Inventions
A collective, poetic and lively piece in which dance, string quartet and baroque singing explore Bach's immense work. After more than a decade of exploring the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, Mal Pelo presents Inventions; the third piece in their four-piece inspired by his music.
Run time 70 min
Genre dance
Language language no problem
Inventions
Sad and soft strings fill the space of the stage as it slowly lights up. One by one, musicians, classical singers and dancers enter the light. As in a fugue, they outline possible trajectories between silence and music. For this penultimate opus in their four-part work on the immense work of Johann Sebastian Bach, María Muñoz and Pep Ramis, founders and choreographers of the Spanish collective Mal Pelo, take us on a celestial journey. An intersection where contemporary steps and Baroque music create harmonies and counterpoints. Together, the 16 performers who make up this emotional choir depict a poetry of movements, voices, notes and words. Vanishing lines, embraces, conflagrations: bodies touch and draw, through light and sound, moving images of pure beauty.
Fragments from Cantatas, Partita No. 2 and from The Art of Fugue divide the space into melodic layers, a fertile polyphonic sediment, a temporary refuge in the course of a fugue, an infinite refuge for the duration of a movement. Between dance and song, a work that reveals the spaces between heaven and earth, between what is right next to us and what lies in the distance.
About Mal Pelo
Mal Pelo, under its artistic co-directors Pep Ramis and María Muñoz, is a performance creation group whose joint authorship has so far produced over thirty pieces of work. Since 1989, Mal Pelo has developed its own artistic language through movement and compositions that include texts, original sound tracks, live music, set construction, lighting and video design among other tools for the stage.
In performance and the creation of shows, María Muñoz and Pep Ramis have found the ideal place to channel their need to experiment, ask questions and share the themes that are vital to their work.
Shared creation is a distinguishing element of the group. Throughout its career, Mal Pelo has collaborated on projects with artists such as John Berger, Erri de Luca, Lisa Nelson, Àngels Margarit, Steve Noble, Nuria Font, Steve Paxton, Eduard Fernández, Andrés Corchero, Toni Serra, Lilo Baur, Cesc Gelabert, Faustin Linyekula, Raffaella Giordano, Baro D’Evel, Leonor Leal and Marta Izquierdo.
“A continuous workshop on ellipsis, subtraction, absence, hope, provides the backbone of the whole poetic arc of Mal Pelo: their pieces are sleepless nights, the eve of something, fragile conjurings of a presence, motionless hunts.”
“Values have nothing to do with our acquisitions, improvements, conquests, possessions. Our only truth is imperfection. Our history is made up of mistimings. The only value lies in the scar left by our losses. And because the essence of life is failure, someone was right to say that there is dignity in defeat that triumph will never know. Mountains are, when all is said and done, nothing but the scars of a planet that has lived.” Roberto Frattini on Mal Pelo.
