What is your opinion about the Chilean tradition called ‘mechoneo’?

Hi guys, how are you? 

I hope well, today I will write to you about the Chilean tradition called "mechoneo". The "mechoneo" is a tradition of welcoming new students to the university, they are called "mechones", it is a quite violent welcome, in most of the universities, sometimes they undress the students, they dirty them, take their things, cut their hair, and make them go to ask for money in the streets, to make the ridicule or any humiliating activity. 

It is a very harmful activity and tradition, there have been cases where some students have died from extreme acts of violence in the "mechoneo". I think that the attitudes that appear in the "mechoneos" are very primitive, I think that the young people/human of the society get their worst sides by "mechoneo" from the new students. It is very negative wherever you look, I think that the "mechoneo" should be forbidden in universities or propose a positive mechoneo. 

In my college career (dance) we also do "mechoneo" but it is a totally different kind of mechoneo from the humiliating stereotype of mechoneos that exists in universities. We scare them and act out. They are always blindfolded and taken to a room. 

Before arriving at the room we scare them with the bandages, and we put glitter all over them, we write nice phrases on their face, or arms with pencils to paint the skin.

When the tufts arrive to the room, we take off the bandages and we have a show ready for them, the ex mechones have to do a welcome dance for the new ones, with a theme, in my generation the theme was animal print and we did all kinds of dances, reggaeton, pop, salsa, among others. After that we do games and then they have to go ask for money to make a party all together. 

When they come back we give them shampoo, balsam, soap so they can take a bath and remove the glitter. 

This kind of mechoneo in my career works very well and everyone is happy, at least for me it was a lot of fun when I was a new student.

Blog 4 my future

 Hi guys, I hope you're ok!  

today i will write to you about what i am studying and my future job. 

I'm a dance student and in my situation as an artist I don't have too many ambitions in terms of money, the labor field of art in Chile is small. There is no culture of the arts in education, from childhood we are taught to produce, to be labor, we are educated for capitalist purposes and art does not fit 100 percent in this aspect. 

The most sustainable thing, thinking about my future, is to do classes. Luckily I love to teach, I like all the material that has to do with education.

I also like the fields of research, but these fields are more difficult to sustain, it's possible but it's difficult. There are funds given by the state for artistic projects, but it is difficult to win them and it is a competition within everything. 

My dream would be to have a school where I could teach many teenagers and children who don't have the means to access art, to teach them for free. I still don't know how I could sustain it, maybe with funds and self-management. Because the artist in Chile almost all his work is self-managed. I hope one day to be able to work that way.