Smoko Acting School

English translations in order of the presentation

SOMOS

Sara Moncada

For a long time, I lived in search mode. I didn't know exactly what I was looking for… I only knew I wanted to feel more whole, more alive, more myself.

I grew up believing that happiness meant being with someone, that there always had to be someone by my side. And from that place… You don't choose well.

When I decided to emigrate to Australia, I thought that belief would stay behind. But no one warns you that when you emigrate, you can change countries, but you can never escape yourself.

And there comes an age when people stop asking: "How are you?" "Are you happy? Do you need anything? If not, why are you still alone?" And those questions land like judgments dressed up as curiosity.

(Pause)

Until one day I decided to ask myself a different question: what if the problem wasn't being alone, but not knowing how to be with myself? And the answer wasn't pretty. It wasn't my story. It wasn't other people. It wasn't my country. That's when I understood something powerful: the one who had to change all of that was me. No one else.

So I made a decision. I gave myself time. Not while waiting for something better to come along, but in real time. I started doing things I had always wanted to do but had never done because of fear of what people might think.

The first was going to the cinema alone. I bought the ticket with my heart racing. I looked around, thinking everyone could tell. I sat down. I breathed. Nothing happened. The film began. People watched the screen. No one looked at me.

That day, I understood something that changed everything: no one was judging me… the only one who was doing that was me.

I planned a solo trip. It was my birthday, and I had always wanted to visit Sydney. So I bought the flights and let the spaces, the places, and the silences speak to me. I enjoyed it so much that, for the first time, I didn't feel like someone was missing for me to enjoy it.

But during this process, some days weigh more than others. Days when I come home and the silence greets me first, and then the memory of Mum arrives. I miss seeing her there, smiling, sitting with her cup of coffee, asking about my day, and making my world feel safer. And now her voice is no longer in the house.

But even then, on those days, I choose to hold myself with awareness and give myself the same tenderness I used to look for outside.

Emigrating was the bravest decision of my life, not only because I crossed an ocean, but because I learned to stay even when it hurt. Because little by little, I've been healing parts of myself I didn't even know were there. Because I gave myself that space to find myself, and in daring to cross it, I discovered that on the other side, I lacked nothing.

And that, for me, is peace.

Steven Gutiérrez

When I was thirteen, during my school’s cultural week, I was invited to perform in a play. I

remember it was a Friday night, and for the first time, I wasn’t sitting in the audience — I was

inside it. I was acting with the teachers. I was the only student. I played the son in a

traditional Colombian mountain family.

That day, before leaving home, I called my dad. He didn’t answer. I left messages on his

beeper. One, another, another one. “Dad, call me back, it’s urgent… What time are you

coming? Are you picking me up?” I waited. I kept looking at the time, thinking there’s still

time… there was always still time. I told my mom, “See? He doesn’t care about my things.

He cares more about my sisters.” He didn’t show up. I went to school with another student’s

dad.

I performed. I played a son with a fictional father, trying to find my own in the audience. And

while I was looking for him, I thought about my childhood. I grew up between the

countryside and the city. He tried to get close — he would come home and hug me, and I

would pull away. At the farm, they woke me up early — milking cows, collecting eggs, riding

horses. They said I hated it. I never said anything. I actually liked it… But I never let him

know.

One Wednesday in April, at my uncle’s restaurant, I saw him having lunch with his mistress.

He froze. He couldn’t hold my gaze. I could.

(Pause)

After that, I never got close to him again. If he hugged me, I pulled away. If he spoke, I

answered just enough. If he suggested something, I found a way to ruin it.

He loved football. During the 1998 World Cup in France, we spent a whole month watching

matches together — in the living room, shouting goals. I convinced him to call a line to guess

the score. I told him it was free. We called five times per match… the bill that came later was

not free. We laughed that month. We talked about theatre. And for the first time, I wasn’t

trying to escape.

That Friday, he didn’t show up. Not that weekend either.

The following Tuesday, my teacher, Magnolia, came into the classroom, said my name, and

asked me to gather my things. Then she told me to go to the staff room. Everything felt

strange. From there, I saw my mom and my sister arrive. My sister was crying. I didn’t

understand anything, but seeing her cry made me cry too. We got into a taxi. No one spoke.

At home, there were too many people. Then the phone rang.

My mom answered, right there in the living room, and said: “Yes… Yes… They took him.

He’s been kidnapped.” My sister screamed from upstairs, “Why? Why him?”

And that’s when I understood why my dad didn’t come to see me perform.

(Silence)

For many years, I didn’t have a father. I had versions of him. My father, according to my

mom. According to my sisters. According to the silence in the house. According to what

couldn’t be said. I didn’t really know him. I received him — fragmented, loaded, filled with

things that weren’t mine. I learned to see him the way I was taught to see him, and I grew up

like that, fighting an image that was never fully there.

Much later, far from my family, when there was no one left telling me who he had been, I

understood something simple: beyond all of that, beyond what others placed on me, he was

my father. And I had spent years angry. And what hurts me the most is not that I lost him —

because he never came back from that place. What hurts the most… is that I had to imagine

him wrong for so many years.

(Silence)

That night, in that school theatre, I played a son… without knowing I was rehearsing for the

rest of my life.

Twenty-eight years later, I came back to the theatre. Not to act. Not to be seen. I came back

because that was the last place I waited for him.

Today I’m on stage again. I’m not thirteen anymore. I’m not in a school. And he’s not going

to arrive.

But this time… I’m not waiting for him.

This time, I brought him with me.

Briggit Rojas

I remember that when I was barely 6 years old, I started thinking about death.

I would repeat over and over: I want to die, I want to die, I want to die…

I know! How could I even think about that at just 6 years old?

Yes, maybe it was because I felt alone, because I didn't feel loved, because my mom’s scolding mixed with my brother’s teasing hurt me.

It’s true that I used to say I wanted to die.

In fact, I used to say I wanted to go live in Ecuador.

Why Ecuador? Well, I still haven't the slightest idea.

I also grew up as the eldest daughter—and the oldest is the one who sets the example, right?

I suppose that’s where my mom’s strictness toward me came from.

Her method was a bit questionable; I didn't question it—I judged her, I felt rage, I cried a lot.

That would be the easy story to tell.

But NO!

After spending weeks thinking: "What the hell am I going to talk about?" I decided to talk about something that reflects my mental and emotional state, and so, without fear of success, I confess to you:

I AM CRAZY!

Just kidding (or maybe not).

Today, from a place of healing, learning, empathy, and compassion,

I’ve understood that my mom wasn’t the villain I painted in my stories.

On the contrary, she was preparing me for life.

The most valuable thing. I finally understood that my mom DOES LOVE ME! AND A LOT.

I am a woman who grew up among guys.

I wanted to spend 24/7 with my brother.

Obviously, he was with boys, and there I was, playing boys' games, but very clear on the fact that I was a girl.

I liked boys, and a lot… it’s a problem I still haven't been able to overcome.

I grew up, and one day I decided to leave my country. I migrated!

And when we migrate, some feelings migrate with us, but others stay behind.

I decided to leave many of them in Colombia, my country.

I brought an empty suitcase to fill it with new feelings, emotions, and experiences.

Migrating taught me that healing is love.

I discovered how much I love to read.

I found a version of myself passionate about mental health and how the brain works.

What are we without a healthy brain?

Today I work among men, in the competitive financial industry,

In a luxury building,

In a distant city,

Speaking another language.

I became a boss bitch (something had to feed my ego).

I didn’t fail the little girl who wanted to die.

I showed her that there were things we had to let die in order to truly live.

Maybe my path isn't the "best" example, but life taught me that bad things happen to all of us; it just depends on us how we face them.

Healing has been my cure.

Understanding that I am in control, my tool.

Seeing the glass as half full, my decision.

Today I look at myself in the mirror and it’s not to cry.

Today I look at myself and I see the most important person in my life.

Kelly Estrada

I walk through so much uncertainty, between dreams and experiences yet to be

lived. I have learned to move with my feet and with my heart at the same time.

Each new city welcomes me with streets I don’t know, voices that don’t recognize my

language, my accent, faces that seem like mirrors that don’t reflect who I am.

I have lived where the language changes on every corner, where summer and winter

resemble nothing, I knew, where I learned to measure time in time zones and

farewells.

My body already knows how to pack. My hands recognize airports. My heart… my

heart still wonders if this time it’s home.

And it’s ironic to think that days or weeks before this moment, right there, in the

planning, the excitement overflowed. That excitement mixed with fear… you know?

The kind that throws you into the void because you trust there’s a spring that will

catch you.

But then, the excitement turns into fear. The kind that hides beneath a smile. The

one that says “I’m fine” when everything is not fine. The one that only undresses

itself when we are alone, lying on the pillow.

So, I ask myself: what am I missing?

I was born in the shadow of a volcano, as Aurelio Arturo once said, where green

comes in every shade.

My city is Colombia’s “surprise city.” The one that appears unexpectedly in the

middle of the mountains. Where the “Nudo de los Pastos” is born and the Andes split

into three. It doesn’t impose itself, but when you get to know it, it stays with you.

It is the city of carnival, the smell of carnival foam and white carnival powder clinging

to the skin,

of shouting from the soul, “Que viva Pasto, carajo!”

It is walking two blocks and smelling incense, because it is the city with the most

churches in Colombia.

It is the cold of the mornings. It is calling children “guaguas” without thinking, as if

language itself were a root.

And I am afraid. Afraid of losing my identity. That so many maps travelled might

erase my origin. Of no longer belonging neither here nor there.

Because I like being there, but I no longer recognize myself there. Because we all

change, and that version of me no longer exists.

Every move is both a lesson and a grieving. Learning to let go. Accepting that routine

is no longer routine. That starting over is also exhausting.

And here…

I like my new life; I like who I am becoming. Here, there is growth.

Here, there are challenges. Here, there are versions of me that would never have

been born there.

But there… there will always be home, even if I no longer live in it.

Maybe identity is not a place, maybe it is movement, the ability to honour where you

come from without stopping embracing where you are going.

And maybe, just maybe, being a little lost is the price of being alive.