Juana Acosta is a Colombian actress living in Europe who just presented her new play, El Perdón, the most personal project of her artistic career. 

 

In the play, the actress talks about the drama that shook her life and changed her professional future: the murder of her father, Álvaro Acosta. After almost 30 years, the performer felt ready to face the tragedy before the public and reflect on violence in general and how to put an end to it. 

 

After a year of research and three months of daily work, Acosta told GTres that she feels "nervous," but also very excited about the premiere of this show, which can be seen until Jan. 23 at the Teatro Bellas Artes in Madrid. 

 

"I did interviews with my family, my father's brothers, my brothers... to somehow recover the figure of my father through the memory of all, because memory is very subjective and one remembers what you want to remember," she told GTres.

 

The actress, who was helped on the project by dancer/choreographer Chevi Muraday and screenwriter/playwright Juan Carlos Rubio, also has the support of her entire family when dealing with this subject.

 

"This terrible event that happened to us was almost 30 years ago. Each one has been able to mourn and has been able to place it where he/she has been able to," said Acosta.

In this new artistic work, Acosta also rediscovered his passion for dance.

 

"It has been beautiful, above all, to have discovered that the body has memory, that the technique I acquired from the age of three to 16 was still lodged in some part of my being," she said. 

 

As she told La Roca, Nuria Roca's program on La Sexta, she stopped dancing when her father was murdered.

 

"Going out to my dance classes at the age of 16 the phone rang and when I answered it I had the terrible news that my father had been murdered, somehow the trauma was embedded in the dance. It's as if the violence had castrated dance for me," she said.

 

In the program, she also revealed that "it was never known" why her father was killed, since "the 1990s was a very complex time in Colombia."

 

"It was a crime with impunity," she said.

 

"It is a show that speaks of pain, but also of resilience, of life, it is hopeful, that speaks of how I was able to overcome everything that happened to me and move forward and be able to fulfill myself as a woman, as an actress, as a mother," concluded the artist. 

 

At the age of 16, Juana lost her father on May 19 at the hands of violence in Colombia. In 2000, angry and hurt with her country of origin, she left for Europe to devote herself to the arts. In Spain, the native of Cali became a prestigious actress and positioned herself among the most admired personalities in the performing arts.