OUR PROCESS
COLLABORATE - ENLIGHTEN - EXPLORE - RISK - CRAFT
Anthropological Approach
Without formal academic training in social and cultural anthropology, Manifesto Poetico practically applies anthropological principles, methods, tools, and approaches.
This involves using empirical observations and field studies to analyze and understand cultural, social, and human behaviors, based on over 25 years of travel around the world.
The Laboratory takes an interdisciplinary approach, engaging with fields such as sociology, psychology, history, physics… This is complemented by independent fieldwork, including community immersion, participant observation, and qualitative data collection.
Anthropology serves as a practical tool for Carlos to better understand the realities and behaviors of the communities he collaborates with and creates alongside.
Over the years, we have applied anthropological techniques and insights through hands-on experience, self-study, and training in related disciplines during our travels.
Content
Manifesto Poetico’s Spatial Dramaturgy is our primary language—among other tools such as architectural concepts, movement, rhythm, and gesture—for addressing contemporary themes like climate change, immigration, war, equality, and social justice. These themes are examined through an anthropological lens in our TransPoetico productions and pedagogical work, supported by a wide range of interdisciplinary methods and creative strategies.
Wherever the Laboratory travels, we remain committed to investigating the social climate, engaging with locals and colleagues to learn about their experiences and perceptions of the world.
Manifesto Poetico:
hears their stories and takes note of how they tell them.
asks what are the dominant means of survival in this area.
asks what worries them? What causes them anxiety? And what inspires them?
looks at their behavior, their spaces and environment.
looks at their gestures and use of language.
engages directly in daily routines to better understand lived experiences.
listens to what remains unsaid.
The content of Manifesto Poetico’s shows are highly influenced by the anthropological study from years of travel and have their own process of developing sharpened content that is universally relevant.
As poets or architects of theatre, Manifesto Poetico creates popular theatre that brings the language of the street to the stage—without modern technology—developing new theatrical languages that belong to the people.
Manifesto Poetico does not follow a fixed formula, methodology, or style. Instead, we create with the people for the people, crafting Contemporary Popular Theatre where the audience’s imagination is active.
Viewers are not passive consumers of a “product” but become co-creators, finishing the story suggested through movement and space.
Thus, Manifesto Poetico continues to search for Poetic Languages, for and with the People.
“It is important that the architect builds in harmony with the identity and cosmo-vision of the people, but imagines and designs as a poet would.
A Poet is someone who has the vision to integrate knowledge from the outside reality with his inner sensations in order to give us a different view of the world.
[…] The poet makes out of his work something suggestive that is going to penetrate in the domains of the dreams […] and make possible the things we believe to be impossible.”
-Milena Quintanilla, Poetics of Architecture
