La ciudad de Nunca Jamás: Texto dramático sobre las representaciones sociales de niños que han vivido la experiencia de habitabilidad de calle

Abstract

This research-creation process, developed within the Master’s program in Childhood and Culture at Universidad Distrital Francisco José de Caldas, Faculty of Science and Educa-tion, aimed to create a dramatic play based on the social representations of childhood construc-ted by girls and boys who have experienced street life. The purpose was to contribute to the recognition of the diversity of childhoods in Bogotá D.C. and to strengthen Colombian chil-dren’s dramaturgy. A qualitative research-creation methodology was applied in three phases: theater and improvisation workshops with sixteen participants between the ages of 8 and 17 from the Fundación Niños de los Andes; systematization of emerging images, stories, and emo-tions; and the collective creation of the dramatic text La Ciudad de Nunca Jamás. The findings reveal that theater, understood as an ethical, aesthetic, and political device, re-signifies chil-dren’s voices and disrupts hegemonic narratives about childhood. The dramaturgical proposal generated through this process does not seek to portray a single reality but rather to make visible, through poetic language, those childhoods historically marginalized. The resulting play challenges and dignifies memories, opening spaces of symbo-lic recognition where art becomes a vehicle for expression, resistance, and social transforma-tion. This research-creation project received recognition from IDARTES, winning the Más Cultura Local Antonio Nariño grant, through which children received artistic training in thea-ter, focused on staging the play. Thanks to this support, the play La Ciudad de Nunca Jamás was produced and performed at Teatro Villa Mayor, an achievement that decisively contributed to the development, strengthening, and consolidation of the entire process.