Under25Routes: Valencia, July 25th - 29th
Written by Damon Coherton.
This was the last week of our creative process. We spent the week planning in Rambleta’s theatre, with the focus on our performance for the evening on the 28th.
At the beginning of the week, we followed on from aspects of the last week - I continued to work on two abstract animations, one being a glass tub with water pouring in it from the top of the screen, in very slow motion, the other being an octopus moving (or swimming) in the air, again in a slow motion. I also finalised a scene from the past week, which was of a mannequin figure looking distraught sat in front of a broken heart graffiti on the wall, a concept which I thought of during a topic we focused on earlier on in the process called ‘Invisible Humans’, which we looked at the modern day conflict of homelessness and refugees. The performers explored exercises that were led previously with the intention of finding more useful performances to showcase on the 28th, this included an improvised performance of ‘passive bodies’, which professional artist Bea Fernandez led an exercise on during the laboratories in the first week.
On Tuesday, we focused on the choreography of the performance. We discussed as a group what elements should be kept in and used as well as what could be changed, then using a whiteboard, produced a timeline for each performance and what order we should do them in. With the remainder of the day, the performers rehearsed according to the choreography, after the performance we decided to keep this pattern for the 28th.
The show would start off with the performers in the auditorium - standing, sitting or laying in a position for five minutes, slowly and occasionally moving, an idea Matthew came up with inspired by a similar performance he showed us on video called ‘PLASTIC’, where performers would lay on public staircases and pretend to fall down them in slow motion while the public walked up and down the stairs. With Luna’s scenography idea, the audience would be seated on a row of chairs placed both sides of the stage as opposed to in the auditorium, with a row of chairs for the performers in the centre near the back. Noel, who’s art involves mime dancing, would perform a walking action while standing still behind a stage curtain at the back, with a light shining behind him making his shadow appear on the curtain. After five minutes, Bhav would shout out something along the lines of “The show will now begin!” after which all of the performers would make their way to the seats at the centre of the stage from the auditorium. Cristina, however, would remain seated at the front of the auditorium, and would perform something she came up with earlier in the residency - she could speak Spanish, English and Portuguese very well and had the idea to have a conversation between speakers of the three languages all portrayed by herself, each speaking from their own political views.
Cristina would then sit with the rest of the performers, next they would perform a game we played as a group earlier in the residency, where all of us would be seated in the line and the objective was to make your way to the front of the stage without getting touched - if anyone sitting adjacent could reach and touch you as you left your seat, you would have to remain seated and try again. In this case, Bhav had prepared scripts for each of the performers and a microphone was placed at the front of the stage - anyone who successfully left their seat and made their way to the front would read from the script until someone else came to the front, when they would be interrupted and have to sit back down and try again while the following person read from their script. Bhav had written the scripts based on the stories the group had found during our focus on the subject of Invisible People - these included Paco, a homeless man we would usually see on our way to and from Rambleta, a lady from Valencia who had gone to Greece to support the refugees, and from a refugee herself. The idea we wished to imply in this particular performance was of the moving stories that these people have witnessed and experienced, and how stories like these remain untold across the world, leaving a limited public awareness on these issues. We followed with my animation of the distraught mannequin, accompanied by a whistled score from Pepa.
Next was Fay’s idea of ‘No lo Habla Española’ - she placed her chair in the centre of the stage and repeated the phrase over and over, with a confused tone and gradually getting frustrated. This reflected the communication barrier between the three different languages, which was a subject we looked at after Invisible Humans. Afterwards, Carolina performed a solo dance - originally performed with standing passive bodies (or ‘pillars’) during the process, it was later given feedback during a group discussion that it would work better as a solo piece.
Fábio then took to the microphone to give a speech he had been working on since the early part of the process - previously he had been practising the speech in English and I had been assisting him with this, though he later decided to say the speech in Spanish as this was the language that the audience would recognise, which he would explain to the audience beforehand. He jokingly introduced himself as Freddie Mercury, since Jaume once said “Freddie Mercury is dead” during an earlier improvised performance when Fábio was laying on the ground, and everyone else adapted to that. He told the story of Eurovision winner Jamala - the struggle of her past and family members, speaking in a first-person narrative, again taking the theme from Invisible Humans. The show would conclude with Rita’s idea of ‘Blue’ - a performance she showed to the group earlier, consisting of the sound of waves and a blue screen shining onto her, as she used her body and voice to create what could be interpreted differently to each individual - for me, it looked like some sort of energy that was passing through different parts of her body at a varying pace, while sometimes going through her voice also. This was combined with the improvised performance of Passive Bodies.
On Wednesday the technicians came in to do a check on equipment, and we passed over the information of our technical requirements for the show - to have my animation projected, Noel’s lighting at the back and the blue lighting for the end performance. After the check, we worked on another few rehearsals with the new functions in place.
Thursday was the big day - we performed one more rehearsal before the evening. We then had a group discussion, and it was decided that one final piece should be brought in to the performance, which was an improvisation using some small white standing frames that we had worked with previously in Rambleta’s Chambre during another exercise - this would be performed after Carolina’s dance and before Fábio’s speech. Then the technicians had some fun with music, lighting and the smoke machines as we danced away on stage - it was a fantastic time!
Moments before the doors opened, we were told that there would be more than 40 people in the audience - this was a slight issue for us, as we only had 40 chairs set on the stage and to go with our Communication and Invisible Humans themes we wanted the auditorium to be empty, as if we were speaking to an empty theatre in the performance. This meant that the first 40 people who came could be seated on stage and the rest would sit in the auditorium.
After the show, the entire group gathered on the stage as we had a Q&A session with the audience. We received questions mixed on both the performance of the evening and our creative process - to conclude, the audience questioned our communication during the process, and for the performance one of the audience gave us her interpretation of the show, which I found interesting - that our message of the modern day conflicts were clearly present, but we did not express any solution or hope as an outcome in our performance. Following from the show, we went to a bar for a chat and reflection of our work on this residency!
Friday was the farewell day - where each group departed. We all met at Rambleta in the beginning of the afternoon, and Jaume cooked us some Paella, which we sat in the outdoor dining area to eat. The Portuguese group were the first to leave, as they had to drive back to Portugal - A very emotional moment, there were hugs and tears all around. We stayed in Rambleta a little bit longer to say thank you and goodbye to the amazing space we worked in for the month. We then went back to our apartments where we said goodbye to the Spanish group.
I had a fantastic, unforgettable experience in Valencia working with these eleven other unique artists. For me this was a journey of exploring new and different art forms, and gaining skills to work in a group amongst other professionals. I would love to carry on through the next 2 residencies and if this is the case, I aim to fulfil my potential as an artist and expand on what I can bring to the rest of the group as an individual.
I would like to thank Peshkar for giving me this amazing, eye-opening, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
