Manizales is preparing for the city’s 2010 International Theater Festival which will run from October 26 to November 1, featuring 35 theater companies from Spain, Colombia, and countries across Latin America.
The 32nd annual festival will include shows held in parks, plazas and “non-conventional” spaces.
“With these alternatives of art and culture in the street, we want theater to arrive in all corners [of the city], and we want entire families to be able to enjoy the festival,” said Natalia Yepes Jaramillo, the event’s executive director.
The festival began in the city, capital of the Caldas department, in 1968, with Latin America university theatre groups, professional writers, and intellectuals. Ten years later, the festival expanded to include both professional and independent companies. The festival’s website said it has continued to be a forum to express the “unique voices” and “melting pot of cultures” of Latin America. More than 700 companies from 40 different countries have participated in the festival.
In 2004 the theater festival was added to the National Cultural Heritage list of Colombia.