Heidi Abderhalden en Rolf Abderhalden

Lausanne and the École Philippe Gaulier in Paris. She also studied with the renowned theatre teacher, Monika Pagneux, who led movement work in Peter Brook’s International Centre for Theatre Research. Rolf Abderhalden was trained in various art forms. In Paris he studied theatre at the Jacques Lecoq International School of Theatre and set design at the L.E.M. (Laboratory of Movement Study) and also completed a study in the visual arts at the National University of Colombia. While in Paris the Abderhaldens shared their passion for theatre and the visual arts with fellow students such as Simon McBurney and William Kentridge. 

The Abderhaldens returned to Colombia, their native land, in 1986. Since then Mapa Teatro has become a renowned experimental laboratory for all kinds of artists and art forms. In the 35 years of its existence it has created a highly individual universe in which myth and history, opera, theatre, cabaret, radio and video all flow into each other and where boundaries, whether of a geographic, linguistic or an artistic nature, do not exist. Theatre texts by writers such as Beckett or Sarah Kane have often formed the starting point for their shows, but in recent years Mapa Teatro has increasingly zoomed in on the absurd reality of everyday life in Colombia, basing its work on an item of news or a myth from the recent history of their country. Their outspoken and distinctive work in this field recently gained the Abderhaldens the award of a Goethe Medal (2018). Los Incontados: un tríptico is Mapa Teatro’s debut show in the Netherlands.