Theater

Mi madre nada (My mother swims)

  • Daniela Castillo Toro
  • Co-creación de Daniela Castillo Toro y Nicolás Lang
  • Country: Chile
  • Premiere: 2024
  • Target audience: 14 years (contains subtitles as part of the staging)
  • Length: 60 minutes

A daughter finds an unfinished word at the end of her mother’s diary. From there, a journey begins toward the last remnants, traces, and memories before forgetting takes over. Mi madre nada (My Mother swims), selected by the national jury for the Festival Internacional Teatro a Mil, is a play that reflects on memory and the relationship between a mother and a daughter.

In Mi madre nada, playwright Nicolás Lange joins Daniela Castillo to present a metaphorical excavation into the memory of a mother who forgets.

This archaeology began in 2019, when the daughter found the diary her mother had written at the onset of her illness, containing the last remnants, traces, and memories before the forgetting began. It is a journey to places that no longer exist, where the adolescent mother went into exile during the dictatorship.

A place frozen in time, where two people who love each other — a daughter and a mother — could meet, even though everyday language offers no way to make it real.

Press quotes:

Video:

Credits:

Original Idea

Daniela Castillo Toro y Nicolás Lange

Playwriting

Nicolás Lange

Direction and Performance

Daniela Castillo Toro

Sound Design, Microphones, and Operation

Ximena Sánchez Egaña

Set Design

Laurene Lemaitre

Costume Design

Paulina Giglio Gutiérrez

Musical Composer

Tomás González

Production

Inés Bascuñán Pérez

Poster Photography

Pablo Hassmann

Setup Photography

Daniel Corvillón

Circulation and Internationalization

Fundación Teatro a Mil

Biographies:

DANIELA CASTILLO TORO — DIRECTORA E INTÉRPRETE

(Santiago, 1987)

Actress, director, and performance researcher, graduate of the Universidad de Chile. In theater, she has performed under the direction of prominent Chilean directors, including Ana Luz Ormazábal, Martín Erazo, Cristián Plana, Millaray Lobos, Los Contadores Auditores, Paula González, and Marcelo Leonart. Founder, director, and actress of the company Terrícola, she has directed the productions Youtube: una historia de la humanidad (2016), Humane (2018), and El Gran Silencio (2023), presented at renowned national festivals.

In film, she has appeared in productions from Chile, Argentina, and Germany. She won the award for Best Actress at Argentina’s BAFICI Festival and at Chile’s FECICH for her performance in the film Reinos (2017).

She has toured with theater productions in Brazil and France; held residencies in Germany (Proyect 99) and France (Académie Nomade); and received a scholarship for the Stage Direction Program run by Fundación Teatro a Mil and the Goethe-Institut in 2018. She has authored two publications on acting: “Movimiento sensible: aproximaciones somáticas para la formación actoral” [Sensitive Movement: Somatic Approaches to Actor Training] (2023, with PLASMA) and “La intuición en la actuación, ensayos reflexivos sobre la intuición en el trabajo actoral” [Intuition in Acting: Reflective Essays on Intuition in Actor’s Work] (2020, with the Universidad de Chile’s Performance Research Group).

In 2024, she premiered her latest production, Mi madre nada, a co-creation with writer Nicolás Lange, in which she works as both director and actress, presenting the piece at various theater festivals. In 2025, she was invited to become a resident artist at Teatro La Memoria, where she is beginning a new artistic project with Nicolás Lange, “La vida que vendrá” [The Life That Is Coming]


NICOLÁS LANGE — DRAMATURGIA

(Puerto Montt, 1994)

Chilean writer, playwright, and theater director from Patagonia. He holds a degree in Arts from the Universidad de Chile. He currently divides his time between Florence, Italy, and Amsterdam, the Netherlands, where

he is pursuing the Master’s program Das Theater at the Amsterdam University of the Arts (AHK).

His writing has earned him recognition including the Mustakis Fellowship and the Gabriela Mistral Literary Games. His play Esto podría durar y durar y durar y durar y durar was selected for the 2022 National Playwriting Showcase, and the unpublished version of Caminamos porque amamos algo received the 2021 Best Literary Work Award; the book, published by CastoryPólux in 2023, traces his life in a singular and varied way, sharing twisted memories and grotesque realities with readers, whom he confronts directly throughout the narrative.

His texts have been translated into English, German, Italian, Portuguese, and French, and his works have been presented in more than 15 countries. He is the winner of the President of the Republic Award (Chile, 2025). He is also the author of the book Hunt The Dog Hunt The Boy Hunt The Other Boy Too (Centro Dramático Nacional de Madrid, 2024). He has held artist residencies at the Gorki Theater (Berlin), KVS (Brussels), the National Theatre of Lithuania (Vilnius), Giornate del Respiro (Sardinia, Italy), Teatro Cantiere Florida and PARC: Performing Arts Research Center (Florence, Italy), Cité internationale des Arts (Paris), and Watermill Center (New York).


Previous dates:

2024

Teatro la Memoria


2025

Teatro la Memoria


August 6, 2024 within the Cycle of Theater of Stories of Dictatorship and Human Rights

Museo de la Memoria (Santiago)


January 30 and 31, 2026 as part of Santiago Off

Centro GAM (Santiago)


May 8 and 9, 2026 as part of the Ruta España 2026 international tour.

Teatre Tantarantana (Cicle Latituds) in Madrid


May 16th as part of the celebration of World Theatre Day, 2026

Ruka Kimvn (Santiago)


Presented from July 9 to 19 as part of the Chilean delegation at the Off Avignon Festival 2026.

La Manufacture (Avignon)


If you are interested in any of these shows in your cultural space in Chile or around the World, you can contact us through the following email. Pamela Ruiz: pamelaruiz@fundacionteatroamil.cl

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