Chilean Puppet Theatre Silencio Blanco Tours World with Poetic Works

Chilean theatre company Silencio Blanco, founded in 2010 by Dominga Gutierrez and Santiago Tobar, has gained international acclaim for its puppet-theatre works exploring loss and marginalization. The company, now a collective of around eight members including sound designer Ricardo Pacheco, creates silent, meticulously researched pieces based on real stories transformed through poetic language. Their early work Chiflón (2013) focused on former coal miners in Lota, Chile, after the closure of the El Chiflón del Diablo mine. Presented at Santiago a Mil festival in 2015, it led to tours across the US, Portugal, and the UK. The company's four major works include Antuco (2005), recently performed at Theater der Welt in Chemnitz, Germany on 19-20 June 2026, which recounts the 2005 death of 44 young military recruits in the Antuco volcanic mountains. Their latest piece, Cabeza de Elefante (Elephant's Head), premiered in February 2026 at Nordland Visual Theatre in Stamsund, Norway, and played at Centro Cultural Gabriela Mistral (GAM) in Santiago in April 2026. It is a co-production with Figurteatret (Nordland Visual Theatre, Norway), Het Lab Hasselt (Belgium), and GAM. Gutierrez notes that puppetry was considered a minor artform during her university studies in the late 2000s, but the company's work has proven its communicative power. Silencio Blanco operates within a challenging government funding landscape in Chile, relying on annual project grants.