María Teresa Hincapié is a seminal figure in Colombian performance art. Her artistic practice is based on rigor, physical strength, discipline, energetic ability, and an intense spiritual drive. These foundations were cultivated throughout her nine years of acting training with the group Acto Latino and strongly influenced by the Oriental Theater, the theories of Jerzy Grotowski, and the theatrical anthropology of Eugenio Barba. In 1987, unfulfilled by the theater and its limitations, she began experimenting with the artist José Alejandro Restrepo. Despite a brief career due to her untimely death from cancer in 2008, Hincapié paved the way for a robust performance art community in Colombia; her seminal work Una cosa es una cosa was a watershed moment in this regard. Throughout her career, Hincapié addressed key social issues such as humans’ relationship with nature; sacred, ancestral cultures and knowledges of Indigenous communities; and daily life from the perspective of a woman of humble origins.