performance as a woman currently serving time in El Buen Pastor, the national women's prison in Bogota, Colombia.  This brilliant retelling is just a taste of what will be divulged tomorrow night, June 13th at 7:30pm at 92YTribeca.  Prepare for quite the comedic/dramatic ride...  

 

The upcoming event of which this clip is a taste is Let Me Ascertain You: Bogota.  It features never before seen material crafted by Civilians artists from interviews that were conducted on-site at the prison.  The evening will focus on the annual beauty pageant that takes place in El Buen Pastor.  Members conducted these interviews with paramilitary, guerrilla fighters, drug smugglers, and more.  The pageant itself is a relatively new development in the prison system and is comprised of everything from folk dancing, to floats built from recycled material, to an evening gown competition.  It is truly indicative of a shift in public policy towards better support and rehabilitation for the incarcerated.  The stories you will hear at this event are candid glimpses inside the walls of a woman's prison along with personal accounts of the political struggles and warfare that continue to threaten Colombia.  

We're all very excited to see what tomorrow evening brings!  If you're interested in getting a first-hand account of this prison beauty pageant and all that it entails, HERE is all the information you'll need to know.  Hope to see you there!

    

Simple Gifts

In September, Steve Cosson and a team of artists were in Colombia conducting research and interviews about the beauty pageant that happens every year in the national women's prison in Bogotá. They spent about three weeks talking to the women in the prison, including the participants in the pageant (one woman is selected to compete from each cell block), the women watching, past winners, the prison staff, and more. They learned a lot about both the pageant and day-to-day life for the inmates. One of the pretty striking aspects of the daily routine at the prison is that the women don't have easy access to some things that are pretty important to daily life, like toilet paper. There are two ways that the women can get toilet paper and other similar items: if they have money, they can purchase them from the prison store, but more often, the women will have a family member or friend who will visit once a week and bring them what they need. So those who don't have family nearby are left to figure out how to get this stuff on their own.

So Steve and the team went to the Bogotá version of Costco, where they raised some eyebrows by buying around 560 feminine napkins, hundreds of rolls of toilet paper and bars of soap, and lots of laundry soap and bocadillo (a Colombian guava candy).



They put divided up all the stuff into bags (each including two rolls of toilet paper and seven feminine napkins, plus the soaps and candy), and divided the bags by cell block for distribution.











As you might recall from earlier posts, it's not that easy to get into the prison. Each bag had to be individually checked by security before the team was allowed to proceed to the Education Building to distribute everything. Each interviewee and international inmate received a bag. To claim their bag, they got a piece of paper from the prison staff with their name on it. When their name was called by the prison staff, they were allowed to enter the courtyard, walk to Steve who was stationed in the center, hand Steve their slip, he would hand them their bag, and they would then proceed to exit the courtyard and return to the Education Building. The Japanese inmate, who didn't speak much Spanish, seemed pretty confused about the whole thing.

Check out the skyline in the background! 

And be sure to take a look at our photos posted this week on Flickr HERE of the pageant! Here's a few to whet the appetite - they're really incredible!

Check out the detail on this sequin work; it's  incredible!

Costumes are made from recycled materials.

From the folk dancing competition

Colombian Drug Trafficking

Steve and his team of artists have continued the process of conducting research and interviews for the BOGOTÁ PRISON PAGEANT at the national women's prison in Bogotá, Colombia. The women are in prison for many different reasons, but one of the more prevalent crimes is that of drug trafficking. In the movie "Maria Full of Grace," the mulas (women trafficking drugs - mules is the literal translation) swallow the cocaine in packages made of condoms. It seems that this method no longer works, since anyone suspected of carrying drugs is x-rayed at the airport.  Now the traffickers have ways of blending the cocaine into clothing, shoes, whatever. You can open a suitcase and everything looks perfectly normal, but then you'll find that all of the fabrics are actually made of drugs. Most of the mulas are paid and know what they're doing, but it does seem that some are tricked into carrying drugs. Apparently, one tactic in international trafficking is to send a group of mulas to the airport at the same time and set one of them up to get caught who is either knowingly or unknowingly carrying a smaller amount of drugs. The narcos pay off the police and the airport, and the set-up mula gets arrested with the smaller amount. The other mulas who've got the bulk of the stash pass through safely and fly off to deliver the goods.

In an interview with one of the mulas, she described this process to Steve and the artists, giving them one of their favorite lines:

"Cuando la policía detuvo, me sentía absolutamente ningún miedo. Solo pánico."

"When the police arrested me, I felt absolutely no fear. Only panic."

Getting into Prison

As Steve and his team of artists can attest, it's not so easy to get inside a prison (which is probably a good thing, ultimately). We already posted photos of the group of artists waiting to get into the national women's prison in Bogotá, Colombia to do research and interviews for the BOGOTÁ  PRISON PAGEANT. After this waiting game, they have to pass through several checkpoints, and collect a series of stamps (sellos en Español). Here are photos of some of the artists' favorite sellos that they have been sporting over the course of the past few weeks:

This last one is a mouse.

Also trying to get into prison is this beautiful doggie. This dog's owner is presently locked up in El Buen Pastor women's prison. Every morning the dog comes to the gate of the prison sits outside and waits. Some of the guards give him bread and snacks. He hangs out all day, then goes somewhere at night, and is back at the gate the next morning. It is unclear how long this has been going on.  

Updates from Bogotá - Domestic Drama

Things have been going great down in Bogotá, where Steve Cosson is working with Colombian artists on conducting research and interviews in El Buen Pastor Women's Prison about the annual beauty pageant that they put on there. The winner is being crowned today -- more on that soon!

In the meantime, there's been some drama around the apartment. Steve's recent Facebook status was:

oh dear lord. I am presently trapped on the balcony of my rental apt here in Bogota. I guess when I rented the place I should have specified that I wanted a door to the balcony with handles on the inside AND the outside. It's funny how sometimes you don't realize there's no handle on the outside until you shut the door. I'll be here for an hour until the landlord comes with a key. It's cold and I have to pee. Please share amusing thoughts to stave away the panic.

55 comments later, he was rescued by our Project Coordinator Ella, though the food he had cooking on the stove wasn't so lucky. The resolution, as per FB:

A few more details now that I"m back home in my smokey apt. When the moment of rescue came I heard "steve steve" from above looked up and there was Ella, her friend who lives in the building, and the doorman looking over the ledge of the balcony above with three different sets of pliers... they got lowered one by one on Ella's yarn. The third one worked. Got into an apt filled with smoke. And the landlord arrived 2 minutes later. Of many things I learned today - in Colombia the doormen don't keep spare keys because nobody trusts their doormen enough. And the smoke detectors are only in the halls... so basically you can asphyxiate to death in your own apt and if the fire gets really really really bad and makes it out in the hall then some alarm goes off.

So we're happy to report that with no fires or injuries, Steve was successfully returned to the interior of his apartment.

Meanwhile, out in the hall: This poster has been posted around Steve's apartment building. Transcription and translation below.

Jerónimo perdió su osito de dormir en el edificio: 

Jeronimo lost his little bear in the building.

Si lo encuentras por favor retornarlo al apt. 2105: 

If you find it, please return it to apt. 2105

RECOMPENSA!!!!

REWARD!!!!

Muchas Gracias!

Many Thanks!

  

(El señor Berns sabe)

(Mr. Berns knows)

Pretty reminiscent of another poster that has popped up in The Civilians' world: 

Lost Back-Pack

Valuable Contents: 

2 Beanie Babies 

and a toy dolphin

mostly needed back/ 

If found, please call

That's right - this is a snapshot of the original poster quoted in Gone Missing, complete with absolutely adorable illustrations. It's hanging in our office now. We'll let you know if Jeronimo finds his bear, and we can only hope that the beanie babies and toy dolphin have safely found their way home.

Bogotá Prison Pageant: Intro to the Investigation

From Steve Cosson in Bogotá:

I've been here in Bogotá for a couple weeks now leading the investigation for our new Bogotá Prison Pageant show (working title of course. Saying that title out loud kindof feels like coughing).  I'm just now getting a chance to catch my breath – both literally and figuratively.  Bogotá is about a mile and a half up in the air which I'm aware of every time I have to climb stairs. The city is quite a metropolis—it stretches North and South with the Andes bordering the city on the East. The wealthier people live to the North, the poorer to the South. I'm living somewhere in El Centro which as you might guess is in the middle of the two – 31st street to be exact at the intersection of two main drags – Carrera 7 and 13. Carrera 7 is almost completely dug up with construction which is a big drag. Por ejemplo, last night jack hammers were working till about 1 am.  Apparently the construction had a lot to do with corruption and kickbacks of Bogotá's last mayor.  Which is part of why he is no longer mayor.

But why I'm here: I'm leading a group of 5 Colombian actors/theater artists in an investigation of the annual beauty pageant that takes place each year here at El Buen Pastor, a women's prison. Sadly there is no pageant at the men's prison.  After much to-ing and fro-ing with the national prison bureaucracy we got access to El Buen Pastor about ten days ago and the group has been visiting each morning conducting interviews with the inmates – some contestants some not.  El Buen Pastor has 9 "pavellones" or cellblocks.  Though a straight translation would be "Pavillion" which sounds much more fun.  It's really not a fun place. The beds are concrete slabs and often women sleep on the floor.  The prison was built to hold 1,000 and currently holds 1,800. Each cell just has bars on the windows so it's fairly exposed to the elements. Oh, did I mention Bogotá is COLD. Or at least for a cell exposed to the night air it gets down to 40 degrees. From these 9 pavellones there are 12 contestants.  Three of the pavellones are grouped together since the population of each is fairly small.  So from the six, a "reinita" or young queen and a "reina madre" or older/mother queen is elected. 

There's a lot of pressure on each of these women to compete and win, of course. But unlike a traditional beauty pageant the emphasis is on the group and not just the contestant. So each pavellon (aka patio) has to work together to build a float according to a theme, and a group of women from each patio learn a traditional dance and make costumes to accompany the presentation of their reinas.  

The theme this year is "the planet." As one of the psychologists of the prison told us, the administration wanted to raise awareness of environmental issues and global warming (see here for The Civilians play about all that). So of the six patios each is assigned a region of Colombia (determining their dance and costumes) and a planet-related theme:  air, water, fire, earth, living planet, dead planet.  We spoke to one of the queens having to represent the "dead planet" and initially she was fairly bummed at her patio's theme. I've been informed though that as of yesterday she figured out how to make a really killer outfit that's both glamorous and scary so now she is psyched.  

The theme is also key for the "Desfile de Carrozas," or the Parade of Floats.  Here for example are the carrozas for the National Miss Coffee pageant:  http://www.calarca.net/nacional/carrozas/index.htm 
(Did I mention that beauty pageants are a big deal here?  There's a pageant for just about any place, food, product or abstract idea you can imagine).  The carrozas at El Buen Pastor are a big effort – weeks of work to make spectacular floats out of shopping carts, recycled materials and some paint. 

I'm hoping by the time of the Desfile de Carrozas that I'll get permission to take photos.  So far no luck there.  

Here however, are a couple photos of our team of interviewers waiting to enter the prison. This is a fun ritual they get to do every morning at 8AM.  In future blog postings I'll be introducing you to the Colombian Civilians.  

Un abrazo!