C., an Ivorian based in France, saw his brother disappear in Libya while trying to reach Europe, then a nephew died at sea and, finally, his cousin died after shipwrecking off the coast of Órzola, in Lanzarote, pursuing a better life. His story was collected by the French writer and translator Marie Cosnay in the article With the weight of the dead and recovered by the Solidarity Network with migrants in Lanzarote, which helped C. to locate the corpse of his cousin.
"They sent me a WhatsApp with the text of an interview by a French journalist Marie to an emigrant from Ivory Coast and I read the article and said 'wow' we can dramatize and represent this article and, from there, we started to move", highlights Baltazar de León, who has created a play inspired by the report With the weight of the dead.
"It is the story of emigration, but seen by an emigrant, he speaks very little about how they live here, but about the whole situation from his town, from his house, from his family, from the whole environment and how most of that environment is involved in people emigrating because they receive news from some who have arrived in Europe and it seems that they live much better than the others and then they push them to leave."
The Tías Theater hosted the first performance of this play last Friday, November 29, promoted by the newly created company Ahui Teatro. After three months of work, the two actresses who form the function try to "raise awareness and convey the message that nobody gets into one of these boats, which more than a boat looks like a coffin, on a whim. They do it out of necessity or for political reasons," adds de León.
"It is so superficial to say that they come, they come and come, yes they come, but they come in conditions that we do not wish on anyone", continues the person in charge of the play, "the weight of the dead is not only in the country of origin, but also in the country of arrival."
Although Baltazar de León assures that the death of migrants on the coasts of the Canary Islands has not been normalized, these tragedies "do not have the repercussion that the loss of a human life should have, what happens with this type of discourse is that historical memory is short" and reflects on the Canarians who were treated as "criminals" when they emigrated to Venezuela.
In most cases, to face this trip "they have to sell things, be left with practically nothing and spend months and months to be able to reach any other place." In addition, he adds that in the story of With the weight of the dead, the woman who died after the shipwreck of Órzola "had lost a nephew, that is, it is a disaster, a tragedy in the family itself and still they keep trying to leave."
After the performance of the play, a debate is formed "to see if it has touched something, it has not touched anything and if people become aware of the situation, not only of the proposal by us, but also of the situation in which these people make the decision to get on a boat."
Thus, he adds "I think the important thing is to raise awareness and that is the path we are trying to follow in this type of debate that is created after the performance."
