Ever since it was founded, the CAYC (Centro de Arte y Comunicación), helmed by the cultural promoter, artist, and businessman Jorge Glusberg, was intended as an interdisciplinary space where an experimental art movement could flourish. The establishment of collaborative networks connecting local and international artists and critics played an important role in this process. As part of the interdisciplinary approach it had always encouraged, the CAYC promoted experimental practices, appropriating a variety of examples of Argentine art from the 1960s.
Teatro al instante, which was created by Augusto Larreta (1926–2019), was based on improvisation and audience participation. Larreta was a lawyer, journalist, writer, theater director, and a movie, theater, and television actor. He was in many well-known productions, including the 1986 movie La historia oficial (The Official History), which won an Oscar for best foreign film.
All these productions—which were part of the CAYC’s theater program—shared a common theoretical-aesthetic approach whose essential idea consisted of developing a relationship between actors and the audience, and in this (most radical) case involving the participation of the audience as scriptwriters. The plot was rewritten for each performance. The minimalist stage settings were inspired by the dramatic vision pioneered by Jerzy Grotowski (1933–1999) and his “poor theater.” Teatro Pobre, which relied on actors using their bodies and voices as they performed on a bare stage, was a direct reference to performance art, which was one of the experimental trends that Glusberg promoted in the local scene. The Ciclo de Investigaciones Teatrales 73–74 was organized at the CAYC in 1973 and 1974 (see GT-297; doc. no. 1478830, GT-301; doc. no. 1478985, GT-302; doc. no. 1478986, GT-308; doc. no. 1478837, GT-317; doc. no. 1478987, GT-321; doc. no. 1478841, GT-326; doc. no. 1478843, GT-410; doc. no. 1478893, GT-418; doc. no. 1478895), in which several groups took part. The general idea was to approach theater as a political practice that could affect societal change.
Grotowski’s ideas had a powerful influence on the Grupo de los Trece, a group of visual artists who were affiliated with the CAYC. The group’s original members (Jacques Bedel, Luis [Fernando] Benedit, Gregorio Dujovny, Carlos Ginzburg, Víctor Grippo, Jorge González Mir, Vicente Marotta, Luis Pazos, Alberto Pellegrini, Alfredo Portillos, Juan Carlos Romero, Julio Teich, and Glusberg) met with the Polish theater director when he was in Buenos Aires in November 1971 (GT-94; doc. no. 1478761).
