PI(È)CE: Scrapbook 2021

Using cuttings of images and texts on the odysseys of daily life, this audio-visual offering deconstructs not just the journeys that take us far away from home, in everyday life, but also the experiences of exile and migration, and intimate feelings of banishment and being uprooted. We are accompanied by the paper-and-ink documents of contemporary Odysseys, readings of texts by Úrsula K. Le Guin, Gloria Anzaldúa and Sara Ahmed, all of them political reflections, from a variety of perspectives, on migratory experiences. A dance of this departure, of this sometimes alienating, exhausting daily life but which becomes a fertile festival, a Dionysiac liberation, a trance dance, an empowerment and joyous struggle in the meeting with the other. A dance of the awakening of the fire bird.

Scrapbook 2021 and This Place 2020 make up the audio-visual diptych of Pi(è)ce in the context of the Rapport European project (with support from the Europe Creative programme), where it has been participating since 2018 in collaboration with its ACTA Theatre (English), Historieberattarna (Sweden) and Teatr Grodzki (Poland) partners.

For ten years now, the Pi(è)ce project has been carrying out ongoing research, as part of the Teatre Tantarantana’s Culture and Community Programme, on stage events, opening up artistic-exchange spaces in diverse contexts and with people from various ages, cultures, languages and socio-economic backgrounds. Artistic activities become a catalyst of experiences, a powerful detonator of reflection and expression and a process of headstrong education.

The reflection, in the context of the Rapport project, focuses on the experiences of exile and migration as well as criticism of the policies that generate such sustained violence against migrants. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, with its lockdowns and restrictions on people’s mobility, has highlighted once again the inequalities and climate crisis we are living through, as well as the frailty of people’s lives. Our aim with these two pieces, This place 2020 (created during the lockdown) and Scrapbook 2021, is to pay tribute to all those who have left home and do not know if they’ll ever return.

 

Original idea: Albert  tola, Julio Álvarez, Constanza Brnčić

Direction: Constanza Brnčić

Dramaturgy: Albert Tola, Constanza Brnčić

Texts (based on the writings of the participants): Albert Tola

Music, postproduction, audio i videography: Nuno Rebelo

Audiovisual production and editing: Cordelia Alegre

Assistant director and production assistant: Beatriz González

Co-creation: Aboubacar Sidiki Kaké, Adelaida Santiró, Ahmad Al Hamsho, Anjila Katrin, Ashraf Belkaid, Avelina Teixeira, Berta Peña, Coral Mestres, Devon Prado, Gabriela Blanch Brnčić, Gerónimo Pereira, Igor Brnčić Rebelo, Jan Serra, Joan Ramos, Josefina Ruiz, Julio Álvarez, Marta Fernández, Mehekdeep Kaur, Mory Traoré

Technician: Ivan Chamorro

Photography: Itsaso Arizkuren

Executive Production: Julio Álvarez

Trainee: Amada Tinoco

For further information, check out the Teatre Tantarantana's website.