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Cristina Baussan

La Cachada members gather outside a home in San Salvador to share some time within the circle of friendship.

Egly Larreynaga comforts Paola Sotelo during one of the theater workshops offered to families in Panchimalco, El Salvador.

Magdalena Enriquez becomes emotional during the group’s rehearsal as she remembers her sister, who passed away last year. She says life felt like a dead end for her until she joined the theater group. “For me, La Cachada means freedom,” Enriquez says.

Self-portrait of Mariam Santamaría, who says La Cachada provides a safe space for self-discovery and shared experiences by women in El Salvador. “La Cachada helped me to open my eyes to my reality and to better understand my country through the perspective of Salvadoran women,” she says.

The women of La Cachada create self-portraits at the Maquilishuat Park in San Salvador, El Salvador. The group’s founder, Egly Larreynaga, says that it was through her work with La Cachada that she witnessed the healing power of theater.

Mariam Santamaría does a soundcheck during the performance of the La Cachada’s mentees. Many of the women who join the theater troupe have lived through difficult experiences.

Emma Sotelo, 8, participates in a relaxation exercise during one of La Cachada’s theater workshops. This one was aimed to provide the community with an avenue for personal expression to explore the theme of migration and what the concept of home means to them.

Birds fly over a cathedral in Santa Ana, El Salvador, where La Cachada performed the play, “One Day.” Egly Larreynaga, the group’s founder, describes the troupe as her "north pole" through which she discovered the transformative power of working in the arts. "I always say that theater saved my life and it's from that perspective that I approach everything that I do," she says.

Minutes before performing the play, "If You Hadn’t Been Born," La Cachada troupe members drop into breathing exercises and meditations backstage. In 2013, when one of members became pregnant unexpectedly, the troupe decided that they wanted to produce a play about motherhood—specifically forced motherhood. That is the narrative behind this play.

Theater performer Evelyn Chileno at home with her daughter, Jaqueline, 22, in San Salvador, El Salvador. It was through La Cachada that Chileno was able to transform her relationship with her daughter, who was conceived as a result of a sexual assault. “Theater gave me hope and helped me to open up,” she says.