Mar Negra

“At dusk on a cold winter afternoon several years ago, walking through Valparaíso, I saw some figures gesturing surrounded by people in a corner of a square. As I got closer, I noticed that it was a group of five or six boys dressed up as women, dancing, singing and doing acrobatic jumps, like I had never seen before. The colorful ripped and darned sequin suits, and the withered feathers of their headdresses, created a unique and delusional spectacle. The public around them was the humblest in the port; homeless people, unemployed, drunkards, prostitutes and some scoundrels, who participated with them dancing, singing and laughing. From that minute I understood, like a dazzling revelation, that Valparaíso was the place of poetry, magic and true beauty. " For seven years I have followed this group of transvestites, who perform in a small circus, that runs through the hills of Valparaíso. They survive with sporadic jobs, constantly threatened by hunger and indifference, anonymous beings who constitute a story of pain and beauty.