Aurora Bauza and Pere Jou will present their new work, A BEGINNING #16161D, at Barcelona's Auditori on March 11 and 12, 2023, as part of the Scènes series.
Hémisphère son is associated with this original project, which explores the limits of individual and collective identity and traces a poetic path from darkness to light through voice and movement.

A BEGINNING #16161D is a performance about the limits of individual and collective identity, which are diluted in a medium more akin to imagination than reality.
A medium closer to the future than the present.
In darkness, the performers sing and move, exploring the potentialities of what we cannot see, and treating light as an object that illuminates voices rather than bodies.
Here, darkness is not something dark, but the promise of fantasy.
Darkness is the context in which the imagination is triggered to observe what we feel, what is suggested but not seen.
In darkness, notions of space and time are altered, the boundaries between the bodies of the performers and those of the audience are diluted: the choreographic and lighting design of the show reinforces this perceptual alteration of space and bodies, until individuals converge into a single collective body.
At the same time, the vocal, sound and choreographic designs that invade the audience space unveil a 360° immersive sound experience, reinforcing the sensory and emotional impact of this proposition.

A BEGINNING #16161D cannot ignore the historical moment in which we find ourselves. A period in which, due to various environmental, migratory and political crises, we are surrounded by apocalyptic narratives that proclaim the end of the world as we know it.
Saturated by these narratives that see no further than the decay of a world that is coming to an end, we feel the need to imagine the world that is beginning.

A BEGINNING_expanded version - AURORA BAUZÀ & PERE JOU (teaser) from Aurora Bauzà & Pere Jou on Vimeo.

A BEGINNING #16161D is an invitation to the future we imagine after the end.
An invitation to the world that appears on our retina when we close our eyes.
An invitation to redefine how we behave, how we relate to each other, and how we attempt to establish the boundaries of what we call "individual" and "collective".

A BEGINNING #16161D is an invitation to an environment where individuals are interconnected as in a network, where hierarchies are redefined, where the self and the we circulate, converge and diverge.
A world where we have found new ways to survive, where darkness is not totally black.

A BEGINNING #16161D is committed to innovating the language of the stage by hybridizing the sung voice with light in a unique and singular way.
It's a proposal that moves between musical composition and contemporary stage creation, using musical and light discourse to generate a dramaturgical narrative that gives visibility to and reflects on essential issues such as the dialectic between individual and collective identity, the prospect of an environmentally and socially unfavorable future, and the desire for new forms, new ways of relating, expressing, looking and feeling.

THE VOICE

The sung voice is the expressive and dramaturgical driving force behind the entire piece.
Singing and its relationship with light are at the heart of the research, and are the means by which the performers relate to each other.
Vocally, the piece evolves through a score that alternates between a vocal work from the classical repertoire and two original vocal works, incorporating passages of agreed improvisation, i.e. with specific rules of time, timbre, rhythm, pitch and harmonic progression, designed to evoke particular sensations and soundscapes.
More specifically, the piece includes fragments from Allegri's Miserere, as well as two vocal pieces composed for four voices: I don't cry and After the end.

A BEGINNING #16161D straddles the line between musical composition and choreography, sound architecture and scenography, dramaturgy and musical discourse, without knowing where one begins and the other ends.

A BEGINNING #16161D dilutes the boundary that separates them, or rather inhabits that boundary: it choreographs the voice and vocalizes the choreography.
The result is an uninterrupted musical story, full of nuances and landscapes that build the emotional and sensitive journey of the piece and drive the dramaturgical discourse.

In addition to the performers' vocal score, A BEGINNING #16161D features a sound design that blends live soundworks and amplified voices with a speaker system around the audience to enhance the immersive experience. It's a sound design that enhances the power of the voices, enriches the perception of the sound space and increases its capacity to impact the spectator.

A BEGINNING #16161D was born with the intention of innovating the formal relationship between performer and spectator, breaking the frontal relationship between audience and performers and taking advantage of all the space available to sing while enveloping the audience.

THE LIGHT

From a scenic point of view, A BEGINNING #16161D is conceived for five performers and lasts one hour. The piece can be performed in both theatrical and less conventional spaces, provided that total or near-total darkness can be guaranteed.
Darkness offers us an empty space, a tabula rasa in which the subsequent appearance of light is incredibly significant. Darkness is the space where anything is possible.
Light, on the other hand, concretizes and determines reality.
Thus, for much of the piece, the lighting design focuses more on what it doesn't show rather than what it does, and is generated mainly by small portable lights controlled and manipulated by the performers and connected to a light table.
As they sing and move, the performers link voice and light in various ways in a unique journey of sound and light that reinforces the emotional impact and the appearance of images of great poetic force.
Finally, lighting external to the performers will also appear towards the last third of the show, revealing unknown fragments of reality.
In this sense, the progression from darkness to light is one of the show's most important dramaturgical features.

Auditori creation March 11 and 12, 2023

Created and directed by: AURORA BAUZÀ & PERE JOU
Performed by: ELENA TARRATS, MAIDER LASA, ISAAC BARÓ, DIANA POP, PERE JOU
Music and sound: AURORA BAUZÀ
Choreography: PERE JOU
Lighting: JOU SERRA, MARIETA ROJO
Costumes: MARIONA SIGNES
Dramatic and choreographic collaboration: ALESSANDRO SCIARRONI
Choreographic assistance: CLAUDIA SOLANO WATSON
Production and accompaniment : ARIADNA MIQUEL
Coproduction: L'AUDITORI DE BARCELONE, CENTRE CHOREOGRAPHIQUE NATIONAL D'ORLEANS
With support from : HÉMISPHÈRE SON, GRANER CENTER DE CREACIÓ, L'ESTRUCH, CC BARCELONETA, CASTELL DE MONTJUÏC

Photos © Aurora Bauza