UPN Performing Arts Students Win the 2025 Grant for Artist Professionalization

Six students from the bachelor’s degree in Performing Arts (LAE) program at the Universidad Pedagógica Nacional (UPN) Reachel Gómez, Oscar Rodríguez, Brayan Álvarez, Geral Tesillo, Alexis Molina, and Juan José Blanquicet, have been selected as recipients of the 2025 Grant for Artist Professionalization, awarded by the District Secretariat of Culture, Recreation, and Sports. This recognition highlights the research, creativity, and pedagogical commitment of UPN’s pre-service teachers in the field of performing arts.

Two of the winners, Alexis Molina Rodríguez and Juan José Blanquicet Rodríguez, both in their ninth semester, were selected for the quality and relevance of their projects, which integrate artistic creation with research and social reflection.

The project presented by Alexis Molina Rodríguez, titled “Body Cartographies: Migrant Memories”, seeks to bring visibility to the experiences of ten migrant women who are members of the Casitas Bíblicas Corporation in the Palermo Sur neighborhood.
Through collective creation workshops and the crafting of woven characters, Alexis proposes a stage performance that gathers the memories and stories of displacement and adaptation of these women.

“The purpose is to create a cartography of migration memory and to explore how this process has transformed their lives. The grant provides us with significant support to develop the project under better conditions and with dignified materials,” explained the student.

The award, amounting to seven million pesos, will allow him to continue his research and materialize the stage proposal, which also serves as his graduation project.

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Meanwhile, Juan José Blanquicet Rodríguez was recognized for his reflective dramaturgy project, grounded in autoethnography as a research methodology. His proposal explores the phenomenon of internal migration in Colombia, drawing from his own family and cultural experience.

“My project begins with a reflective text that analyzes the migration phenomenon through my family history, with roots in Huila and the Caribbean coast. This grant allows me to dedicate more time to writing and to strengthen the research that supports the dramaturgy,” he said.

The student emphasized the importance of the University fostering these spaces for participation and encouragement:

“It is valuable that these processes are recognized, as they allow us to compete with students from other universities and to put into practice everything we learn in the LAE program, especially in the field of artistic research.”

Both students highlighted the research-oriented approach that characterizes UPN’s bachelor’s degree in Performing Arts and the importance of having this type of institutional and district support.

“These incentives help to recognize the artistic field as a formative, research, and pedagogical space that contributes to building a more sensitive and humane society,” stated Alexis Molina.

The Universidad Pedagógica Nacional celebrates these achievements, which reflect the commitment, sensitivity, and academic excellence of its students, reaffirming its role as a leading institution in training teachers and artists dedicated to social transformation through education and art.