This meeting could have been called, maybe too literally, Chain Drive. While doing some research on stainless steel chain drive motors I run into the acronyms ISO and ASA. So far, they have been related for me to photography, but I find out that they actually stand for general standardization models. ISO means International Standard Office, while ASA means American Standard Association, exactly like DIN means Deutsche Industrie Norme and GOST represents a discontinued Soviet standard.
Among all the theatrical conventions, namely our own standardization models, there is an a priori rarely questioned by institutions, audiences, artists, pedagogues or scholars: the idea that the motor or drive that drives the devising practice leads unavoidably to devising stage works or pieces. Not just because taking for granted what a “work” is forecloses every diversity and follows the market’s lead of continuously asking for novelty, but also because that means that the artist that does not produce works risks being denied their condition as an artist.
This meeting hosts Júlia Rúbies Subirós and Salva Sanchis, both artists whose work drive consists precisely on the chain drive of knowledge via a shared practice with a body assembled by dance or choreography at its core. With a distinct and distinctive artistic language, both artists from different generations and yet trained at P.A.R.T.S. propose an alloy that opens up for other drives, since the stainless aspect of movement, that which endures time and corrosion, might not be able to become standardized
This conversation is part of a program that opens a reflection on the notion of transmission and critical thinking about practices and knowledges in performing arts today. A four-day program activated in different spaces of the Mercat dels Flors.
Salva Sanchis: I am a dancer, choreographer and dance teacher. I have a psychology degree and I am studying data science. I am a father and a husband. I enjoy fermenting various foods. I have a hard time imagining life without music. I practice thinking as a hobby.
Fernando Gandasegui: I am an artist, a curator and a researcher in performing arts. I currently co-direct Teatron and I curate the Domingo festival at La Casa Encendida. I have been a member of the PLAYdramaturgia collective and have coordinated Teatro Pradillo in Madrid. I co-directed La Plaza en Verano at Matadero as well as several residency and research programmes at the Spain’s Culture Centre in La Paz. I teach and give workshops for institutions like Pedagogías invisibles or Bar Yola, a bar that I run together with Javier Cruz. I have been an artist-in-residence at Graner, La Caldera, CA2M, La Casa Encendida, Malavoadora or L’Estruch. My artistic work is part of the collection of CA2M and the Matadero’s Artists Archive, and it has been performed in more or less institutional spaces. I did the supervision of communication projects for festivals such as El lugar sin límites or ¿Qué puede un cuerpo?. I collaborated in several publications and wrote the hand programmes of Teatros del Canal and Conde Duque.
