Manuela Infante was born in 1980 in Santiago, Chile. She holds an MA in Cultural Analysis from the University of Amsterdam. Infante is currently one of the most well-regarded voices in contemporary theatre in Chile and Latin America. She is known for delivering scenic articulations of complex theoretical issues.
She conceives theatre not (only) as a place to tell stories, but as a laboratory for a kind of incarnated philosophy. Her works have been presented all over Europe, in the USA and in Asia, her texts translated into English and Italian.
In 2015, she was appointed the first female director of the Muestra Nacional de Dramaturgia (National Dramaturgy Festival) in Chile.
Among Infante’s works: Prat, Juana, Narciso and Zoo; Fin awarded at the Modena Festival (2008); What’s he building in there? (2011), the result of a residency of a residency at the prestigious The Watermill Center directed by Bob Wilson. On the Beach awarded at Barishnikov Arts Center in New York and Don’t Feed the Humans at Hebbel am Ufer in Berlin.
In 2019 she was invited (first Chilean woman) to the Venice Biennale with Realismo (2016) and Estado Vegetal (2017). And in the same year she won. again with Estado Vegetal, the Stuckemarkt de Theatertreffen (Germany).
For years she has been working in resonance with the ideas of a current of thought labelled The Nonhuman Turn. Taking on the task of imagining how to realise a non-anthropocentric theatre, she has explored different scenic strategies to question the notion of the human from postcolonial and gendered perspectives. Her polyphonic monologue Estado Vegetal (at FIT in 2017, read more and watch the after-show talk) studied plants by examining the mysterious or impossible dialogue between humans and plants. Ovid’s Metamorphoses is a kind of inventory of transubstantiation myths, which already 2000 years ago questioned this idea of a fixed boundary dividing the human from the non-human. Another piece on the path towards a non-human theatre is Como convertirse en Piedra – How to turn to stone (2020, at FIT in October 2022).
As a musician she has composed, written and produced two albums with her band Bahía Inútil. Stand Scared (2011) and Useless Bay (2015). She is the sound designer of most of her works. As a screenwriter, she has worked on audiovisual productions in Chile with renowned directors such as Cristián Jiménez, Alicia Scherson, Sebastian Lelio and Marialy Rivas. And she has written foreign series such as Invisible Heroes produced by YLE Finland.
< photo Carolina Vargas
@ FIT
Como convertirse en piedra
2022 Edition
28.09 – 11.10
Estado Vegetal
2017 Edition
28.09 – 08.10
