To say that Argentina is bruised is an understatement. From 1976 to 1983 a military dictatorship caused some 30,000 people to disappear, enough dead and missing to leave a ‘generational hole’ difficult to fill. In December 2001 the inhabitants of Buenos Aires exploded onto the streets, victims of widespread corruption and economic collapse (132 billion dollars of foreign debt paid by drastic austerity measures imposed on the population). Today, 14 million of the 37 million inhabitants are living below the poverty line and 4 million are threatened by starvation. The mass uprising of 20 December 2001 put an end to the detested Economics Minister, Domingo Cavallo, and forced President De la Rúa, to resign before fleeing the Casa Rosada and the capital by helicopter.

Buenos Aires is on tenterhooks. It is one of the largest cities in Latin America with a population of 12 million. It has a scathing and independent press. It has an extremely dynamic artistic scene although most of the time this operates on the fringes without support from the State

In 2003, four Argentinian theatrical projects have found their way onto the programme on the eve of the 8th KunstenFESTIVALdesArts. All of them are from Buenos Aires. Four projects from artists, the relevance of the subject matter and artistic maturity of which have created the idea of a collection, Mi Buenos Aires Querido! (My beloved Buenos Aires): Alejandro Tantanian, Beatriz Catani, Federico León and Daniel Veronese. This creates, at the same time, the idea of a Salón Argentino, a literary and musical evening that collects together the feelings that the artists have about their country today. Le Musée du cinéma is offering to demonstrate the vivacity of the new cinema of Buenos Aires and is showing Mi Buenos Aires Querido on the big screen. Theatre, readings and films or six ways to enjoy the Argentinian creative buzz, in Brussels in May

The KunstenFESTIVALdesArts already has a history with Buenos Aires.

1996.

In the Callejon de los Deseos Teatro, the Theatre of the Alley of Desires, El Periférico de Objetos played Heiner Müller's Máquina Hamlet. Frie Leysen has been following the remarkable work of this group of actors, authors and painters for some years. Máquina Hamlet was invited to Brussels in 1998 and the production inspired by the great ancient classic, Oedipe by Sophocle was discussed. The Festival co-produced this budding ZOOedipus and its premiere also took place in Brussels in 1998.

2000.

The El Periférico group had grown and developed. It offered the Brussels public a new production: Monteverdi Método Bélico, its first opera production on the madrigals of Monteverdi. The KunstenFESTIVALdesArts undertook the production of this project which it included in its Monteverdi programme.

With the artistic buzz that was prevailing in Buenos Aires, canvassing was stepped up and 2000 also saw the arrival in Brussels, for the first time, of the work of Ricardo Bartis, with his explosive El pecado que no se puede nombrar.

2001.

The young Federico León presented Mil Quinientos sobre el nivel de Jack, the oppressive, droll and sorrowful metaphor of a mother who takes over her only son's life. There is an absent father, a diver who "disappeared at sea". Mother and son live from then on in their bath filled with water, soaked with their tears.

2002.

Alejandro Tantanian, an ex-member of the Periférico, followed the festival collection as foreign correspondent. He set up four unusual meetings for the public in different places to suggest links between the underground life of Brussels and the past of Buenos Aires as much as its dark present.

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