The Mercat de les Flors exhibits up to three different shows in the same weekend: El Amor Brujo that Israel Galván premiered at the Teatre Zorrilla in Badalona, during the 2019 Metropolitan Fortnight; his most recent Mellizo Doble with Niño de Elche, which was seen last year in Temporada Alta, and on the other hand the French company Toujours Aprés Minuit, with a production halfway between movement and theater entitled À vue (A the view).
Both in the first show, in which Galván interprets the score by Manuel de Falla, and in the last, by the choreographer born in Barcelona, Roser Montlló, and the French actress Brigitte Seth, the question of gender appears on the table as it is as today it is interpreted by politicians around the world, that is, to the mere feminine or masculine appearance of people, based on which they want to raise laws.
It had been a while since Brigitte Seth and Roser Montlló landed at the Mercat de les Flors. The French actress and the Barcelona choreographer who has developed her career abroad combine disciplines. And in À vue, a work from 2018, they cross-dress as men, considering not only the issue of gender but of identity or multiple identities that make up each individual.
"There are three of us on stage, two women and one man, who transform in full view of everyone. At first when we were put on makeup it was an exaggerated thing, I almost looked like the face of Stalin, a dictator," says Brigitte Seth. But during the rehearsals it was impossible to make a quick change with so much material. And we totally reduced it to the minimum, and yet we are perfectly men. Which makes me think that all that about gender is a lie, because with nothing I can be a man, and I look a lot like my father, which I didn't know. I mean, this whole gender thing is in our minds."
"Yes, we look for the minimum of artifacts to change the maximum, and in reality that is where dance also arrives, because it profoundly changes the body -adds Roser Montlló-. It is an inner and deep sensation that makes you feel more like this or more It comes more from the guts than from the form, which in the end is always the subject of our artistic research. In the end it's just a men's wardrobe without a wig, in Briggitte's case, and I'm just wearing a wig, and in the end throughout the show we switched to the view".
In reality, age is also considered, because at each moment they are not only young or old, they are not white or black, or rich or poor, man or woman or victim or guilty or alive or dead.... "Are we sure that we are alive now?", Montlló questions... "And is that what I think I think because I really think or because I have to think?, continues Seth. "And it is not easy to answer that" This montage is an attempted response to all of this.
Today's society tends to organize itself according to feelings of identity and victimization, but... nothing is what it seems. "Because I have the physique of a mother, of calm people... and people trust me with the keys, the money... and no, no, I'm a mess, to buy bread I go to the tobacconist, I escape always real life, I'm from Paris and I've always gotten lost on the subway," laughs Seth.
They have been hanging around Barcelona for three weeks with other projects, such as the Temps lliure community workshop, which is part of their Odisea project and which deals with those free hours of working women while the children are at school in the morning. His shows are always based on a text which, in the case of À vue, is a commission from Jean-Luc A. d'Asciano. The French author deals with the feeling of guilt, although it does not lead to a literal theater, but rather leaves much room for the imagination.
Israel Galván, for his part, points out that in El Amor Brujo, where he dresses as a woman, "I look like my mother." "Even a Mercat technician tells me that I look like his aunt and I say, oh, I have to go to the hairdresser," he jokes. His, he warns him, is a show in which he mutates.
I approach the tradition of Amor Brujo through this change, because for me that score is very familiar, I have danced it since I was a child. And I remember it like running pa'llá, like fleeing from gypsy ghosts. And I approach through the mutation that makes the Japanese creator Kazuo Ōno, taking a bailaora like Argentina. And we also make the music that Manuel de Falla himself withdrew. We make the failures of Falla too. We have discussed it with the family and they agree. And well, to me El amor brujo makes my body different, and the beautiful thing is that, changing you.
Here he confesses that it is about stealing the woman's energy. They said of Carmen Amaya that she danced like a man, and no, what happens is that she is a strong woman. They said of Antonio El Bailarín that she danced like a woman, and no, what happened is that she moved her hips very well. That is the speech I test. I don't want to be a woman but to be a woman, to dance in a different way. That is the journey. It's serious. Dance allows you that. You can't lie on stage. And in all people there are beauties, "she points out.
About the origin of Mellizo Doble, Galván says that it was a commission from a traditional flamenco tablao with a restaurant in which he had to perform, in Japan. "I thought, well, look, we're going to call Niño de Elche to see what comes out," he explains. "We got on the plane, we weren't even sitting together. But we did. to make some noise. Anyway, it's a pas de deux that we did later in Avignon and the reviews were very good. We both have a flamenco tradition. And Paco is a fearless person, that's why we're twins. And if it's Double it's because he he's a musician and here he also dances, and I stop dancing and become a musician, because I make noise".
