Shakespeare for prisoners and the people: a conversation with José Carlos Balaguer in Mexico City

José Carlos Balaguer has developed his career in two marked areas: in community work and cultural cooperation. He is currently director of Social Impact Projects at Foro Shakespeare, a theater group working inside Santa Marta Acatitla men’s prison. Strategy World Tour Mexico City will join the audience at a performance. José shared his thoughts on the theater and how it is impacting the community.

One of the important goals of the Strategy Tour is to uncover how social innovation can be modeled in different contexts. Can you talk about the current social climate of Mexico City and the role Shakespeare Forum plays?

This year in Mexico, 57 people have been killed a day. Everyday.

In that same Mexico lives, Juan David Hernandez Rojas, an 11 year old boy who designed a backpack to protect himself from shootings and robberies in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, in northern Mexico. The backpack has a bullet-proof vest, an alarm, a lamp, and a GPS system.

While the country has a prison overcrowding of 25% over its capacity and the Federal District is the place where there are the biggest problems of overcrowding in prisons. An example: in the East Reclusorio of Mexico City the population is 12,883 people, when its capacity is 5,604 people.

Prisons are full while impunity reigns over executions, disappearances, and murders in the country.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights recently released a report on the human rights situation in mexico. The facts help us understand why a theatrical project inside a jail becomes a project of social innovation.

Juan David Hernández Rojas, used his creativity to protect himself from the violence that surrounded him. He creates his backpack, we do plays with criminals inside the jail. We are creating daily solutions, and innovative solutions, to the challenges of our daily life.

In our project, the public goes to jail when they purchase a ticket to see the work done by prisoners. Three plays are running and anyone with a ticket can accompany us inside the jail. The money raised from the ticket cost is distributed among prisoners, which allows them to have a way of economic subsistence and helps them stay away from activities such as telephone extortion or selling drugs within the prison.

The theater is as a source of growth, personal reflection, economic sustainability and, without a doubt, a source of social innovation.

The direct interaction of the spectator with the prisoners/actors makes the discourse more meaningful for both the actors/prisoners and the spectator. Sensitizing the external public about the conditions of life in prison. Thus, the beneficiaries of each action are at the same time actors of their own development, strengthening the feeling of citizenship. Deconstructing the prejudices that surround us as a society.

In a country where economic visions push young people into the arms of organized crime, prisons become universities of crime. Not everyone has the creativity, the knowledge, or the opportunities of Juan David. We try to give them tools that give them different opportunities.

After seven years working on this project, more than 1,500 people have seen the plays performed in the prison.

80 prisoners have participated in the project as actors, professionals or technicians.

Collaborations have been made with projects as disparate as Paraiso with Yoko Ono and CDMX or Gesundheit! Institute, a foundation run by Patch Adams.

Currently 6 former prisoners are working full time in the 77 Centro Cultural Autogestivo as teachers and actors with disadvantaged youth, running free activities for more than 6,000 people.

Finally, and probably more important, we have tried to create a working model, culture as a tool against violence, as an element of social inclusion, as an element of social development. The success of this project conveys that it is possible, that we must look for new, imaginative solutions that generate added value to the projects. Remember that our actions change our environment, change our reality. Hack the system.

Remember. “We are what we do to change who we are.” E. Galeano

Register to join us at the theater as part of the Mexico City tour.

Statistics based on official data from the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System