Culture for the children

 Costa Rica is a country with an abundance of art and culture.  The national government sponsors a number of art schools and conservatories and dance, theater and music performances, take place daily in the capitol city of San Jose. It is rare, however, to find cultural and artistic exhibitions in rural and/or coastal areas of the country. Luckily, the nearby town of Quepos was chosen as a site to host the Campañia Nacional de Danza (National Dance Company).   This particular show, part of Dance Company´s national tour, was an abstract, freestyle dance piece portraying the atrocity of child prostitution (an issue with which the Costa Rican government has been battling for the past decade and our law severely punishes). relaying on theatrical elements this performence told the story of an executive white collard man with an obscure secret .Through images was shown to us, his marriage, later his promiscuous adventures with this secretaries, and later this pedophylic tendencies. A puppet of a child comes into the scene with a character that represents its "pimp". Not a happy ending on this story. While the content of this show was rather dark and brooding, its theme touched on an important topic that, unfortunately, affects many of the smaller coastal towns in Costa Rica where uncontrolled tourism development has spawned a number of social problems, including drugs, prostitution and sexual exploitation of minors. Those in attendance not only learned an important lesson about how to confront and deal with this issue, but were also left dazzled by the dance performance’s use of nontraditional elements.  At the end of the play an open forum allowed the audience to express its firm conviction to protect our children.Costa Rica raices high art and culture as weapons of peace and once again they prove to be the best tools for transformation and to raise conciousness about this problems. It is these types of artistic expressions that positions Costa Rica not only as an ecological destination, but as the “Central American Capitol of the Arts” as well.  VIVA LA CULTURA! 

By: Jose Pablo Fdez, naturalist guide