Estudi per a pandereta is an experimental performance based on instability and dispossession as the only forms of existence. Tirso Orive and Sofía Asencio, pulling a trolley equipped with a loudspeaker, microphone, tambourines, projector, and various electronic devices, occupy public space using movement, projections and songs based on the writings of San Juan de la Cruz. An inner walk during which the two performers edit the reality they encounter by relating the mystic to the popular.
From “Llama de amor viva” by San Juan de la Cruz
(Canción segunda)
¡Oh cautiverio suave!
¡Oh regalada llaga!
¡Oh mano blanda! ¡Oh toque delicado,
que a vida eterna sabe,
y toda deuda paga!
Matando, muerte en la vida la has trocado.
Sofia Asencio and Tomàs Aragay are the company co-directors. Every show or project is begun from scratch, so that they can rethink their artistic language each time. Mixing genres, stage formats and types of people, they create their own way of inhabiting the stage. They like to use the stage – where we would expect to see something spectacular – as the setting for something as unspectacular as possible, so creating a poetic pathos.
Societat Doctor Alonso have set up their base in a rural area, the village of Pontós in the province of Girona, to move away from the ‘noise’ and the ‘uniformity’ that surrounds contemporary creation and the arts in a big city like Barcelona. This has allowed them to turn their gaze inward in search of their own voice. By devising in a local and rural environment, and finding their place within their own cultural traditions, they are in a position to construct a strong and universal discourse from their peripheral perspective.
By the same token, Societat Doctor Alonso have developed a clear will for continuous exchange with the outside world, a desire supported by a double conviction: on the one hand, the need to keep a close eye on the directions that creation is taking in other countries; and on the other, the overwhelming imperative of showing their work to audiences from a wide range of cultural backgrounds, so that the variety of reactions can in turn provide an enriching artistic feedback.
Societat Doctor Alonso collaborate with a broad selection of multidisciplinary artists, often continuing these collaborations across an extensive range of projects.
