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micaramel · 4 years

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Artist: Susan Philipsz

Venue: Tanya Bonakdar, Los Angeles

Exhibition Title: Sleep Close and Fast

Date: July 15 – September 19, 2020

Click here to view slideshow

Full gallery of images, press release and link available after the jump.

Images:

Video:

Susan Philipsz at Tanya Bonakdar, Sleep Close and Fast, walkthrough, 2020, 08:11

Images courtesy of the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York/Los Angeles. Photos by Jeff McLane.

Press Release:

Tanya Bonakdar Gallery is pleased to announce Sleep Close and Fast, Susan Philipsz’s first solo exhibition at the gallery’s Los Angeles location on view July 15 – September 19, 2020. This will be the artist’s debut one-person exhibition on the West Coast, following the US premiere of her twelve-channel installation Prelude in the Form of a Passacaglia (2020) at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles on February 6, 2020.

Sleep Close and Fast presents a new seven channel sound installation featuring recordings of lullabies sung in the artist’s own voice. Culled from a variety of sources including cult horror films, opera and literature, the lullabies chosen all share dark and haunting undertones. Emanating from stainless steel barrels, the sculptural acoustics suggest deep space, distance and memory. The voice recordings are accompanied by a percussion beat set to the rhythm of the artist’s heartbeat, acting as a metronome for the lullaby.

The composition of lullabies include references that range from Engelbert Humperdinck’s opera Hansel and Gretel (1983), Roman Polanski’s film Rosemary’s Baby (1968), Aleksis Kivi’s novel Seven Brothers (1870), Dario Argento’s film Profondo Rosso (1975) to Robin Hardy’s film The Wicker Man (1973). In The Wicker Man (1973), the film portrays a policeman who is called to a remote Scottish island to investigate the disappearance of a missing child. The case turns out to be a ruse, and the officer is captured and prepared for sacrifice to ensure a fruitful harvest. There is an unnerving scene at the end of the film which features a gentle lullaby sung by Brit Ekland and Diane Cilento. The soft slow descending scale and reassuring lyrics, ‘sleep close and fast’, contrasts with the horror the policeman is about to experience. Intertwining sleep with death, these seemingly soothing songs often have dual meanings and are laced with disturbing lyrics. The sounds are contained within each of the barrels and the sense of distance and isolation is palpable.

In an adjacent gallery, three organ pipes emit the deeply resonant sound of the artist’s own breath traveling through the instrument, evoking a sense of life and mortality. After producing the recordings of her breath moving through the metal forms, Philipsz projected the sound from a small speaker placed inside each pipe. Physically connected, the noises from the objects overlap and diverge, resembling a call-and-response dialogue suggesting sleep.

Illustrating the physical act of breathing, Philipsz’s photography series captures the fleeting condensation of the artist’s breath on panes of glass. Suggesting human presence and absence, these works compose an intimate act as a faceless self-portrait. The title of the series, Vernebelt is a German word relating to “mist” that was used to describe individuals who vanished without a trace under the Third Reich.

Over the past two decades, Susan Philipsz has explored the psychological and sculptural potential of sound. The artist’s immersive environments of architecture and song heighten the visitor’s engagement with their surroundings while inspiring thoughtful introspection. The music Philipsz selects responds specifically to the space in which the work is installed. While each piece is unique, the storylines and references are often recognizable, exploring familiar themes of loss, longing, hope, and return. These universal narratives trigger personal reactions while also temporarily bridging the gaps between the individual and the collective, as well as interior and exterior spaces.

Born in 1965 in Glasgow, Philipsz currently lives and works in Berlin. She received a BFA in Sculpture from Duncan of Jordanstone College in Dundee, Scotland in 1993, and an MFA from the University of Ulster in Belfast in 1994. In 2000, she completed a fellowship at MoMA PS1 in New York and in 2015 was an artist-in-residence at Villa Aurora in Los Angeles. She received the Turner Prize in 2010 and was awarded an OBE in 2014 for services to British art.

Since the mid-1990s, Philipsz’s sound installations have been exhibited at many prestigious institutions and public venues around the world. She has presented solo exhibitions at Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St. Louis (2019), Castello di Rivoli in Italy (2019), Tate Modern (2018) and Tate Britain (2015) in London, Bonniers Konsthall in Stockholm (2017), Kunsthaus Bregenz in Austria (2016), Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin (2014), the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh (2013), K21 Standehaus Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Dusseldorf (2013), Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago (2011), Aspen Art Museum in Colorado (2010-11), Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State in Columbus (2009-10), Museum Ludwig in Cologne (2009), Institute of Contemporary Art in London (2008), among others. Installations by Philipsz were included in Skulptur Projekte Muenster in 2007 and the 55th Carnegie International in 2008. Her work Study for Strings was conceived for dOCUMENTA 13 in 2012 and was performed at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in 2020, in conjunction with Philipsz’s solo exhibition there.

The artist’s major commissions include Lowlands, her Turner Prize-winning work for Glasgow International in 2010, SURROUND ME: A Song Cycle for the City of London, a public project organized by Artangel in London (2010-11), Day is Done, a permanent installation organized by the Trust for Governors Island in New York (2014), New Canaan, a project for the Grace Farms Foundation (2015), and most recently Prelude in the Form of a Passacaglia, commissioned by LACMA Senior Curator Stephanie Barron and independent curator Nana Demand for LA Phil’s programming Weimar Variations at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles in February 2020.

Philipsz’s work can be found in the collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art, Fondation Beyeler in Switzerland, Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Castello di Rivoli in Italy, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C., Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Spain, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Museum Ludwig in Germany, National Gallery of Victoria in Australia, SFMOMA in San Francisco, The Tate in London, Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and The Bass Museum of Art in Miami.

Link: Susan Philipsz at Tanya Bonakdar

from Contemporary Art Daily https://bit.ly/314Fq8q

#micaramel

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victoriaautheatre-blog · 6 years

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Spectacle 2 - La Plaza, El Conde de Torrefiel, Centre Pompidou

C’est dans le cadre du festival d’Automne que j’ai vu La Plaza, du collectif espagnol El conde de Torrefiel au centre Pompidou le 12 octobre. La mise en scène est de Tanya Beyeler et Pablo Gisbert (qui est aussi l’auteur). C’est un spectacle créé en mai 2018 à Bruxelles au Kaaitheater dans le cadre d’un autre festival : le Kunstenfestivaldesarts.

El Conde de Torrefiel, La Plaza, 2018, Pablo Gisbert, Centre Pompidou, Paris © Luisa Guitierrez

Avant le spectacle

Je vais assister au spectacle sans aucun a priori. Je ne connais rien au théâtre espagnol (mes connaissances s’arrêtent à Calderon) et si je me réfère au dernier spectacle vu dans le cadre du cours Ithaque, Notre Odyssée (1), je sais que c’est une mauvaise idée de trop m’avancer : en effet je pensais que Ithaque aurait une mise en scène et scénographie assez sobre voir vide. Je n’ai d’ailleurs pas lu la notice en ligne sur le site du centre Pompidou en réservant ma place.

Et ensuite ...

La pièce s’ouvre sur une image d’une place, un parterre de fleurs et de bougies. Quelque chose d’assez beau et poétique, très contemplatif. Puis le spectateur est face à un texte projeté qui lui explique qui il est, ce qu’il pense, qu’elle et la situation ici, la pièce se transforme à ce moment en performance.

J’ai souvent beaucoup de mal avec comment le terme performance est employé par mes camarades à Paris 3. Loin de moi l’idée d’être prétentieuse et lourde à force de le répéter, mas étant également étudiante en 3eme année d’Histoire de l’Art, j’ai pu bénéficier de plusieurs cours sur l’art du 20eme siècle. Lorsque j’entends des camarades utiliser le terme de performance pour toute forme non traditionnelle ou conventionnelle au théâtre je grince des dents quelque peu : une performance est comme le dirait Cunningham un “event”, quelque chose qu a juste lieu, qui, même si elle est mise en scène, laisse une part libre à l’improvisation, et laisse le spectateur bien plus libre d’interaction avec l’objet performatif en face de lui : l’environnement qui entoure la performance influence directement celle ci. Une performance n’est pas programmé comme une pièce de théâtre et ne possède pas, entre autres,ce rapport presque sacré entre salle et public. Il était important pour moi de rétablir ce qu’était à mon sens une performance pour le reste de mon analyse.

Si je parle de performance ci, je parle bien de performance pour la première partie du spectacle. Soyons clair, je ne pense pas que le parterre de fleurs soit une performance puisqu’elle est inclus dans une pièce, cependant, la scène qui nous est décrite : c’est à dire que ce parterre de fleurs exposé dans 365 pays pendant 365 jours dans 365 pays différents en continue : cela est performatif. La pièce veut nous faire croire que l’on assiste à cette performance régulièrement, j’ai donc accepté cette information et l’ai cru. A ce moment là je suis devenue actrice du spectacle moi même, ainsi que le reste de la salle : nous avons décider de jouer le rôle de cette personne qui assiste à ce dispositif régulièrement. Ici nous signons un pacte avec la pièce : nous allons faire partie intégrante du spectacle qui parlera de nous (comme entité individuelle ou collective). Cette première partie était très calme et a permis une certaine évasion du spectateur que nous sommes : il était très assumé de dire qu’on ne suivait pas tout ce qui était écrit à l’écran, on avait le droit de penser à autre chose, de laisser notre esprit divaguer sans pour autant se sentir coupable de ne pas suivre ce qui était en train de se passer. Le spectateur entre dans une temporalité interne.

La deuxième partie se résume à un enchaînement de divers tableaux, avec un texte projeté et aucune parole prononcée. J’ai eu la sensation d’être dans un musée, c’était un spectacle très imagé. Cette partie du spectacle semblait créer un étirement du temps puisqu’elle présentait différentes temporalités une première qui est celle du “Tu” qui rentre chez lui sur le texte projeté; et celles des différentes scènes qui sont indépendantes et qui s’étirent dans le temps). J’ai eu l’impression de me perdre dans une autre dimension temporelle, j’ai perdu la notion du temps (impression renforcée par la lenteur des mouvements des personnages). J’ai trouvé qu’il y avait une certaine poésie dans ce spectacle, cela serait-il un élément récurrent dans les théâtres étudiés dans ce cours ?

Je voulais aussi discuter de la dimension politique (ou non politique ?) de la pièce. Le collectif semble toucher à divers sujet d’actualité assez sensibles : le viol, l’intégration des musulmans etc. Pourtant le spectacle ne s’attarde pas sur ces questions, ces thématiques ne sont qu’anecdotiques ; j’ai l’impression que l’on essaye de critiquer le spectateur qui se voit comme élevé intellectuellement, cultivé, supérieur etc. mais qui ne fait rien une fois confronté à ces thématiques. Toujours dans cette idée du pseudo bon-penseur cultivé qui va au théâtre, la pièce prend un malin plaisir à nous rappeler que nous pensons tous la même chose au final, qu’on est tous très semblable. Cette perte de l‘individualité se traduit dans dans cette disparition physique de l’individu dans la pièce avec les visages invisibles.

Pour conclure.

Je pense que nous pouvons dire que cette pièce nous offre une nouvelle vision des théâtres étudiés en cours : un théâtre plus sobre, la poésie est tout autant présente, je pense que nous nous dirigeons peut-être vers des théâtres assez politiques (ou du moins traitant d’actualité) et presque symboliste.

El Conde de Torrefiel, La Plaza, 2018, Pablo Gisbert, Centre Pompidou, Paris © Luisa Guitierrez

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nelliganmagazine · 7 years

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Angler-Dancers in the Stratospheres of the Black Churning Current and or Dance as Anthropologies of Late-Liberalism: Mélanie Demers' Would - Théatre La Chapelle - December 11- 15, 2017

" Cosmos for me, is black, first and foremost black, something like a black churning current full of whirls, stoppages, flood waters, a black water carrying lots of refuse, and there is man gazing at it—gazing at it and swept up by it—trying to decipher, to understand and to bind it into some kind of a whole . . . ” Witold Gombrowicz All swelled ‘they’ Move in this slow, rhythmic gaze to avoid this edge but at its limit line or this uncertain edge, we see it as distance, as a remote as something some removes away from whatever could be our concern - we sit and swell or rather walk by seeing the swell in what seems the distance [this decrepit] we walk relieved to be in this uncertain real. Godsholle, James Oscar Single counter- swimmer, you /count them, touch them/ all Paul Celan I'm prisoned in a flat universe bounded on all sides by the spectacle's screen. Society of the Spectacle- Guy Debord A verb-form employed as possibly what might be - hopeful- WOULD- this verb. Would that we could, would that we might, would that we can. would that we might have, and that of the hopeful of the mush floating in the middle of the black pool. As the erstwhile cosmic pejorist Witold Gombrowicz would say of the black churning at the heart of the cosmos- the mush at the center of the black pool - that is, of its cosmic chaosmosis, that is of archipelagoes (1), " Cosmos for me, is black, first and foremost black, something like a black churning current full of whirls, stoppages, flood waters, a black water carrying lots of refuse, and there is man gazing at it—gazing at it and swept up by it—trying to decipher, to understand and to bind it into some kind of a whole . . . ” This man- that is that man (2) - gazing at it (at the black churning) - gazing at it and swept up by it trying to decipher, to understand - one might find in the form of the dancer Marc Boivin in Mélanie Demers' latest offering, Would. If Demers has set a certain practice in motion (see Animal Triste &We'll Be Fine) that she has previously described to this writer as, "The live show is a perfect place to question the enigmas of our lives. As soon as the stars align and a parcel of inspiration touches us, what might follow might be in fact be perilous, what might follow might be something forbidden, what might follow might be a light…", Would attempts to shine such light by employing the action- verb "Would", not as simple utopia-verbiage (slogan) but as a kind of rudder (and mantra- introspection) to navigate contemporary black pools (we -contemporary life are presently striding in and around) "carrying lots of refuse". As Would opens with Marc Boivin's suppositions (3) of "would could be and what could be might look like", "It would be here", "It would be now", "It would be new", "It would be fulfilment', "It would be inside…intimate, desire, inside our skin, luminescent, butterflies, in front, behind, ultimate decisions, not that big, total change, rough notes, clear, good, moments of ecstasy, calm, a whole universe, the big bang, good ideas, bad ideas, slow motion, clear, chaos, small to start, constantly changing. uncomfortable, , confusing, clear, intentional, holding the whole world, in your hand, quiet, loud- all motifs of a kind of a loom that Demers's has been imagining piece after piece, as a kind of a post-liberal thinking space (4) that continually seeks in her work after, during, and before the analytical to give way to a dance (5) , and then to a possible new space to dance beyond all the heavy phatic (post) liberal censorship parameters we civilized liberals have built up into impossible webs we now find ourselves caught in. The question amidst this all- amidst whole flotilla (that Demers dancers illustrate by saying and writing) of post-industrial creative class liberal contortions of language, rule, and new political correct hemming, as a friend has recently suggested - the question remains- "What is worth fighting for."

And this is what Demers is strong at laying out (that spate of a "still fight' and ) - that non-interstitial space many seem to be caught in (6) - as though stuck inside an infomercial inside a social media app inside a real life inside a virtual world - the slip and slides of a kind of post industrial gel and lubricant everyone has rubbed on their skin (7) and rolls around with through the vast wastelands trying to remove- aspects of the fluorescent gel that is always there, and further rolling again adding more gel to the already lubricated body. As I put it vis a vis Demers recent performance titled "We'll Be Fine" in a piece this reviewer has recently viewed, - I asked - "How can we be fine?". And as I might have intoned of that performance piece, in the tones of asking "what is worth fighting for" (8), and also in the sense of the elaborating archipelagoes (so viscerally visualized by Marc Boivin's movements in Would) that start to grow off our bodies (spawned by contemporary gels, lubricants, ideas, social media "friends", "posts", "likes", "ghostings"), faltering "deeper into contemporary society’s black comedy hole. And it is Boivin's movements (9) (flailing arms) that get properly employed as particular kind of paddle/ rudder to navigate the archipelagoes that appear in this brooding black fog (the precursor-situation which has led to this situation of suppositions of the Would). All this arises out of his word-pronouncements and their utopic-possibilities- these territories of the possible - both dystopic and utopia always at once- territories of the present horror. There are Bovin and Kate Holden's constant bodily motions vis these archipelagoes they elaborate and describe, and then their "trouncing through" with movements that approximate discomfit, which I can only describe as consistently approximating motions of "reeling"- reeling it all in, that is. In this sense, one might consider Bovin and Holden as anglers- angler- dancers stuck at a precipice. They might have been told of a dried up lake that will one day again have a bounty of fruition- of future flora, future fauna, and future bouquets of marine life. Bovin and Holden spell out the possible and reach out their elongated arms(angling prostheses)- waiting for a possible catch- al in that way that Demers' seems to be nurturing performance after performance. As Demers has previously quoted of a favourite author of hers to this reviewer taking care to see these kinds of spaces that could be both at once horizons and big yawning gaps- "For a very long time, I have lived with René Barjavel's The Tiger's Hunger. On the fourth page it says": "Man finds himself faced with two destinies: to die in his cradle, by his own hand, by his own genius, by his own stupidity, or to jump for eternity into the infinity of space, and to spread and roll in that life delivered from the necessity of murder. The choice is to be made tomorrow. Perhaps the choice has already been made. (10) Demers' interests, however, seem to not be so much in sustained moments of the sublime interstitial; of course, her dancers give slight (very momentary) whiffs of such ineffable spates, as they navigate through the contemporary fodder they describe and attempt to move through on stage. Demers' work might be said to deal with/ probe in the areas of what I might call "the reality principle" (11). Demers' work may not always be that site for the sore eyes seeking the sublime in dance, but perhaps that might be the point. There might be a bit of Pina in this or even a bit of the "reality principle" a choreographer like Tanya Beyeler employs. If one comes back to the the very principle of the verb-form I have begun with (would that we could, would that we might, would that we can. would that we might have) and Demers' always present word-play as a form to then sculpt the body in and around- that is to dance around the verb WOULD - to move in that hopeful mush floating in the middle of the black pool- -that black churning at the heart of the cosmos- and if we can then perhaps fathom the word Would as an anthropomorphic- thing (not just a word), one might be able to see that " black churning current full of whirls" and Marc Boivin as a man holding the such in his hands (as a handler and shaper of the such - and handing it back and forth and vice versa between them with he and Holden, and then ultimately coming to hold the Would himself again at the end, after having consulted with it and entered into a conjuration with it) . Let us take then take the WOULD, in Demers' Would and see it not as didactic but as kind of conjurer's spell - and a word that becomes a word-engager to hold and let grow "trying to decipher, to understand and to bind it into some kind of a whole . . . ”. Demers' Would in this sense might be about "reeling in existence" (searching for a feeling for that imperceptible object) - and yes here are what our anglers/ dancers- Boivin and might be engaged in - a reeling in of existence. If Would might have somewhat of a coldness to it, (one could possibly relegate that as a consequence of the outfall of trying to address our cold slab contemporary world by employing the reality principle ), one could think to Guy Debord's practical observation that critical truth of the spectacle calls for a "commitment to a practical struggle alongside the spectacle's irreconcilable enemies", and thus one understands the fate of the "counter- swimmer" among the sharks, but nevertheless one might ask Demers about the next stage in her piercing through the spectacle and thus the next stage of presenting more and more of the the "reality principle ", and of presenting what is on the "other- side" of the spyglass- the further ride down the river styx, so to speak, and views of the antipodes one might only get to at the end.

In concluding, this reviewer noticed that it was admittedly very difficult to forget the previous presence of two other angler -dancers of sorts seen a few years ago on this same stage in similar emboldened views towards from the precipice in the piece Untied Tales (Clara Furey and Peter Jasko) with which they have impregnated Lachapelle's stage forever with a permanent residues. Furey and Jasko, whose full jump into the interstitial , but yet still with their ability to at once present a searing walk and roll through the "realty principle", yet in almost monochrome magically-real terms- their performance remaining a definite prima facie contemporary art example of staring at and at once dancing around the "black churning current", and crossing amongst its foam (traverser sur l'écume)

And thus … and as is always the hope - as Demers moves further and further in her craft of " understand(ing) to bind it into (all) some kind of a whole . . ." (1) Archipelagoes “But yet their leave was immanent, And toiling to see the difference, That somehow between the two was one, undone. The emotion was so crisp, it was pure crispation It was a rolling and unfurling, And yet there was a difference - one was ensconcement, one was a frond.“ “Through the forest, two glades (Through the glades softly), And I once had this feeling. It is a sense of profusion and dazzlement, Also, a greater union of love because it forms a circle, In a sense, but yet at each interpellation is love It is then, a circle, triumvirate, love full circle. “ (2) Star-gazer, exhausted detective, "wonder- er". Also see Becket's tree in Waiting for Godot. (3) Let us call it - "the supposition of the would". (4) The anthropologist Elizabeth Povinelli is doing a fine job of mining such spaces - doing "the anthropology of late liberalism", as one website has referred to her work - thank God! (5) "Danser n'est pas seulement faire avec son corps de belles figures dans l'espace, je vuex dire l'espace du haut, cet espace qu'appellent les hypostases de l'idéalisme philosophique et pour les nécessités duquel on voudrait faire de la danse une pure "métaphore de la pensée" (Alain Badiou). Danser est, aussi, créer au sol des chocs efficaces, composer des impuretés, s'adresser à la terre comme à l'espace du bas matérialisme…" Geste, Felure, Terre, Georges Didi-Huberman (6) We are presently often so far from (poetry's blank spaces) "les blancs de poésie"- Le rôle des blancs dans la constitution de l'acte de lecture en poésie moderne L Bougault - Revue Romane, 1996 (7) Choreographer Andrew Tay has been developing a practice where an actual gel is employed in a similar manner to which I am soliciting this metaphor: (8) This phrase is simple but important one that a colleague- Q.B.- recently suggested amidst this whole flurry/ conversation re our present lives and bodies. (9) Boivin is a dancer/ artist with Quebec art pedigree that dates back to his work with formative modern Quebec dance company - Groupe de La Place Royal- pre-La La Human Steps, Ballets Jazz, Édoaurd Lock. (10) From an email interview/ exchange that took place in the Spring of 2017: "Depuis si longtemps, je vis avec le livre La Faim du Tigre de René Barjavel. On y lit, en quatrième de page, ceci: L'Homme se trouve devant deux destins possibles : périr dans son berceau, de sa propre main, de son propre génie, de sa propre stupidité, ou s'élancer pour l'éternité du temps vers l'infini de l'espace, et y répandre la vie délivrée de la nécessité de l'assassinat. Le choix est pour demain. Il est peut-être déjà fait. (11) In fact, Freud has a theory re this which may or may not be useful in understanding some of the libidinal or non-libidinal territories Demers might be covering, "A psychoanalytic concept, originally proposed by Sigmund Freud, that compels people to defer gratification when necessary due to the obstacles of reality. The reality principle is governed by the ego, which controls the instant-gratification mentality of the id." Additional note: It might be interesting to see a study of word phrases of Mai 68 and other revolutionary moments in relationship to their power to lead political actors into action. Démers use of word phrases in her work surely does mine such a territory and set of questions.

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overthedoors · 7 years

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Short Theatre | El Conde de Torrefiel | Guerrilla

ideazione El Conde de Torrefiel regia e drammaturgia Tanya Beyeler, Pablo Gisbert testo Pablo Gisbert, in collaborazione con 80 partecipanti volontari di Roma assistente Nicolas Chevallier disegno luci Ana Rovira tecnico luci Dani Miracle scenografia Blanca Anon suono Adolfo Garcia assistenza alla coreografia Amaranta Velarde musica Pink Elephant on Parade, Salacot performer Amaranta Velarde e…

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#teatro #cultura #arte #arte contemporanea #Arte e Cultura #scena artistica contemporanea #el conde de torrefiel #guerrilla #Short Theatre #Nucleo Artzine #NucleoArtzine

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nelliganmagazine · 7 years

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Possibilities that Disappear Before a Landscape - Interview with Tanya Beyeler from Theatre Group El Conde de Torrefiel - FTA 2017 June 5-June 6

A talk with Tanya Beyeler about her Barcelona company's new play Possibilities that Disappear Before a Landscape and about ideas regarding a "sluggish, lethargic Europe where everyone continues to live their daily lives and get drunk, despite a palpable collapse of both its underlying capitalist systems and the socialist utopias that nourished it in the past". "The Barcelona company El Conde de Torrefiel sculpts surprising, seemingly dormant landscapes throbbing with underlying, unacknowledged chaos. A theatrical excursion like an exhibit of contemporary art." James Oscar: The writer Frantz Fanon in his Wretched of the Earth, a 1960s classic book on "revolution "says :

"The Third World does not mean to organize a great crusade of hunger against the whole of Europe. What it expects from those who for centuries have kept it in slavery is that they will help it to rehabilitate mankind, and make man victorious everywhere, once and for all. But it is clear that we are not so naive as to think that this will come about with the cooperation and the good will of the European governments. This huge task which consists of reintroducing mankind into the world, the whole of mankind, will be carried out with the indispensable help, of the European peoples, who themselves must realize that in the past they have often joined the ranks of our common masters where colonial questions were concerned. To achieve this, the European peoples must first decide to wake up and shake themselves, use their brains, and stop playing the stupid game of the Sleeping Beauty." The last part reminds me of you talking about "sluggish, lethargic Europe where everyone continues to live their daily lives and get drunk, despite a palpable collapse of both its underlying capitalist systems and the socialist utopias that nourished it in the past...people who are bogged down in their daily routines...privilege wake up…tranquil citizenry". I always think of this scene in Antonioni's Blow Up where the band is playing on stage and all the "cool kids" are not dancing or moving- they just stare ahead in space - vacuous and immobile. Can you elaborate on this general state of affairs of this blank stare, lethargy which seems to be your starting point? Tanya Beyeler (El Conde de Torrefiel): This image of the “sleeping beauty” is very interesting because of the idea of an imposed sleep, a poison that doesn’t allow us to wake up and react. I don’t think it is a quite deliberate sleep, but there are very particular chains. These chains are totally perverse and numb to our responsibility in our historical present. Philippe Murray talks about the concept of “Homo festivus” which I like very much as a definition, as well as the one for “Homo economicus” because it marries this dichotomy between extreme irrationality and extreme rationality. I feel there is a tension between these two ways of existential behaviors that describe our way of life, and that there is a huge gap in between them that creates these accelerations in order to move from one to another, that creates this schizophrenia of nowadays, and that is in this garb that we could find our real space, that we can equalize with our real nature. This piece was conceived between 2014 and 2015, in a moment where we were totally exhausted and we had a deep need to stop. Even if we would not know what should stop. At the same time, we had the feeling that all the people that surrounded us, our friends, family, etc in Spain, were in the same situation. A lot of work, a lot of events, a lot of travels, a lot of everything, and everybody was tired, with a lot of things to do, a lot of activity but not really focussed, nobody had time to meet with others in quietness, or to meet with himself (themselves), everything was scheduled, even entertainment or free time was scheduled.

Entertainment is a “must do” thing (you have to be there in order to be updated, to be seen, to exist). Then we had the sensation of being kind of soldiers, workers of an invisible army, tired and without any benefit, poor and defeated: Cheap travels, cheap clothes, cheap relations, cheap friendships, cheap works. Everything very volatile, a real miseducation of bonding. The image was of being maddened cells of a sick organism, and like the metastasis of cancer, those cells reproduce the illness in order to spread it with the frenetic pace. From this confused amount of feelings, we start to create the piece as a landscape, a panoramic view that doesn't attack the audience with its presence. James Oscar: There are some interesting new European filmmakers that seem to be experimenting with various forms of representation in the context of the current moment of crisis and lethargy. I am thinking of Roy Andersson (Songs from the Second Floor and A Pigeon Sat on A Branch Reflecting on Existence), Quentin Dupieux (Reality and Rubber), and Yorgos Lanthimos (Lobster, Dogtooth). Some of these artists are using speculative thinking, allegory, abstraction, irony, the absurd, the mundane (everyday scenes?) and other forms of representation to address a similar issue you are interested in - the moment of this crisis. What forms of representation are you using in El Conde. What form of representation are you using to try and wake people up. Tanya Beyeler (El Conde de Torrefiel): Forms of representation are a very powerful tool to work directly on the meaning. Film frames are not at all the same as Theater, therefore the approach to images is very different. From the filmmakers you named, I like very much how they are hackers of reality as they present some very everyday situations/dynamics/images but they are tapped, they have interferences that open a huge dimension of (new) possibilities. Lately, on stage, our big concern was how to open new possibilities of meaning and sense using a close, recognizable language and forms. How to work in the abstract field from a concrete starting point. Right now, our stage devices are text and images. Text, always presented as a speech, reflection, or small story is a very concrete element, that allows us to break the rules of the narration and aesthetic without losing a grounded point. Text allows us to work images freely, and text and images don’t have to match. We are much more abstract with the image work, very much near to dance language, in order to offer an unpredictable aesthetic experience to the audience. All movements, colours, shapes on stage are choreographed, we always compose a big score of those elements and there is an important rhythmic component in the presentation of images, sound and light. Text allows us to go deeper with words in the ideas that surround the piece. It is always presented with distancing, off-recorded- voice, or projected text. The written text on stage is an added strong element of the choreography and at the same time gives the audience the opportunity to appropriate the text, as each of them might read it with their own voices. James Oscar: You speak about " increasing the layers of meaning in each of these staged images". Philippe Couture says, "Your work is based on disassociation between imagery, the body and the text. Why did you opt for that deconstruction" You also say, "It's a question of viewing things from a distance so as to better perceive them." Can you elaborate on these comments:

Tanya Beyeler (El Conde de Torrefiel): Distance is definitely our way to approach the stage work. For the moment, this is the way that feels more ethical and fair towards others. Real life bombs the individual constantly with invitations to participate; there is a constant appeal to the first or second person. Outside we are constantly assaulted by mechanisms that call you to be this or that way, to look this or that way, to say this or that, to act and take a position, to decide but there is not very much place for reflection or for contemplation, or for doubt. The present is absolute and it erases the future and the past. This is very dangerous - I think. Distance is the way to see with perspective, to give space to others, to seduce them from far away, to shorten the distance together, little by little. James Oscar: You mention Spencer Tunick and the philosopher Zygmunt Bauman. Do you feel they just show the symptoms but offer no "solutions"? Of El Conde, beyond providing a representation of the symptoms, what else are your intentions? Tanya Beyeler (El Conde de Torrefiel): Zygmunt Bauman is not anymore in the piece as unfortunately, he died some months ago.The piece seeks to picture a present and the different layers that shape the present theatre and the multiple ways of perceiving this present. El Conde will never dare to offer a solution since we ourselves don't have it. We use the stage as a place to share our questions and worries about the world we are living in. We are contemporary theatre because we present human matters (that are always the same) with contemporary forms of approach to them, and we do so to an audience of people who are living our same historical moment. We offer the audience an aesthetic experience related to these matters, with forms that break the standard rules of the construction of the discourse. James Oscar: A Brazilian friend recently came from Spain and she was frightened by the unhidden and confrontational racism she was subject to everyday. This seems to be an important issue globally now. Does El Conde have any reflections in regards to this? Tanya Beyeler (El Conde de Torrefiel): It's funny, as I had the same feeling in Brazil (not towards me). This makes me think that racism is an ancient issue, actually defined as global issue, probably rooted in a very deep and basic part of our human nature. It is very much installed in society, and each country deals with it in a different way. But still, it is racism. I have racist behaviours. Towards tourists, for instance, I feel very inflexible. Because I feel them as a threat for my ecosystem, my environment. James Oscar: The word disappear is in the title of your upcoming show. Can you explain why ideas of "disappearance " are important in your work- the disappearance of people's ideas, ideals, social responsibility? What do you mean by "disappearance" in El Conde? Tanya Beyeler (El Conde de Torrefiel): The concept of disappearing was very present in the starting point of the piece. It is not always important in the company’s work, but it was in this work. The tragedy of the human being resides in its disappearance, and that even if humanity progresses, humans have always to start from zero. Each person that is born in this world needs to experience things (for) from itself. The experience of others is not enough. Each body has to move about through its own experiences. Time disappears and with it History and the stories of predecessors. And the Presents covers the layers of the Past. James Oscar: Walter Benjamin refers to a state of emergency. I have always said that citizens should call their own state of emergency? Would El Conde be something that might fall under a kind of citizen-led call for realizing a certain state of emergency?

Tanya Beyeler (El Conde de Torrefiel): I’m afraid not. We are doing theatre which is a very minor media. Our influence is absolutely harmless. Art doesn’t change the world. It reflects or thinks the world. If I would have felt able to move crowds I would have done another thing. James Oscar: Why the blow-up castle, why the gong, why the plastic bags - in this latest play called Possibilities that Disappear Before a Landscape Tanya Beyeler (El Conde de Torrefiel): It's complicated to give a rational answer, as many of the decisions for this were taken during the creative process which is full of unpredictable movements (and moments), driven by intuition, taste - all in combination with other elements First, I think I could say that the blow-up castle was a kind of whim, as it was something that we always wanted to have- these bouncy things on stage, things related to childhood games and big entertainment for children like a water park, amusement parks. Then, the piece which plays a lot with emptiness needed some moments of big elements. And that’s why the bouncy castle. Of course, we would have liked to have had a bouncy castle full of children jumping, but it was not possible. The gong again, responds to a dramaturgical need. We need a noisy scene, and we liked very much the gong sound as well as the shape on stage. Plastic bags were the result of material in the rehearsal where one of the performers would wrap himself in plastic film (like the meat pieces for the kebabs). Then this image moved to a lot of plastic bags, of grocery stores. As we need big things on stage we started to add and add bags until it became this. It fits very well with the scene that speaks about a guy in a supermarket and his thoughts about pre-frozen food.

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