“Once you get a clear feel for the basic premise, develop a few safety skills, and get your reflexes primed and ready, then you’re off. You learn by doing.”
Nancy Stark Smith
For years I gave my body to the circus practice of Chinese Pole, offering it my most passionate dedication, thousands of hours of sweat, hundreds of miles of vertical walking, bruises, blood and burns.
That distilled phrase: “the pole eats human flesh”.
The sublimation of all that pain in seconds of timeless lightness, of ephemeral suspension, of aerial beauty, of fleeting and at the same time inextinguishable success – that inner fire, that energy – offered us the possibility of being immortal, defying gravity and our bodies.
Now it is time to bid FareWELL.
Jorge Albuerne. I was born in Oviedo (Asturias) a year before the death of the dictator… I graduated in Fine Arts at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU). In Bilbao (Muelle3) I discovered and connected with the world of dance and started my training in this field; something that later brought me to Barcelona, where I simultaneously continued my circus training. Since the year 2000 and in Barcelona I have been presenting different performance proposals (collective or individual) always halfway between movement, plastic arts, circus and writing. I was part of the collective La Makabra until its eviction in November 2006. The solo show NOMARRAMÓN received the Zirkólika Award for “best circus show 2012”. I have been part of different dance, theatre and/or circus companies (Malqueridas, Raravis, TinCan Company, Tranuites, Circo Raluy Legacy) and I have accompanied several projects either as a director or as an outside eye (C%RC, Buit, Alejandra, NADIE). I have taught Chinese Pole and Movement at various circus facilities in Europe, Argentina and Mexico. Among other projects, I participated with dancer Cecilia Colacrai in the creation and interpretation of stage projects GIRA and Último, el baile; as an actor in Un tramvia anomenat Desig by cia. Les Antonietes; as a Circus actor in the collective creation project NAQBA/Últim Vals and as a performer in the Circ d’Hivern 2017 SOTERRANI CÒSMIC under the direction of David Climent and Pablo Molinero (Los Corderos). These days I live in Barcelona and my latest projects are: together with visual artist Taxio Ardanaz on the subject of historical memory and the concept of monument; with Jose Luis Redondo in the field of humour as cía.VAQUES we have toured with the show YeORBAYU, later joined by musician Xabi Eliçagaray. In June 2023 I presented INDOMABLE (scenic hybridisations of a bastard circus), a performative reflection on the facets of fascism and the passing of time. I am currently creating another solo project (FareWELL) and with Grisel Salgado (aka Ninia Grisito) we are EL OTRO LADO company, with which we’re creating the show FÁBULA (provisional title). In the field of teaching I collaborate with circus schools CARAMPA (Madrid), INAC (Oporto) and I teach the workshops “(d)Escribir el Riesgo” and “Activaciones escénicas del error”. Besides all these fortunate encounters, the unfortunate ones, the insignificant and forgotten, and the everyday have also made me what I am today, even if I don’t name them.
