The final phase of the escenas discursivas research on critical discourses on the contemporary performing arts scene in Madrid is one-week thinking laboratory. It is edited by the working group involving: Ana Vujanovic, Marta Popivoda (TkH), Catarina Saraiva (El Ranchito), Isabel de Naveran and Victoria Perez Royo (Artea).

The laboratory is meant to open the research both in terms of including more collaborators and of making it public in the context of Madrid. Making the topics and voices that appear in the research public could help a collective critical self-reflection of the actual state of affairs and a projection of the future of the scene. At the same time, the editors don’t want to keep the laboratory local-specific, although it is deeply context-based, as they believe that we share the similar obstacles, problems and precariousness at the contemporary art scene in the neo-liberal capitalist societies. Therefore we could help each other in understanding our local specificities through a wider story which is not told univocally.

Topics of the day:

16 April: Shaking the state of affairs – critique, resistance, alternative, invention
(how to approach actual state of things at the scene, in the city, in society, when it does not satisfy us? between problematization and affirmation of the new)

17 April: Performing arts in the cultural-artistic topology of the city
(cultural policy and investment in the performing arts, relations between and meeting points of performing and visual arts, the visibility of the performing arts in the city)

18 April: Creating the context
(contextual approach, overcoming the prevalent neoliberal individualism, belonging and commitment, collectivity and collaboration, ethics of work)

19 April: Go international or, else, stay local
(how much is the global international? how much is the local authentic? opening the scene towards international context, rediscovering the local. questions of politics, aesthetics and embodiment)

20 April: Lack of…
(space, time, funds, resources, infrastructures… in the age of austerity. critical and alternative practices in ways of work and production, focus on common pool resources).

21 April: Continuity, a ‘mission impossible’
(why are we continual mostly in being discontinuous? short-termism and ‘ad-hocism’, exhaustion, fatigue and abandon. plus: how to continue with escenas discursivas?)

Formats of work:

The programme of the laboratory involves various internal and public formats of work through which the specified topics will be examined. Those are:

• internal morning sessions dedicated to sharing of artistic and theoretical practices and methodological tools (10 – 12 am)
• internal working sessions that discusses directly the topics of the day (12 am – 2 pm)

• public screenings of the interviews done within the research, followed by the comments of the guests from abroad which will ‘translate’ the interviews in other contexts (5 – 6 pm) and
• public auto-programmed sessions that may include presentations, talks, lecture performances, screenings, etc. and will be curated ad hoc every day (6 – 8 pm).

Participants:

The participants of the laboratory are numerous researches, artists, theoreticians, curators, students and cultural workers from Madrid, other Spanish cities and abroad: working group: Ana Vujanovic, Catarina Saraiva, Isabel de Naveran, Victoria Perez Royo; El Ranchito team: Pablo Berastegui, Manuela Villa; guests from other contexts: Goran Sergej Pristas (Zagreb), Christophe Wavelet (Brussels), Susana Tambutti (Buenos Aires), Idoia Zabaleta (Vitoria-Gasteiz); actors of the Madrid scene involved in the research: Jaime Conde-Salazar Pérez, Paz Rojo, Elena Córdoba, Juan Domínguez, Maral Kekejian, Cuqui Jerez, Carlos Marquerie, Óscar Cornago, etc.; as well as participants through the open call: Paulina Chamorro, Joseph Michael T. Patricio, Géraldine Lamadrid Guerrero, Paula Rodríguez, Luis Alberto Moreno, David Pérez Pérez, Germán de la Riva, José M. Enríquez, Luis Muntion, María Escobar, Jorge Núñez, Rosa Casado, etc.

In the course of the laboratory Jaime Conde Salazar of the Continuum blog will make a live documentation of the event, which will be published and updated daily at: http://www.continuumlivearts.com/

TkH [Walking Theory]: www.tkh-generator.net
Artea: www.arte-a.org
Matadero / El Ranchito: http://elranchitomadrid.wordpress.com/

Framework of the interview:

agencies:

• Sala teatro Cuarta Pared: http://www.cuartapared.es/
• festival Escena Contemporanea: http://www.escenacontemporanea.com/

topics / aspects of work:

critical cultural policies

• providing space for work
• creating the context

- You are the founder and director of Cuarta Pared, a venue and company. How did you set Sala teatro Cuarta Pered up – in legal and economic terms? What does it mean to be independent (in respect to public funds and market)?

- What is the role of Cuarta Pared at the Madrid scene? How does it, as a venue, function: open calls, renting, investing into productions…? Do you give preference to certain aesthetics, or what is the criterion for being accepted to work in Cuarta Pared?

critical practices related to the reflection

critical terms & concepts: research vs. training, reflection vs. production

You have research and educational lines among the activities of Cuarta Pared. What kind of education do you offer? How does your “ETC” research programme function? What is the importance of research in artistic work – in your view?

Can you explain your approach to research and education in the terms of: research vs. training and reflection vs. production?

criticality and/or alternative:

- Escena Contemporanea is ‘an alternative festival of performing arts’. Do you think that contemporary scene (contemporary art) should offer some alternatives to the traditional and mainstream art production? If yes, why, and what is the role of criticality in this?

- In which way Escena Contemporanea is critical and / or alternative – on the level of the subjects / themes or the aesthetics of performances, or on the level of the ways it presents and contextualizes the works, communicates with the local community, etc?

critical term ‘continuity’:

Continuity appears as one of the most prominent and persistent problems at the Madrid scene, thus making ‘the continuity’ a critical term. Cuarta Pared exists for already 25 years and Escena Contemporanea was initiated in 2002 and is still ongoing. How do you see the importance of continuity? And how do you achieve it?