PICNIC SESSIONS 2023. PALABRA CHACHACHÁ

Picnic ojos

Cha-cha-cha at dawn at dawn cha-cha-cha

Cha-cha-cha the backside the backside cha-cha-cha

Cha cha beach hammock idler

Idler hammock beach cha cha

Cha cha apple orange pineapple

Pineapple orange apple cha-cha-cha

Cha-cha-cha square palm trees tra-la-la

Tra-la-la palm trees square cha-cha-cha

Cha-cha-cha boats barbed wire boom-boom-boom

Boom-boom-boom barbed wire boats cha-cha-cha

Cha-cha-cha on the phone on the phone cha-cha-cha

Cha-cha cha-cha word

Word cha-cha-cha

In little more than a decade, the body has moved from the sidelines to a become a focal point of contemporary culture. For this shift to fully unfold its potential, it is necessary to pay attention to the way our materiality articulates with our surroundings. Word cha-cha-cha explores turning points in which bodies are given shape by words, and vice versa, through the paradigm of expanded language. Ambivalently, this language of blurred boundaries both produces and is the result of movement, sound, images, automatisms, feelings, economy and modes of social organisation. This programme proposes a series of performances that bear partial witness to the complexity with which these elements intertwine and affect each other.

Language no longer belongs to humans alone but, in a return to the fable of sorts, animals, objects and natural elements murmur in our ears. On the other hand, the certainty of signifiers fades when confronted with the infinite variability of models and the multiplicity of possible interpretations. In this realm where vagueness reigns, every sentence we utter is a spell, a door we open without knowing where it leads. By questioning the mechanisms for naming and their relationship with things, there is also interference with established dynamics, and possibilities emerge that are beyond the imaginable.

Through choreographies, poems, songs, whispers, shouts, rumours, spells, films without images, the clacking of castanets, familiar languages, obscure languages, unusual translations, incarnated books and newspapers, the language of birds and computers, we may temporarily lose our speech and be forced to search for words. Who knows if we will find different ways of expressing thought to, facing, before, below, fitting, with, against, about, from, since, after, during, in, between, towards, until, for, by, according to, without, under, over, behind, versus, via the silhouette of clouds, the bottom of pockets or the dregs of coffee.

Curated by Quim Pujol

Early 19th-century London witnessed the founding of The Picnic Society, an association that would meet regularly in the open air, at which time each member was expected to provide some of the entertainment and refreshments without there being a specific host. Borrowing this concept from the Picnic Society, the CA2M Museum invites a number of curators each year to design a programme for the Museum’s roof terrace.

Every Thursday from the end of May until the end of June, our roof terrace is turned into a space for hosting a programme of activities that combine body and sound with education and participation. 

 

PROGRAMME

Thurs 25/05 I Llorenç Barber. ACTUM REENACTMENT. Javi Álvarez.

Thurs 01/06 I Juf (Leticia Ybarra + Bea Ortega Botas), Pol Jiménez, Matthieu Blond.

Thurs 08/06 I Park Keito (Kotomi Nishiwaki + Miquel Casaponsa), Joris Lacoste, Noela Covelo. 

Thurs 15/06 I Paula Miralles, Josep Xortó & The Congosound.

Thurs 22/06 I Alix Eynaudi, Clara Amaral, Simon Asencio.

Thurs 29/06 I María Jerez +Élan d’Orphium, Laura Llaneli, Venecia Flúor.

TIMES: 9–11PM, EXCEPT FOR THE SESSION ON 29/06 WHICH WILL START AT 8:30PM

DOORS OPEN AT: 8:30PM. PLEASE BE ON TIME.

SELF-PUBLISHING TABLES

Thurs 25/05 I CAJA NEGRA

Thurs 01/06 I CANICHE

Thurs 08/06 I LA UÑA ROTA

Thurs 15/06 I CONTINTA ME TIENES

Thurs 22/06 I LIBROS DE ARTISTAS

Thurs 29/06 I VARAMO PRESS

 

ABOUT THE CURATOR

Combining the performing arts and contemporary art, Quim Pujol’s artistic practice denatures language to reveal the ideology that lies behind ordinary modes of expression and to open up other possibilities of association. The latest pieces by this iconoclastic writer and performance artist are El mensaje de otros mundos (2021) and Variedad de variedades (2022). He has participated in exhibitions at arts centres such as the Fundació Antoni Tàpies, La Capella and the EACC. Together with Ixiar Rozas, he edited the book on affect theory Ejercicios de ocupación (Ediciones Polígrafa, 2015). He curated the experimental programme of the Mercat de les Flors (2011–2015) and collaborates with the Observatorio del Placer.

Acknowledgements: Berta Gutiérrez Casaos.

PICNIC SESSIONS 2023- SESSION 1- THURSDAY 25 MAY FROM 21:00 TO 23:00H

Llorenc

LLORENÇ BARBER. ACTUM REENACTMENT

Shortly after the Pamplona Encounters, an international avant-garde cultural event held in 1972, the ACTUM group was formed in Valencia with the aim of creating a space for musical experimentation. Between 1973 and 1983, ACTUM performed their own and those of others that expressed the different paradigms that pervaded the most stimulating practices of 1970s art movements: minimalism, improvisation, Cageism, randomness, intermedia, visual music and electro-acoustic music, among others. Their concerts appealed to the creativity of the audience, and members of the audience were invited to join the group on stage regardless of their level of knowledge or instrumental techniques. As though recreating one of those events, Llorenç Barber invites us to discover exercises, devices and scores that still retain their potential to rethink the expectations and social dynamics generated around sound art.

Llorenç Barber, a musician, composer, theorist, musicologist and sound artist, was born in Ayelo de Malferit, in the province of Valencia in 1948. He was one of the first to introduce Spain to musical minimalism, and is the creator of “plurifocal music” (“city concerts”, “naval battles”, “concerts of the senses”, “itinerant concerts”), textual music, improvisation, experimental instruments and many others. He has also carried out important work in creating collectives and holding gatherings on avant-garde art and contemporary music. The most important of these are ACTUM, Flatus Vocis Trio (with Bartomeu Ferrando and Fátima Miranda), the Taller de Música Mundana and ENSEMS, among others.

Javi Alvarez

JAVI ÁLVAREZ. SECUENCIA, CAUSÉ CINE, SU CINE CAE 2

A performance using VHS, synthesizers and echoes of magnetic tape.

- “Party people
Can y’all get funky?”

Afrika Bambaataa & Soul Sonic Force in Planet Rock

- “The only and the original Magnetic King, and that’s the one that’s still sitting here doing his thing. ... Don’t shout, don’t run, don’t hide, don’t flee. This is me coming to you live on the television waves...or whatever.”

Kase2 in Style Wars

- “A dead freeze like this... That ain’t one of the old, ‘cause l was the first one to do it.” 

Crazy Legs in Style Wars

- “You just keep mixing that forward and back, backward and forward, and the crowd just go crazy. You make that little one second or five seconds become one minute, or half an hour if you want, you know, that certain beat that makes you go wild.”

Grandmaster Flash in Looking for the Perfect Beat

“Maybe it was my scratching that caused these light beams to come and land; maybe they’re visiting and I am actually communicating with intergalactic beings.”

Mix Master Mike in Scratch

- “The Bronx Rockers are here, man! ... Bring on the battle, man!”

Lee in Beat Street

"Javi Álvarez (FluzoNéboaLa Máquina de LuzLa FollableDúo Cobra, Dj de la muerte,...), megatronic dandy, a specialist in conceptual art and word games. He dismantles any prejudice with eclectic performances that combine psychobilly, vintage electronicapunk ravings and musical hors d’oeuvres for suitably dressed and armed people. If you can imagine Lalo Schifrin's orchestra playing Casiotones at the The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, you might have a better idea...” Sebastià Jovani.

TABLE - Caja Negra

Founded in Argentina, Caja Negra is an independent publisher. Its catalogue offers a cross-cutting journey through the fields of essay, literature, film, visual arts and music, and promotes the coexistence of heterogeneous materials and deepening the hidden connections between them.

Caja Negra is a thinking entity, a many-tentacled organism whose mission it is to map the history of radical episodes of aesthetic, political and life experiences. It gives life to books made from those experiences, and from those books come a proliferation of associations, cultural stimuli, discussions and critical resources aimed at deprogramming the machinery of the present and multiplying uncertain futures.

https://cajanegraeditora.com.ar/

PICNIC SESSIONS 2023- SESSION 2 - THURSDAY 1 JUNE FROM 21:00 TO 23:00H

juf

JUF (BEA ORTEGA AND LETICIA YBARRA). 103 FOCOS DE SOL (‘103 SUNBEAMS’)

This performance proposes a critical journey through the relationship between love and theatricality, and the mechanisms for their magnification through the work of contemporary artists and poets.

The poetic event intersperses readings of poems, dialogues from plays and excerpts from sound pieces in order to deal with different bodies and spaces in relation to falling in love and the states that both cause and follow on from it. The magnification and broadening (of voices, actions, messages and emotions) that occur both in the acoustics of theatres and in the bodies of actors and singers find their parallel in feelings of love and in the emptiness that suddenly emerges from the manipulation of different scales.

Bea Ortega Botas (Oviedo, 1990) and Leto Ybarra (Madrid, 1991) are curators and editors of the poetry project Juf. Beatriz Ortega Botas has also co-directed the curatorial platform Yaby since 2017 and is co-editor of the online magazine _AH. She has collaborated in a curatorial role with such institutions as Vleeshal (Middelburg, Netherlands), Fundació Miró (Barcelona), EACC (Castellón), ARCO (Madrid), La Casa Encendida (Madrid) and Hangar (Barcelona).

Leto Ybarra has exhibited or recited at The Ryder (Madrid, 2021), Gasworks (London, 2022), La Casa Encendida (Madrid, 2022), Cordova (Barcelona, 2021), CentroCentro (Madrid, 2020) or Haus Wien (Vienna, 2020), among others. She has been a resident artist at Gasworks (2022), Tabakalera (2022) and Matadero Madrid (2023). In 2021, she published Fantasmita eres pegamento through Caniche Editorial.

https://jufjuf.org/en

 

Pol

POL JIMÉNEZ. LO FAUNAL (‘FAUNALITY’)

Lo Faunal is a journey through the interspecies, constructed from what we know as Spanish dance and declassifying its four branches (folklore, bolero school, stylised dance and flamenco) as experienced by the figure of the Faun. In this case, we present an extract of the long piece which is part folklore and part bolero, Lo Faunal, necessitat de follia (‘Faunality, the Need for Folly’).

Pol Jiménez embodies the mythological figure, who fantasises about nymphs during his siesta. In order to represent this, he starts out as the Faun from Nijinsky’s classical ballet; however, both the performer and the director of the piece, Bruno Ramri, focus on the idea that the Faun is not just a mythological character, but rather a condition. And he shares his nature as an interspecies with Spanish dance, a potential construct that under constant hybridisation is able to broaden its horizons.

Pol Jiménez, choreographer and dancer, (Barcelona, 1995). This artist, who is trained in Spanish dance and flamenco, constantly seeks new codes and questions of the contemporary dance scene and contemporary thought in order to feed his creations. He trained in Spanish dance at the Conservatori Professional de Dansa, Barcelona, which he represented as a choreographer at Assamblée Internationale 2013, in Toronto. He has premiered his productions at the Mercat de les Flors and Sala Hiroshima, in Barcelona, and the Fira Mediterrània, in Manresa, and he is the recipient of the Best Dancer award at the Premis de la Crítica de les Arts Escèniques 2018 and the XXV Premis Butaca. He featured in the catalogues recommended by the Spanish Network of Publicly Owned Theatres, Auditoriums, Circuits and Festivals. Despite his youth, he has had an intense career as a dancer and choreographer, working with companies and choreographers such as La Fura dels Baus, Cesc Gelabert, Juan Carlos Lérida, José Manuel Álvarez, Ángel Rojas and Mdvd. He is a member of the musical group Los Aurora. He is currently touring with his latest production, Lo faunal, and is the coordinator of the Se avecina series at Pla Roig, and the Cronexiones series at La Tacones.

Mathieu

MATTHIEU BLOND. MERCURIO RETRÓGADO (‘MERCURY RETROGRADE’)

Mercurio retrógrado is a performance that plays with the specificities of theatre by elaborating on the costumes, stories and performativities. The limits of these different forms of theatricality (stand up, lecture performance, TV presenter, drag queen) are pushed to the extreme, until they verge on the kitsch. Astrology is a central element of this performance. It is one of the world’s oldest techniques for predicting the future, and has been gaining in popularity since the 20th century owing to its presence in the media, first in printed newspapers, then on radio and television and now in social media. The term ‘Mercury retrograde’ has even become an expression in common parlance to describe a time of havoc created by the celestial bodies. A number of important astrologers have become modern icons, such as Walter Mercado, Jojo Medium, Rob Brezsny and Madame Soleil. Through this investigation, Matthieu Blond explores the relationship between astrology and the media, in particular the theatricalisation of astrological prediction. Not only are the stars the source of inspiration for this performance, but the very substance that constitutes the media, with newsprint made into scenery, costume and prop. This performance piece features different characters, such as Tünae Xpress the drag queen, who marks the rhythm for the dramatics by making a measured series of astrological predictions.

Matthieu Blond is a Paris-based artist, performer and architect who studied architecture at ÉNSA Versailles and trained in dance at the SEAD in Austria, and at the SNDO in Amsterdam. He has worked for several architectural firms in Paris, including LIST, Berger&Berger and Arch’Concept. Since 2017, he has been exploring the relationship between performance and publication, especially through his Journal project. This exploration led him to create a performed exhibition catalogue for A Poem Should Be Read In Sequence, Obituaries, Special Edition for the architecture biennial PARI and EXPORAMA, as well as a series of performances entitled Fanzine – As Blond As You Want. He developed this work at the Dutch Art Institute between 2017 and 2019. He has taken part in several group exhibitions, such as Un Discret Bijou, at the Nef de Pantin in 2019, and Faire disparaître le travail, at GlassBox, Paris, 2020. He has worked as a dancer for a number of choreographers, including Eli Lecuru, Alain Michard, Guiomar Campos, Clara Saito and Lisa Vereertbrugghen.

TABLE - Caniche

Caniche Editorial was founded to give visibility to works that would otherwise not be accessible to the public. This small publishing house specialises in the subject of contemporary art. Although relatively young, Caniche has shown an unerring eye for publishing the work of a large number of major contemporary artists. Among many other titles, their catalogue includes the collection of poems by Leticia Ybarra Fantasmita eres pegamento.

https://canicheeditorial.com/

 

PICNIC SESSIONS 2023- SESSION 3 - THURSDAY 8 JUNE FROM 21:00 TO 23:00H

Park Keito

PARK KEITO (KOTOMI NISHIWIWAKI Y MIQUEL CASAPONSA). NEW(A) DAYS 

A set of scenes that explore the different forms of communication and daily rituals to construct states and landscapes ranging from pure contemplation to moments of an almost apocalyptic nature. A woman on stage going through different states of empowerment and of relationship and symbiosis with nature. A combination of presence and questioning the possibilities of abstraction and poetics. Events that follow one another in crescendo to place the spectator within a journey where the body’s perceptual experience evolves, leaving it open to an imaginative exchange.

Kotomi Nishiwaki is a Japanese performance artist and choreographer. After studying at P.A.R.T.S, in Belgium, she has been collaborating with and working for Anzu Furukawa, João Fiadeiro, Abraham Hurtado and Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods, among others.

Miquel Casaponsa studied interior architecture and music in Barcelona and Brussels. He composes and improvises with guitar and field recordings, and creates sounds for installations and performance art with Brendan Dougherty, Monia Montal, Ana Konjetsky, Giovanni Di Domenico, Charo Calvo and João Lima, among others.

Park Keito is the association that brings together the work of Kotomi Nishiwaki and Miquel Casaponsa, as well as collaborations with other artists. Their interests and topics of research converge in different disciplines, such as performance, sound and visual arts. Their performances and installations play with the body and objects, contrasting artificial and fictitious landscapes with organic soundscapes and kinetic movement. Park Keito is based in Barcelona.

Joris

JORIS LACOSTE. EN TU NOMBRE (‘IN YOUR NAME’)

Quim Pujol invited me to address the people of Móstoles. As I can’t speak Spanish, the question of translation arose. As it so happens, Quim Pujol is a professional interpreter, and he offered to simultaneously translate my speech, as he would for a head of state: “I’ll speak in your name; I’ll spread your word,” he said, assuringly. It immediately occurred to me how much I could benefit from such a pledge of allegiance.

Joris Lacoste has been a writer for theatre and radio since 1996 and has been creating and performing his own shows since 2003: 9 Lyriques pour une actrice et une caisse claire, in 2005; Purgatoire, in 2007; and Le vrai spectacle, in 2011. In 2004, he founded the collective research project W. He was an associate author at the Théâtre de la Colline from 2006 to 2007. From 2007 to 2009, he was co-director of the Laboratoires d'Aubervilliers. In 2007, he founded the collectiveEncyclopédie de la parole, as part of which he created the shows Parlement (2009), Suite n°1 (2013), Suite n°2 (2015), Suite n°3 (2017), Suite n°4 (2020), blablabla (2017) and Jukebox (2019). Encyclopédie de la parole has performed around the world and a Portrait was especially dedicated to them as part of the Festival d’Automne, held in Paris in 2020. Joris Lacoste has also created numerous performance art pieces and has participated in several exhibitions in museums and art centres. He has also translated three Shakespeare plays for the director Gwénaël Morin.

Noela

NOELA COVELO. QSIPTI

How do you make a song work? How do you know exactly when the voice comes into the track? The performance/concert is a solo divided into capsules, songs or verses. In this work, I focus on the physical and spatial elements that tell me where I’m supposed to be on the concert stage at the precise moment when I come into contact with the audience. I breathe in and out, I introduce myself, and I gradually add voices that blend into the pre-recorded tracks or diverge from each other, in a measured way, and I recalculate over and over again the distance between me and the audience.

Noela Covelo Velasco (Pontevedra, 1994) has lived and worked in Barcelona since 2012. She has performed at La biennale du réel, Data Rhei, (Paris, 2017), the Pontevedra Museum (Pontevedra, 2019), Àngels Barcelona for Loop City Festival (Barcelona, 2020), Dilalica (Barcelona, 2021), Bombon Projects for Art Nou (Barcelona, 2022), Centre Maristany (Sant Cugat, 2022), Tortosa Museum as part of Xarxa Transversal (Tortosa, 2022), Fundació Joan Brossa (Barcelona, 2022) and CLUBS (Barcelona 2022). She presented the performance art piece QSIPT I at Centre d’Arts Santa Mónica as part of the So i cos programme (Barcelona, 2022), at Bombon Projects art gallery (Barcelona, 2022), Centre Arbar (Girona, 2022) and at CLUBS (Barcelona, 2022). She is a co-founder of the 101 collective, co-founder of the Choro pedagogical experimentation environment (Foc, Barcelona) and a member of the Cascades study group.

On this occasion, Noela Covelo is collaborating with Un coro amateur (‘An Amateur Choir’), a vocal and aural creative project of CA2M. On alternate Thursdays for the past six years, the choir has been coming together for investigative sessions of its own and sessions with guest artists in which to embrace all the sounds in the universe.

https://noelacovelovelasco.net/

TABLE - La uña rota

La Uña Rota publishes the works of living and upcoming authors, and those of acclaimed authors and artists. Its Los Libros Inútiles (‘Futile Books’) collection includes books of poetry by such authors as Ángela Segovia, María Salgado, Luz Pichel, Carlos Bueno Vera and Lupe Gómez (translated from Galician), among others. Another of its collections, Los Libros Robados (‘Stolen Books’), includes books by authors such as Rodrigo García, Angélica Liddell, Juan Mayorga, Pablo Gisbert and Pablo Remón.

http://www.larota.es/

 

PICNIC SESSIONS 2023 - SESSION 4 - THURSDAY 15 JUNE FROM 9PM TO 11PM

Paula

PAULA MIRALLES. MI VOZ ES UN JARRÓN (‘MY VOICE IS A VASE’)

The act of speaking and listening turns our voice into a musical score, making us both performers and listeners at the same time. We don’t usually listen to ourselves when we speak; we don’t pay attention to how we sound, to what is special about the sound we make. Where is the voice? How does it happen and what does it do? Who is heard when my voice sounds? If I take the words away from the voice, what is left? Mi voz es un jarrón is a small vocal study in which I explore all these questions using three instruments: my voice, a bass drum and a microphone. It’s a kind of sonorous self-portrait that requires listening to yourself and, more importantly, to others in order to bring about the full transformative experience it proposes.

Paula Miralles is a creator and cultural worker in the field of performing arts. After a long career as an actor and performer of other people’s work, she began to develop her own artistic creations. From 2006 to 2017, she worked together with the musician and composer David Alarcón on several projects focused on voice, sound and stage. In 2018, she released her first solo performance piece, LP, a work that deals with voice, music and biography. She has since premiered two more solo pieces. Her practice revolves around voice and sound as forms of knowledge, and their power in the political and social dimension. She is currently part of the artistic collective Taller Placer together with Vicente Arlandis.

Josep

JOSEP XORTÓ + THE CONGOSOUND. NOVA ESPLENDOR (‘NEW SPLENDOUR’)

The project Josep Xortó + The Congosound came into existence in 2015 out of the collaboration between the singer Josep Xortó and the artist Carles Congost with the aim of recreating some of their favourite musical genres, such as Italo disco, new wave and 80s synthpop, through songs full of bitter-sweet humour and luminous melancholy sung in Catalan. In addition to the tribute and the aesthetic exercise of reviving these styles, Carles Congost fills this music with stories about himself, about life in general, and reflections.

Josep Xortó is a singer and DJ, a firebrand of Barcelona nightlife and one of the driving forces behind the Glove Party, which specialises in disco music. He is a charismatic vocalist and performer who has fronted different bands, including Stand Up Against Heart Crime, Critters and Tothom. His voice and his personality also give body to Carles Congost’s ideas and compositions.

The Congosound is the musical alias of the visual artist Carles Congost, under which he creates compositions and musical productions as part of his contemporary art installations filled with references to pop culture (music, comics, cinema). Since the late 1990s, The Congosound has released its music on different Spanish and international labels, and has collaborated with Italian disco star Ryan Paris and electronic artists such as Superpitcher and Italoconnection. He has also created remixes for bands such as Fangoria, Astrud and Manta Ray. Josep Xortó + The Congosound also comprises the musicians Miquel Mestres, Andrés Papas Pérez and Aleix Perdigó, with whom they forcefully transform the fantasies created in the studio into the live performance.

TABLE - Continta me tienes

This independent publishing house specialises in the publication of books on the performing arts, feminism and contemporary thought. Of special importance for the sector, it publishes its collections of works for the stage according to different criteria: theoretical texts by leading local and international researchers; plays by new authors; texts by foreign authors of recognised prestige in translation; and compilations of theoretical writings by leading contemporary female dramatists.

https://contintametienes.com/

 

 

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With the support of
Logo Cervezas Alhambra
Activity type
Picnic Sessions
Target audience
Anyone interested
Duration
21:00 - 23:00H
Dates
25th May to 29th June
PICNIC SESSIONS 2023- SESSION 1- THURSDAY 25 MAY FROM 21:00 TO 23:00H
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PICNIC SESSIONS 2023- SESSION 2 - THURSDAY 1 JUNE FROM 21:00 TO 23:00H
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PICNIC SESSIONS 2023- SESSION 3 - THURSDAY 8 JUNE FROM 21:00 TO 23:00H
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PICNIC SESSIONS 2023 - SESSION 4 - THURSDAY 15 JUNE FROM 9PM TO 11PM
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PICNIC SESSIONS 2023 - SESIÓN 5 - JUEVES 22 DE JUNIO DE 21:00 A 23:00H
Event Date
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PICNIC SESSIONS 2023 - SESIÓN 6 - JUEVES 29 DE JUNIO DE 20:30 A 23:00H
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Access
Attendance open and free while places last

DOORS OPEN AT 20:30H

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