Street and Experimental Theatre

Transcription

1 Street and Experimental Theatre PHOTO-PERFORMANCE AMBULANT PERFORMANCE STREET THEATER CONTEMPORARY DANCE PARADE STREET PERFORMANCE AND OTHER NON-CONVENTIONAL SPACES Street and Experimental Theatre

2 THE COMPANY Nemcatacoa Teatro began at the end of 2000 as an expressive necessity of a group of youth focused on the training, exploration and use of stilts as the actor s instrument. Investigating diverse techniques of circus, dance and theater as part of their training, Nemcatacoa has created 12 productions; including parades, street theater plays, street interventions and circus performances in different events, all aimed at exploring physical theater and the language of acrobatics on stilts. The group currently functions as a permanent creative laboratory with several theatrical projects in progress. They were part of the Colombian Network of Community Theater and RIT (Theatrical Exchange Route), and they are now part of the Street Theater Sector of Bogota. Nemcatacoa has toured performances and developed pedagogical projects in Colombia as well as in countries such as Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Venezuela, Denmark, Germany and the US.

3 Landscape Re-Invention Society 2011

4 AMBULANT PERFORMANCE Silent figures move through the streets, plazas, passageways and corners of any place. Their bodies explore the details of the architecture in order to reinvent it. Subtle music serves as a thread between the passers-by and this mobile society which will create images that fit into the space and its context. Ecstatic images that can go from heartbreaking to hopeful. A society open to a dialog with whoever lives there, a poetic-visual dialog in which reflection and silence acquire a different value than usual. The unity of color and movement are part of the language of Landscape Re-Invention Society, which passes by like a flock of birds. A mobile spectacle that intervenes in the streets of anyplace with acrobatic language on stilts and live music. Three musicians, a dancer on the ground and six stilt performers make up this wandering society. Each time they decide to intervene in a place, they do it in an original and unique way, reading the architecture, the emotions coming from that unexpected visit, carefully observing the details and allowing the poetry innate in the society s language to flow in the space of intervention.

5 Hontybon: Dicha y Chicha 2012

6 PARADE An indigenous Muisca community celebrates planting and harvest, the festival of corn and chicha (a traditional drink made of fermented corn). With these sacred symbols we encounter community through dance and inebriation. Choreography and rituals offer thanks to Mother Nature, life and our ancestors, going back to forgotten celebrations and organizing the encounter through festivities and the unity of being in harmony with the land that gives us everything. The dramatic structure of three moments will bring the audience through short fragments of the lives of our Muisca ancestors. A community made up of 23 characters: 15 on the ground and 5 on stilts. Representing indigenous people with a theatrical language of physical actions and dance, they speak to us of corn and chicha. The three deities are all characters on stilts; Nemcatacoa, who invites the indigenous people and with a wise energy, summons them to celebrate to the point of total inebriation; and Zhue and Chia, who allow the passage of time so that the ritual of planting has a positive outcome. Their height on stilts and their majesty inspires the energy of both actors and audience.

7 Dios de la Adrenalina 2012

8 STREET THEATER A collaboration between two accomplished acrobatic stilt-walking companies from Colombia (Nemcatacoa Teatro) and the USA (The Carpetbag Brigade). A synthesis of two distinct musical groups. Hojarasca Andina from El Carmen de Viboral, Colombia, playing contemporary music on traditional Andean instruments and Verbo Bala from Tucson, Arizona mixing spoken word and electronic music. A multi-disciplinary project integrating dance, theater, music, and spoken word. An attempt to emotionally express and release the pain experienced by communities affected by the trafficking of cocaine in both countries. An eighteen person project with two directors, ten stilters, four musicians, a manager and a videographer. A contrast in perspectives between South and North America. A refuge for the body to rebel, reveal, and revive the spirit of connection between cultures kept at odds with one another. An offering of peace. Illuminating the undercurrents and dynamics of globalization, Dios de la Adrenalina examines the collective trauma caused by hidden economic relationships and the impact of contraband commerce on the human nervous system. Dios de la Adrenalina is designed to be shared in open air spaces outside of traditional theatrical venues.

9 ANGELUS 2014 Based on Angelitos Empantanados by Andrés Caicedo

10 FOR STREET PERFORMANCE AND OTHER NON-CONVENTIONAL SPACES Maybe I shouldn t have stayed so long in Angelita s house, because when I left everything was empty. I almost went back. I turned my head and she was waving goodbye from the window. For the first time we were together for more than an hour. We loved each other for the first time. She said goodbye to me from the window. Empty A play with a narrative structure of three frames or scenes. Three moments that show how two characters, Angelita and Miguel Angel, confront their lives. The encounter, the morning of their downfall, and death. Walking as discovery and also as memory. The journey as the narrative, three different spaces that are close together (in the same plaza or park, for example) will be the stage, the backdrop, the real architecture of a city in which the characters live their lives, their moments together. The streets are real, the trees, the noises, the passersby, and everything else become part of this production, in which Angelita and Miguel Angel wander, just as they do in the book. Sixth Avenue, the fruit tree, the window, the thicket of ferns, etc. will have meaning and will change shape like an abstract painting. A play in which the audience must participate by walking along as they are taken through spaces that may or may not be familiar but will be re-discovered in the moment. A format that includes the three scenes already mentioned, which occur in pre-determined spaces as decided by the company, different in each show. A fusion of street theater, site-specific performance, and physical theater.

11 Triciclico 2014

12 CONTEMPORARY DANCE Three spines exposed, individual in their own rite, their own light. Like eggs being hatched, Dracula drinking his first droplets of blood, the life slowly creeps back into the corpse, monsoon rain saturates the hard packed earth and bone-like roots. Atoms joined by magnetism, a spark of life, land births animal, animal becomes human, industry consumes human. Where is energy born, where does it live, how does it die? There is a phantom in the back of their minds, whispers of a child s memory, sunlight, laughter; a flash of light in the corners of their eyes. Hearts beating fast, there s an aching, a yearning, only satiable by taste of flight: leap, soar, roll. What is there in the white light? What things are a there when the mind is dialed into an alternate frequency? How do we arrive totally awakened by spirit and totally enlivened by animal? What does the movement adventure look like when expression has no words? Triciclico is a chain of energy linking acrobatics and dance to create dynamic experiences in cycles of three, an investigation into cycles of life, of circular energy: flying, falling, rolling, on your feet, on your hands, and on your torso; propulsion, weightlessness and gravity; suspension, swing and recovery. The beginning, middle and end. Conception, manifestation, conclusion. Child, adult, elderly. Evaporation, condensation, precipitation. Grow, harvest, eat. Sleep, dream, wake. Eyes, hands, mouths. Hunt, kill, consume. Working with the stable vs. the reactionary, linearity, polarity and duality are restricted, fundamental and limited. The development of spiral is our evolution, we investigate the abstract through gesture, dynamics and timing, and the overt expression of emotion through the face body, and energy.

13 Asymmetric bodies

14 PHOTO-PERFORMANCE A photo-performance that began as a winter experiment in New York City and then developed as it encountered other places while keeping the initial concept. One performer focused on physical theater on stilts and a dancer on the ground create Asymmetric Bodies. Using total nudity as a neutral state of the body and make up as part of those asymmetric bodies will emphasize basic lines and neutralize color by only using black and white. An experiment searching for new languages of the body, nourished by improvisation, architecture, the context of space and time, and examining meticulously the possibilities between those asymmetric bodies while dancing and moving. Diverse techniques of dance will be applied according to the various performers, and the stilts will always be the same height, allowing the contact between the performers while also having an obvious imbalance. The project is unique each time and also varies depending on the location in terms of atmosphere and intention, perception, at the moment of the photo shoot. For this reason, the name of each session depends on the city, the location, that first sensation upon visiting the place, the condition of being foreign to the place, that unexpected first encounter -- dancer, actor, photographer, place and season. Asymmetric Bodies is an open space, free for the performers that join the project, seeking to unite professionals from different mediums in one high quality performance.

15 Open Society 2013

16 WORKSHOP AND RESIDENCY Workshop and Artistic Residency Under the instruction of the artists of Nemcatacoa, a given number of local students, artists, actors, stilters, dancers, members of artistic group, musicians, and anyone interested in combining different art forms can participate. Open Society is a workshop in which we draw on different techniques used in Nemcatacoa to compose open air spectacles, in this case created specifically for the architecture of the host site. Using the same structure as the show Landscape Re-Invention Society, local artists and members of Nemcatacoa participate in a creative process in which they develop a new show integrating the architecture and landscape of the site as part of Open Society. A medium or large format show for open, closed, and non-conventional spaces.