Tabakalera taulara : danzas primitivas (the show)

Performing arts summer programme in the attic

This summer, Thursdays on the Attic are going to be devoted to enjoying performing arts. From 7 July to 8 September (+ 11 September), each Thursday there’ll be a chance to get to know and participate in the different projects of performing arts, performance pieces and stageable projects.

Altogether, there’ll be eleven offerings by Javier Vaquero, Cris Blanco, Amaia Urra, Lorena Álvarez, Quim Pujol, Idoia Zabaleta & Ibon Salvador & Mónica Real, Bárbara Sánchez & Jaime Conde-Salazar, Óscar Bueno & Itxaso Corral, Itsaso Iribarren & Germán de la Riva, Nilo Gallego & Pelayo Arrizabalaga and Isaak Erdoiza.

It’ll be the summer so it will probably be hot, but not too hot. We'll head up to the rooftop on the fourth floor, by stairs or in the lift. There'll be people we know and others we don't. Things will kick off at half past eight in the evening, when the sun is just about to set and it’s starting to get a bit cooler. We'll arrive by day and leave by night. And there will be one or more people doing things, singing, dancing, talking, playing an instrument, telling us things, changing, moving… We'll sit down and enjoy ourselves for a while on the roof watching and listening to things that don't usually happen on a roof.

Maia Villot

A dance show by Javier Vaquero

Image credit: Pau Roig

Created and performed by: Javier Vaquero Ollero. Artistic accompaniment: Carme Torrent, among others. Duration: 50’. Produced by: Mi Otro Trabajo. Support: La Porta Bcn, La Poderosa, Espacio Practico and AREA.

In Danzas primitivas (The Show) Javier Vaquero tackles dance from a perspective that could not be more instinctive and unprepared: dance as a mere reaction of the body to the rhythm of the music. Hence its “primitive” character, which appeals to an essential condition of human nature, predating even language and reason.

Beyond this piece, Danzas primitivas has been a long working process during which different works, texts and experiments have emerged, including “24 horas bailando” which Vaquero performed without a break between 1 pm on 10 December and 1 pm on 11 December 2011 in La Poderosa. If you’re interested in reading more about this experiment or other materials on the investigative process, check out the blog http://www.tea-tron.com/danzasprimitivas.

In his long search for these essential origins of dance, Javier has inescapably run up against certain contradictions. Although it is true that the phenomenon of dance is found in all cultures and is inherent to human nature, it nonetheless varies in each of the cultures in which it occurs. Just like language: that primitive nature is entirely cultural. While Vaquero's project started from a certain impossibility, the chief interest of the piece ends up lying in the tension between the instinctive and the cultural. Perhaps for this reason the work does not commit itself to any particular style of dance; rather the performer allows himself to be led by each successive song. Totalhus, “Danzas primitivas” is a sum of short solos whose only point of commonality is the intense pleasure that the dancer feels in performing them. A pleasure which, due to the empathy that the movement generates, inevitably spreads to the spectator.

Quim Pujol