When the municipality approved the coffee shop venture, the owners reached out to the families of each prospective employee to make sure we still wanted to work there. I said yes without knowing what I was getting into. When I arrived at Krüg Café, I suddenly understood. Happiness and excitement filled me. This place offered me the chance to work, have my own money, and finally become an adult.
Latin America
To direct a diverse cast, I must know their cultures. We speak different languages, and come from different customs, but we share one voice and one love for theater. To those who are shy or self-conscious in front of the world, do not worry. You are just beginning to discover yourself. Go beyond your limits and learn to destroy them.
Whenever a meeting ended, someone in the group would share experiences of being persecuted. People entered their homes to intimidate them. Two of our female comrades had to leave the country for security reasons.
I wanted another life; I wanted to live. At the legal age of 18, I decided to become a mother and choose what I would do with my own body. People tried to impose their norms and attitudes on me. Making the decision to be a mother prompted my approach feminism.
Every day, I walked through uninhabited fields and city drains. There, I found my first body – a young man who had been kidnapped and left in a drainage canal. Seeing a dead person and thinking it could be my son shocked me, but that body was only the first of hundreds of people we found in a country where disappearances increase daily.
I have acted in 17 projects alongside celebrities like Ryan Reynolds, Will Ferrell, and Octavia Spencer. I spent an eight-hour day on a commercial shoot alongside Spider-Man actress Zendaya and modeled costumes for Black Panther 2.
The pain and anguish of going blind consumed me. I leaned on the support of my parents, partner, and friends who never left my side. Then, right in the middle of everything, something incredible happened. In 2006, just as I lost my sight, I found out that Los Murciélagos became champions!
In the first of Orato World Media's Mini Docs Series, Rufo Chacón speaks about the day that changed his life, his difficult journey since then, and the solace and expression he found through music.
Thousands of women took to the streets in Colombia on June 11, 2022 in support of the left-wing Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates in the upcoming election.
Every three hours we measured her oxygen. On Thursday and Friday her levels were normal, but by Saturday morning her oxygen saturation dropped from 96 to 92.
An accomplice emerged from the bathroom shooting without measure or caution. Six bullets landed on my father’s body. One bullet hit him directly in the head and he died instantly.
When the ESMAD began using stun guns, I found myself in the middle of chaos. Everyone started running. Right there in the street, someone shot me from behind. I felt the impact on my face and ran desperately seeking help. I touched my left eye. Blood poured down.
We looked across a ravine, which had become a terrible, raging river, and saw children on the other side. We threw ourselves at the river, using sustained ties to get in and out. As I carried the children across, I prayed to God they would not let go of me.
I awoke after the acid attack locked down and motionless in a hospital bed, an oxygen mask attached my face. I had been sedated due to the severe pain throughout my body. I was on the verge of death.
Our first patient, Richard Vargas, arrived with two forearm amputations. We labored to find a solution. The moment we placed the prosthetics on him, magic filled the air. Suddenly you did not see a person missing parts of his body, you saw someone with the potential to be mentally and physically well.
I awoke in a hospital bed. When the doctors and my family tried to explain that I was in an accident, I went crazy. I tried to pull off the breathing machine and the tubes and lines connected to my body.
Outside, people greeted me as a singer, a smiling actress, and a cheerful young woman from a noble family. “Why did you leave your art,” they asked, “Why don’t you return to the stage?” I bowed my head with shame.
This adventure allows me to connect with nature, the mind, and the body. It is a constant mental and physical challenge.
I never imagined that my talent would lie between fabrics and scissors, experimenting with different types of canvases, textures, and colors. I enjoy ensuring everything is in harmony, and it is precisely this process that most satisfies me with each new order.
Whether under the scorching summer sun or in the cold winter wind, there is no other feeling like embracing the fertile environment. Nature has that ability to fill you with life. I feel a strong responsibility to respond to the environment by working with organic alternatives to grow crops without chemicals.
In each little free moment—on busses, in my dressing room before a recording began or at home before sleeping at night—I referenced my spreadsheet of words and definitions. It gave me confidence, but I also noticed that luck seemed to work in a particular way as well; more than once, they asked me about a word that I read for the first time just that day or the day before.
The first time I sang in front of a large group of people, I feared I would lose my breath, or my throat would close. While I practiced for my performance, I wondered if my nerves would overcome me.
When I work on the creation of a piece, nothing else matters. It's just me and the materials, and from my hands touched by suffering, pain, rejection, and loneliness, small treasures are born that contain my essence: what I am and everything I carry inside.
During my days lost, I had to drink my own urine and shelter for sleep in cold, wet clothes. I experienced hallucinations of spiritual teachers who accompanied me through the ordeal.