When you go to see a work by Baro d’Evel Company We wonder how to describe the energy, the enthusiasm, the reflection, the enterprise or even the tenderness, because there is all of that in the pieces of this company which has existed for a long time. … time, practically since Camille Decourtye and Blaï Mateu Trias They founded it in 2006.
” Who are we ? » In Blaï Mateu’s native Catalan, it means “who we are”, what we want to become, they ask themselves, and what can humanity do when everything is so bad and we are, they say several times, in this situation of uncertainty. But don’t believe, they don’t leave us with this bad energy. They present the real situation, then perform a collective initiation ceremony. until in the end the energy, the tenderness, the improvement and above all the collective, surpass all pessimism.
This is why, when Camille Decourtye and Blaï Mateu Trias, in one of the most interesting dialogues of this work, she insists on the phrase ‘Don’t give up’ (don’t give up), and physically this is how they are on stage, we know that the mechanisms to continue will be shared with the audience.
Let’s start at the beginning to say that it is a pleasure to see two Andalusian dancers in castings like this, our last and recent National Dance Prize, Guillermo Weickert and the Sevillian dancer Lucía Bocanegra. Two wonderful performers from two very different generations, perfectly integrated and brilliant in this work. Special mention to Weickert’s dialogue where the dancer once again demonstrates his acting talents and to the trio of “monstrous dancers” in which Bocanegra participates.
With the valuable participation of the ceramist Sébastien de Groot, The piece begins with a metaphor in which clay is used to model something (Blaï Mateu has been working with clay for years), which ends up becoming a fiasco in which the great clownish universe of Baró stands out, sensational throughout the work, as well as the great monologues performed by Camille Decourtye, whose interpretation is brilliant. On stage, a sort of mountain of large algae, a mountain which will later undergo several transformations, when it expels the dancers from its bowels or swallows them; when he becomes mature to do vertical dancing, or when at the end, he vomits a sea of plastic made up of hundreds and hundreds of crushed bottles.
The eleven performers appear impeccably dressed in black at the entrance to the stage and a white liquid begins to flow under their feet, causing them to suddenly slip and fall in a thousand different ways. No longer spotless, now stained, they take moldable clay containers and place them on their heads, and they make holes for eyes and ears, but they don’t stop there, but they bring out more textures as they dance and develop a ceremony of gestures, dance and music, and even Baró becomes a terrifying Mikey Mouse with round orange ears. The metaphor of a neat world that is not neat has come true. This moment reminded me of this legendary work called “Paso doble” by Miquel Barceló and Josef Nadj, where clay and mud also played an important role.
The mountain of algae which brings together the dancers in this work and which transforms, with the jet on the white liquid which makes them fall again and again
Images are produced very quickly and constantly, Sometimes we don’t even have time to follow the groups that form on stage, with electronic music or pieces by Vivaldi, or with the voices of the dancers themselves who are musicians, actors, singers and acrobats, in a kind of astonishing versatile artist. There are endless specialties in the distribution, musicians like the Algerian Alima Hamel, the Cambodian acrobat Youth volleyballdancers like Weickert or Bocanegra, or the same Camille Decourtye became a baroque singer during the performance of Vivaldi’s religious piece, “Cum Dederit” from “Nisi Dominus”…., but everyone is united in this creation ceremony which takes place indifferently in Spanish, French and English.
The scene becomes a swamp, Devastation has arrived, culture looks forward to the degradation of society, even a small dog enters the scene (there are always animals in Baro’s creations), as if trying to see the beauty of the animal world that we humans blacken. A girl (the daughter of creators Baro and Decourtye) tries to put this whole scenario in order and leaves.
In the final explosion of the work, the large mountain expels a sea of plastic that spreads curiously across the stage, with disturbing spontaneous movements that hide the dancers inside. which emerge little by little, while Decourtye begins a harangue towards the public, demanding a place for the unity of all, that we do not forget tenderness and that we must continue even if the world is in the middle of this uncertainty, and he does not say it, he shouts it to us with despair.
Finally, the girl comes on stage, looks at them and little by little, one by one, she picks up the crushed plastic bottles, and before that everyone begins to remove them, clean up the trash, as if it were a penance, until the stage is clear and the company can stand in front of the audience again, i.e. He does as he was asked: does not give up, and there, towards the sky are his arms.
A work which continued until the end in the Central hall, when the artists of a musical parade walk towards an improvised stage and continue to play and sing, generating enormous energy to the respectable people who followed them like a Hamelin.
” Who are we ? It is like all the previous creations of Baro d’evel, a table of successive creations, energy, music and inspiring interpretations and above all, a way of thinking based on real metaphors which do no harm and which despite the sadness, leaves a margin of collective hope.
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