Chilean puppet company. Equilibrio Precario (Precarious Equilibrium) was created in 2000 in Santiago by Arturo Rossel. After theatrical training and a stint at the circus, Arturo Rossel gravitated toward the puppet theatre. Carmen Luz Maturana, Gonzalo Muñoz Ferrer, and Ignacio Mancilla joined him. With the sponsorship of the Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino (Chilean Museum of Pre-Columbian Art), and the support of Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Cultural y las Artes (FONDART, National Fund for Cultural Development and the Arts), they presented the show, La niña de la Calaca (The Girl of the Calaca), a Mapuche tale from oral tradition that was adapted using the technique of shadow theatre.

The troupe combines in its productions object theatre, glove puppets, rod puppets and marottes. Among the company’s other productions, mention should be made to El ñato Eloy (Ñato Eloy), an adaptation for puppet theatre (with recycled found objects) of the novel by Carlos Droguett. Los amores del Diablo en Alhué (The Loves of the Devil in Alhué) is one of the troupe’s latest creations. Music and songs, as techniques of narration, are very important in their productions.

Members of Equilibrio Precario also run training workshops in the techniques of object theatre.

(See Chile.)