From March to May 2020, Søren Evinson conducted Zoom meetings twice a month with the third-year students from ESART to mentor their performance studies. These 3 samples are some of these first incursions into the creation of these performers.
ESART’s Higher Degree abruptly closed in August 2020, leaving the students unable to complete the course and all their teachers out of a job. The latest promotion with their latest studies which are their inauguration as artists.
Lightness with palpitations, seduction with paranoia, effort with cynicism, freshness with imprisonment and proclamation with forgetting are some of the brands that distinguish these 3 performance studies. The act of looking is performed in continuous rebellion, unrepentant and relentlessly, facing the wide, phantasmagorical diversity that checks them out. Textuality is brief yet potent, battered yet silky as a meme. Bodies, despite their insistence on exhibitionism, retire or retreat. Each of the pieces is presented as a device of its time, where all relationships crystallise in technological material. 3 studies that, together, manifest a suspicion: that, just as loneliness has become rarer, not because of its absence but because it’s become harder to pinpoint, we appear more connected than ever.
Irene G and Claudia Rubio construct selfcontained worlds that operate under their own market laws, abundant in delirium, mystery and leaps of composition. But their market tech consists of a multitude of models anchored in the culture of the masses.
Marc Soler build himself an aesthetic that is closer to reality, focusing on what relates to his actions, making him work on the performative materials at his disposal: body, voice and breath.
Z – Irene G Ontiveros
Classically structured as a romantic break-up scene, Z asks us to look at the toxic relationships, in their various aspects, that are experienced by the young.
But, using her body, the space she inhabits and the objects within it, Irene creates a fairy-tale atmosphere caught in a reggaeton videoclip. This fable of hyper-real, absurd and highly emotional actions portray Z, a woman who at the same time is an entire generation; a stylised outline of the images of purity and disgust that exist in Z’s self-image.
Beyond the lady – Claudia Rubio
Beyond the lady is inspired by references to celebrity culture to investigate the imagery of public language. Claudia’s appearance changes constantly: she models, she eats a cake, she destroys her own set, she shoots at the audience, she plays at selfdestruction or shouts something repeatedly untll it becomes inaudible. in Beyond the lady, each new tableau appears at the expense of the destruction of the previous one, in order to examine the strength and volatility required to own a celebrity in one’s body.
LOOP – Marc Soler
Loop is a rehearsal for body, voice and breath linked to the mind, to conscience and to happiness.
Loop is a phyisical, psychological and emotional itinerary where, using body, voice and breath, the performer accesses states of semiconsciousness.
Loop is an experiment that delves into the idea of a loop, looking for ways to generate relaxation and doubt in the audience.
Irene G Ontiveros is a 21-year-old actress and creator who just graduated from ESART Barcelona Campus – Bath Spa University London. She is currently devising her own work, and has presented different iterations of Z at various galleries. This is the first time she is showing it in a theatre.
Claudia Rubio studied at ESART Barcelona Campus – Bath Spa University London where she got her BA and complemented her studies with classic and contemporary dance and singing lessons. She has taken part in several theatrical works, including Top Girls at Sala Ivanov, directed by Elies Barberà; Psicosis a las 4:48 at Sala Versus Glòries directed by Elena Fortuny and musical Asesinstas directed by Joan Vázquez and Ferran González. Beyond the lady is her first self-devised work, in which she experiments with the creation of awkward situations using movement, aesthetics and sounds.
Marc Soler holds a degree in Dramatic Arts from ESART Barcelona Campus – Bath Spa University London. He has trained in Meisner and Chekhov acting techniques, as well as the Susuki and Viewpoints meethods. He worked on Dagoll Dagom’s Maremar, Vero Cendoya’s La Partida, Mivion (Radio Sarajevo) by La Conquesta del Pol Sud, and Des-espera and Suite TOC núm 6 by Pau Freixas (Movistar +). He is currently the lead character in an ongoing Ikiru Films production.
