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In this April 11, 2014 photo, visitors applaud as motorcycle drivers from Tepito perform a synchronized ride at the conclusion of a theater project showcasing the lives of residents of the troubled neighborhood in Mexico City. The project, titled "Safari in Tepito" has provided employment for some residents, such as the motorcycle drivers. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)![Tepito_Street_Theater__3_]()
In this April 11, 2014 photo, Lourdes Ruiz laughs as she performs outside the Fortaleza housing complex where she lives in Mexico City's Tepito neighborhood. Ruiz is one of four local residents who teamed up with professional actors to write and perform fictionalized renditions of scenes from their own lives, dealing with themes such as child abandonment, violence, sexual abuse, hope, female strength and love. Ruiz, a vendor, is known as the queen of "albur," a word-play based on sexual double entendres. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)![Tepito_Street_Theater__2_]()
In this April 11, 2014 photo, actor Raul Briones stands in front of a mural depicting neighborhood residents killed by alcoholism and heart attacks as their souls prepare to meet Christ during a theater performance in the Tepito neighborhood of Mexico City. Many attending the production Safari in Tepito say it helped them better understand an area they would not have visited otherwise. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)![Tepito_Street_Theater__5_]()
In this April 11, 2014 photo, Martin Camarillo, 35, who was paralyzed by a bullet when he was 19, performs a scene with actor Raul Briones as spectators crowd around them in Camarillo's cramped bedroom in Mexico City's Tepito neighborhood. Camarillo said he wants to show the visitors how similar their lives are. "We want for people to know that in Tepito there are also people who work hard, who set up their stands early in the morning to give their family a better future, to give them hope," he said. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)![Tepito_Street_Theater__11_]()
In this April 11, 2014 photo, actor Raul Briones rests in a boxing gym as visitors watch a video on the history and significance of boxing to the Tepito neighborhood of Mexico City. One visitor, Christian Pimentel, who works in marketing and lives in a middle-class neighborhood of the capital, said he had gone shopping in Tepito during the daytime with his family as a kid, but always believed it too dangerous to visit after sundown. "The play helped me see there are good people in Tepito, there are kind people, people struggling to improve their situation." (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)![Tepito_Street_Theater__12_]()
In this April 11, 2014 photo, "Safari in Tepito" director Daniel Gimenez Cacho, right, talks with a young resident through a window in the Tepito neighborhood of Mexico City. "I have liked this neighborhood since I was young and I was worried that a place I love so much, that to me represents the heart of Mexican identity, could be defined only by how many dead people there were, or how much cocaine was trafficked," said Gimenez, one of Mexico's best known actors who has starred in films by directors Pedro Almodovar and Alfonso Cuaron among others. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)![Tepito_Street_Theater__1_]()
In this April 11, 2014 photo, people walk past graffiti reading in Spanish "We grow like steak," part of a theater project in the Tepito neighborhood of Mexico City. Neighborhood resident Lourdes Ruiz is one of four residents performing scenes about life in the neighborhood alongside four professional actors. "We grow like steak," says Ruiz in the play, explaining that with each strike of the mallet, a person expands. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)![Tepito_Street_Theater__4_]()
In this April 11, 2014 photo, young men carry a coffin past the outside of a church as pat of a theater performance bringing together professional actors and local residents in the Tepito neighborhood of Mexico City. Named "Safari in Tepito," the experimental theater project takes people into the cramped apartments of residents who perform fictionalized renditions of tales from their tough lives alongside professional actors. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)![Tepito_Street_Theater__9_]()
In this April 11, 2014 photo, Martin Camarillo, 35, who was paralyzed by a bullet when he was 19, calls out greetings to neighbors as he and actor Raul Briones lead visitors on a tour of his neighborhood in Tepito, Mexico City. As part of the "Safari in Tepito" theater project, Camarillo welcomes the audience into his bedroom, barely big enough for his bunk bed, and exchanges thoughts with Briones about fatherhood. Camarillo talks about having to accept that he can never have a child and talked about his own fathers alcoholism, womanizing and domestic abuse. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)![Tepito_Street_Theater__6_]()
In this April 11, 2014 photo, dolls sit on a couch in the apartment of Lourdes Ruiz in Tepito's Fortaleza housing complex in Mexico City. A small theater company led by one of the countryís best-known actors recently began leading groups of people on evening walks and motorcycle rides through Tepito to show them the human side of a neighborhood identified with crime and poverty. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)![Tepito_Street_Theater__10_]()
In this April 11, 2014 photo, a girl jumps rope in a boxing gym as visitors arrive on a theatrical tour of Mexico City's Tepito neighborhood. Tepito's tough reputation is well-earned. Along with the killings in recent years, residents sometimes fight with rocks and glass bottles against police trying to conduct raids at houses believed to be sheltering drugs and pirated merchandise. The neighborhood has also earned its fierce reputation through its history of producing professional boxers. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)![Tepito_Street_Theater__7_]()
In this April 11, 2014 photo, photographs and keepsakes are wedged between the top bunk mattress and bed frame in the bedroom of Martin Camarillo, 35, during a theater show in Mexico City's Tepito neighborhood. Organizers and attendees of the theater project reject the idea they are exploiting the residents lives for their own entertainment, saying Safari in Tepito aims to increase understanding of the poor in a country where nearly 50 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)Street Theater Takes On Mexico's Rough Side
"Safari in Tepito" aims to increase understanding of the poor in a country where nearly 50 percent of the population lives in poverty.
Move Forward
- Street Theater Takes On Mexico's Rough Side
