GALERA PERFORMA
GALERA PERFORMA took place between 27th July and 7th August 2021.
The project was supported and funded by the Town Hall of Galera and the regional authority, the Diputacion of Granada.
GALERA PERFORMA took place between 27th July and 7th August 2021.
The project was supported and funded by the Town Hall of Galera and the regional authority, the Diputacion of Granada.
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During two weeks Pablo Pakula led a series of open workshops seeking to introduce performance and live art to local participants with little or no experience of these vocabularies. The project was part of a programme of the first cultural activities taking place after COVID-related cancelations. Since the pandemic was not yet over, particular regulations has to be observed and facemasks had to be worn in most occasions. Despite these challenges, the participants in GALERA PERFORMA, ranging between 14 and 54 years old, created a tightly-knit and supportive intergenerational community formed by Ana Azorín Molín, Anabel Rodríguez Silva, Claudia Antón Cáceres, Juan Antonio García Beteta, María José García Olivares, Maribel Sánchez Alonso, Rocío Cáceres Triguero, Valeria Cayuela Carayol, and Violeta Ruiz Azorín, with photographic documentation by Reme Domingo de Leonés.
During the workshops we explored contemporary approaches to the body, space, image, objects, actions and text; primarily guided by methodologies developed by Anne Bogart and Tina Landau, and Guillermo Gómez-Peña y La Pocha Nostra. The particularly heightened mood of that time (i.e. the conviction of engaging in a communal cultural activity despite the odds, the hope that we might have the the worst of COVID behind us, the uncertainty of what the future would bring) gave the workshops a particularly potent, personal, and often emotional character.
GALERA PERFORMA culminated on 7th August 2021 with a public performance event titled Galera, a partial portrait. To heighten the sense of occasion and celebratory nature of the event, the performance was timed so that its final and climactic epilogue coincided with the traditional midnight firework display at the height of Galera's summer fiestas.
During two weeks Pablo Pakula led a series of open workshops seeking to introduce performance and live art to local participants with little or no experience of these vocabularies. The project was part of a programme of the first cultural activities taking place after COVID-related cancelations. Since the pandemic was not yet over, particular regulations has to be observed and facemasks had to be worn in most occasions. Despite these challenges, the participants in GALERA PERFORMA, ranging between 14 and 54 years old, created a tightly-knit and supportive intergenerational community formed by Ana Azorín Molín, Anabel Rodríguez Silva, Claudia Antón Cáceres, Juan Antonio García Beteta, María José García Olivares, Maribel Sánchez Alonso, Rocío Cáceres Triguero, Valeria Cayuela Carayol, and Violeta Ruiz Azorín, with photographic documentation by Reme Domingo de Leonés.
During the workshops we explored contemporary approaches to the body, space, image, objects, actions and text; primarily guided by methodologies developed by Anne Bogart and Tina Landau, and Guillermo Gómez-Peña y La Pocha Nostra. The particularly heightened mood of that time (i.e. the conviction of engaging in a communal cultural activity despite the odds, the hope that we might have the the worst of COVID behind us, the uncertainty of what the future would bring) gave the workshops a particularly potent, personal, and often emotional character.
GALERA PERFORMA culminated on 7th August 2021 with a public performance event titled Galera, a partial portrait. To heighten the sense of occasion and celebratory nature of the event, the performance was timed so that its final and climactic epilogue coincided with the traditional midnight firework display at the height of Galera's summer fiestas.
[The videos below have English subtitles and chapters available.]
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GALERA, a partial portrait. was inspired by the essences of the Altiplano (Granada's high plateaux) and the unique character of Galera. The audience's experience began by walking up to the top of the Cerro de la Virgen, which overlooks the village and has a small chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Along the way, the audience encountered in passing a number of performances, installations and musical fragments which emphasised a feeling of ascent and elevation. Once spectators were gathered in front of the chapel, the main part of the performance began.
The performance featured texts written the participants, sometimes in response to their experiences during the workshops, and sometimes using as as a textual quarry the autobiographical novel El Portacho, Memorias de un Barrio, written by one of Galera's residents and beloved local characters, Bonifacio Sola Garcia. The performance also featured a number of texts written by Pablo Pakula. The carefully curated soundtrack included works and lopped fragments by minimalist composers like Anne Müller and Steve Reich, as well as Spanish artists like El Lebrijano and Califato 3/4.
Although drawing on material developed throughout the two-week workshop process, this final piece was semi-improvised around a series of previously arranged scored. In seeking to emphasise the liveness and ephemerality of the event, this approach allowed us to respond spontaneously and in the moment. As a whole, Galera, a partial portrait presented a kaleidoscope of images, actions, and textual fragments which, in employing live art vocabularies, was resolutely poetic rather than narrative, offering an associative and semiotically porous response to Galera, its particular character, its unique history, and the specific moment that was August 2021.
[When promoting the project and the performance, I found myself saying to people: "If theatre is like a novel, which is based on narrative and character, then live art is more like a poem." Articulating things in those terms meant that even those without knowledge or experience of contemporary art immediately understood our remit and framing.]
Behind the scenes feature created by Claudia A.C., a 14 year old participant.
Photographs by Reme Domingo de Leonés
[Suspension, in memoriam mother]
(27 July - 7 August 2021, balconies of Galera's town hall)
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My mother died from lung cancer on 5th December 2020. Due to her illness, she never managed to return to Galera, the adopted village she loved so much. Coinciding with GALERA PERFORMA I created this humble memorial installation on the façade of Galera's town hall. In the process of clearing my mother's wardrobe, I collated all her scarves and neckerchiefs and took them from Alicante to Galera. There, I arranged them by colour, and for the whole duration of GALERA PERFORMA, I hung them from the town hall's balconies. Incidentally, the main space we used for the project's workshop was the town hall's main hall, was the room with these same balconies. The installation was a kind of personal memorial, so no direct mention was made to my own mother. In fact, the work was not even announced or titled. It simply appeared on the first day of GALERA PERFORMA. Thereofore, in a sense, the installation simply served as a way of publicly signalling that 'something' was going on in the town hall's main hall, and give a visible presence to GALERA PERFORMA as a project in Galera's main square. Nevertheless, retrospectively, I like to think that the installation might have been a way of memorialising not just my mother but all deceased mothers, and perhaps due to the temporal context of the installation, a way to memorialise all those who had passed away from COVID or other illnesses during the pandemic. The video above is soundtacked by the song 'La Profecia' from the album Lagrimas de Cera by El Lebrijano. The song featured in the final performance of Galera, a partial portrait, which marked the culmination of GALERA PERFORMA. |
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Initial call out material:
What is performance and live art?
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20x20 (swings x roundabouts)
[Galera, 31 /12/19] A time-specific work performed at midday on the last day of 2019. Using repetition to open up a meditative space where to reflect on the year that was ending, and speculate about the year that is about to begin.
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If theatre is like a novel, then performance and live art are more like a poem. Unlike conventional theatre, performance and live art do not tend to rely on a fictional frame, a linear narrative, or psychologically constructed characters. They are interdisciplinary artistic mediums which are highly experimental. Originating in the avant-garde movements of the early 20th Century, they continued their development in the decades of 1960 and 1970. Performance and live art are ephemeral art forms, taking place in the here and now of the live moment, capitalising on the direct contact with their audience, and activating the imagination and subjectivity of each spectator. In performance and live art, images and action, materiality and corporality, musicality and structure have the same importance (if not more) as the spoken word. As art historian RoseLee Goldberg says, these mediums have become "the essential vehicle for artistic communication in the new millennium".
What is GALERA PERFORMA?
GALERA PERFORMA is an artistic project especially dedicated to Galera, aiming to offer something new and creative for the village and the region. GALERA PERFORMA is open to all those who want to develop their creativity and offers an opportunity to explore performance and live art as scenic arts. The project is supported and funded by the Town Hall of Galera and the Diputación of Granada.
GALERA PERFORMA is a project for and by Galera, seeking to mark this peculiar moment in its history. It will take as its point of departure the novel of local interest El Portacho. Memorias de un Barrio (finalist in 2008 of the 'Román Planas y Mir Award'), and which was written by Bonifacio Sola García - el Boni - esteemed neighbour of Galera. With this text as a stimulus, and with the contributions by the project's participants, we will create a poetic kaleidoscope of images and actions inspired by Galera. This final piece will be presented as an outdoor performance on 7th August 2021.
GALERA PERFORMA is a project for and by Galera, seeking to mark this peculiar moment in its history. It will take as its point of departure the novel of local interest El Portacho. Memorias de un Barrio (finalist in 2008 of the 'Román Planas y Mir Award'), and which was written by Bonifacio Sola García - el Boni - esteemed neighbour of Galera. With this text as a stimulus, and with the contributions by the project's participants, we will create a poetic kaleidoscope of images and actions inspired by Galera. This final piece will be presented as an outdoor performance on 7th August 2021.
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No previous experience is necessary to take part, and the workshops are open to people of all ages and abilities.
These face to face workshops will focus on performance and live art vocabularies, and we will explore fundamentals such as movement, space, voice and objects. The workshops will take place in Galera between Tuesday 27th July 2021 and Friday 6th August, and will adapt to the participants' availability. There will be a final performance event on Saturday 7th July 2021 in the evening. |
How do I get involved?
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To register your interest, and be part of the workshops on performance and live art, fill out this form. Once we have gathered the details and preferences of those interested, we will be in touch. If you have any questions, please write to pablopakula @ gmail.com with GALERA PERFORMA as the subject of your email. |
Video in Spanish of the project's soft launch (3/04/2021)
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About Pablo Pakula (director of GALERA PERFORMA)
Pablo Pakula (Alicante 1983), arrived to the UK in 2000, with a scholarship to undertake the International Baccalaureate at Atlantic College (Wales). From 2002 to 2006, he took a BA in Theatre Studies at the University of Kent (Canterbury). After graduating, he co-founded the performance company Accidental Collective. That same year he was given a grant by the Arts and Humanities Research Council to undertake a PhD on the Polish theatre director Jerzy Grotowski, a PhD he completed in 2010.
Pablo Pakula has been teaching theatre and performance at Higher Education since 2007, working at institutions such as the University of Kent, Canterbury Christ Church University, Central School of Speech and Drama, y University of Birmingham, where he has been teaching since 2017 as a permanent Teaching Fellow.
Besides his teaching and his collaborative practice as a member of Accidental Collective, Pablo Pakula has developed since 2014 a practice as a solo live artist. He has shown his work in a wide variety of contexts, from galleries and museums, to historic buildings and public spaces, studio theatres and club nights. His relationship to Galera goes back to 2000, when his mother bought a cave-house. In September 2019, he produced and hosted STOMPING GROUND!, a week-long residency in Galera for a group of eight international performance-makers and live artists.
