In a world in which wars led by men continue to exist, in which racial hate crimes, LGBTQIA+PHOBIA and gender violence are perpetrated mostly by men, in which many of them continue to exercise the power to dominate and make others suffer, is where the practice of tenderness acquires revolutionary power by allowing other masculinities to live away from this barbarity and brutality.
In La posibilidad de la ternura (The Possibility of Tenderness), a group of 7 young Chileans between the ages of 13 and 17 decide to resist the cultural mandate that imposes them to be aggressive and authoritarian through the practice of tenderness, understanding it as the needed energy to transform their virile toughness into affection.
They embark on their own masculinity construction, facing the fear of being insulted, humiliated and marginalised, opening up for the first time to the possibility of holding each other down and showing affection freely and asking themselves endless questions: How do we change ourselves if we don't have a male model as a reference to adopt? What is it that stops us from showing affection, from asking for affection? What do we fear? How much love is missing in men's lives in our culture? How do we resist a cultural mandate that imposes aggressiveness on us? How do we defend tenderness? How do we make it a political practice?
Direction and playwriting
Marco Layera, Carolina de la Maza
Performers
José Miguel Araya Moreno, Leftrarü Valdivia Castro, Camilo Bugueño Espejo, Efraín Chaparro Pérez, Matías Mendez González, Dimitri Bueno Ferrer and Marcos Cruz Andulce
Playwright
Aljoscha Begrich
Theoretical collaboration
Ernesto Orellana
Direction assistant
Katherine Maureira
General production
Victoria Iglesias Álvarez de Araya
Audiovisual record
Humberto Espinoza
Lighting design
Karl Sateler
Set design
Compañía Re-Sentida
Costume design
Daniel Bagnara
Sound design
Andrés Quezada
Head engineer
Karl Sateler
Psychologist
Rodrigo Mardones
Première
September 14, 2023, Ruhrtriennale
Production
Gabriela Mistral Centre, GAM, and Ruhrtriennale
Co-production
Münchner Kammerspiele
Executive production and distribution
Carlota Guivernau