Hector was born and raised in Medellín, Colombia where he worked as a
therapist and as a theater actor-director until he was forced into
exile due to persecution for his human rights activism. In the US, he
worked as a therapist and developed original plays with immigrants,
torture survivors, incarcerated youth, gang members, AIDS/HIV infected
people and people in Hospice care.
In the year 2000, he founded ImaginAction to help people tap the
transformative power of theater in programs throughout the US, Latin
America, Europe, Africa, The Middle East and many Asian countries. He
has worked mostly in war-torn and post conflict zones training
psicosocial teams and using theater as a laboratory to explore
alternatives to conflict and as a path to design healing rituals.
In 2017, he decided to return to his native country to work in the
reconciliation process inspired by the peace agreement between the
FARC guerrilla and the Colombian government. With the project
Reconectando, www.reconectando.org he is currently accompanying the
truth commission using deep ecology, theater and ritual to work with
victims and ex-combatants in the complex task of clarifying the truth,
creating spaces for reconciliation and imagining the conditions for
the no repetition of the violence.
Hector was honored with the prestigious Otto René Castillo Award for
Political Theatre and he is co-author with Diane Lefer of The
Blessing Next to the Wound: A Story of Art, Activism, and
Transformation.
