El Conde de Torrefiel
El Conde de Torrefiel is a collective from the same generation as De Warme Winkel and Wunderbaum. Their work spans multiple artistic genres: video, music, text, theatre, dance. In the Netherlands, a performance by El Conde de Torrefiel is a rarity, but at the Brussels KunstenfestivaldesArts, for example, they are a beloved presence. Their theatre is unconventional and tragicomic and connects the political with the personal.
Swiss maker Tanya Beyeler (1980) and Spaniard Pablo Gisbert (1982) founded El Conde de Torrefiel in Barcelona, a collective of theatre writers, musicians, performers, and videographers. Beyeler and Gisbert studied theatre and philosophy as well as music and contemporary dance. In their performances, they analyse current affairs and try to get a grip on the excesses of our society. At the same time they throw themselves completely into the liberating work, the game, of making theatre. El Conde de Torrefiel’s first performance was The story of the king defeated by boredom in 2010, followed by pieces with colourful titles such as Notice how fatigue defeats thought, Scenes for a conversation after watching a film by Michael Haneke, The girl from the travel agency told us that there was a swimming pool in the apartment and The possibility that disappears before a landscape. In performance after performance, they conquered Spain and then the international festival circuit in Europe and South America. Their previous piece, Guerilla, was a decisive international success.