In a basement very close to the Obelisk, in Tribunales, there is a theater room where the Uruguayan soprano and actress Sofía Drever, the cellist and composer Manuel Pérez Vizán and the sound artist Pablo Reche travel on Saturdays the sound journey of Manifesto Escombro, the new creation from the Núcleo Silvestre company directed by Juanjo Santillán.
Rubble Manifesto It is a play that uses resources from contemporary opera and noise. This combination generates a particular approach both for listening and for the spectator’s gaze stimulated by the performers and by an oval, like a screen, located over the stage space where images and chromatic textures are projected.
The work refers to the fragmented story of a woman that multiplies in stories crossed by references to methadone (an analgesic to treat severe pain and heroin withdrawal), to trotyl as a latent explosive material, to the Tao and to the Red Book of Mao. A certain universe linked to Chinese iconography and trinkets also takes place along with childhood stories on their dark side. In parallel, the figure of a father who fades prowls.
“How does the memory of a person who tries to build a future from a present in ruins operate and shed? This question runs through Manifesto Debris. And also, like every manifesto, it establishes a position on the era that the protagonist is going through and that she tries to transcend,” says Santillán, also the author of the work.
A text for theater that can be several works
Debris Manifesto is a concert key version of the text for theater The sky fallingby Santillán, published by the National Theater Institute and by Núcleo Silvestre editions.
While the members of Núcleo Silvestre were preparing other works, in parallel, The sky falling It had different versions with guest performers. The first was with the French actress Claire Salabelle, followed by another with the choreographer and dancer from Córdoba Marina Sarmiento for a show that was only presented on tour.
“Each version is a totally new work,” says Santillán, “the text is not rewritten, but is edited for the needs of each interpreter. TO Rubble Manifesto We approach it as a laboratory of creation, trial and error of the materials that we use or imagine with the performers and with Facundo Estol, lighting artist who was also in charge of the stage space, and participated in all the rehearsals together with Juan Ignacio Sánchez, creator of visuals and mapping. Then choreographer Silvia Pritz and costume designer Andrea Suárez joined. Finally, the work is the poetic artifact that results from the interventions of all these people over time.”
It is currently starring the Uruguayan soprano Sofía Drever, trained by the singer Cristina García Banegas, in Montevideo, and also at the Manhattan School of Music in New York.
“I came across the text The sky falling, by Juanjo Santillán, with everything to explore—says Drever—. The proposal was to make a version with singing voice, because music was always a fundamental part from the first version. We got together for months to explore everything, it was a musical jam with Juanjo’s eye guiding the creative process, from my body to my voice. We were all proposing and composing rehearsal by rehearsal. It was interesting because, as a singer-performer, everything generally comes to me written, and here it was all to be written. There was a lot of freedom. In fact, the work mutated so much that it was no longer the one from which we started and Manifesto Escombro was born.”
The search for sound for Manifesto Escombro
Reche plays on stage with the composer and cellist, Manuel Pérez Vizán, in a cross between the analogue, a string instrument and also the voice of the soprano, and the digital in the sonorities of the noise.
“The composition of Debris Manifesto It was developed through extended techniques and musical gestures in the voice and the cello with the idea of sound deconstruction of the words, says Pérez Vizán. The accumulation of these musical gestures, in counterpoint with noise, compose this sound-musical dramaturgy of “inserts” that enhance climates and intensities.”
A moving theater company
Wild Core is a performing arts company, a rare sight on the Buenos Aires scene, with artists and members from Argentina, Cuba, France and Uruguay. They propose an interdisciplinary crossover, based on joint work with the audiovisual collective Divagario, which is reflected in the different works they stage in theaters on the alternative circuit, municipal theaters and in unconventional spaces.
They have performed in printing presses that closed and left their machines, in neighborhood clubs, libraries, development societies, university auditoriums, circus spaces and old mansions such as the Cazona de Flores, in the Federal Capital, where the first one was rehearsed and shown. version of Manifesto Rubble.
In addition, the company develops a publishing project, Núcleo Silvestre Ediciones, with publications focused on dramaturgy and the performing arts. They have carried out an editorial exchange with the Editorial Fund of the State of Mexico, based on a cycle of texts for theater with a group of authors from the city of Toluca.
Debris Manifesto It is presented on Saturdays at 9 pm in the Machine Room, Lavalle 1145. Tickets $ 8000