Opus cero is an interview by Carmen Aldama of Ibrahim Bah, Bastian Ponce, and Maxi Labrador. Four people and an angel. An interview is, etymologically, a partial view. A glimpse — as through a fog — without truly being able to distinguish an object or a subject. That is Opus cero. “Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the Angels’ Orders? and even if one of them pressed me suddenly to his heart: I’d be consumed in his more potent being. For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we can still barely endure, and while we stand in wonder it coolly disdains to destroy us.” – Rainer Maria Rilke.
Ben Attia (Granada, 1991) is of Maghrebi origin and currently based in Algeciras, Cádiz. As a cultural manager, he has led projects such as Sostener lo que se cae, aimed at the restoration of the Cervantes Theatre in Tangier; the venue Laboratorio Inestable del Mohín in the Vallecas neighborhood of Madrid; and Box Levante – Performance Center of the Strait in Algeciras. As a performer, he has worked under the direction of Sara Molina for an extended period. As a playwright, Ben Attia has premiered numerous works. Notable among them are Aicha Kandisha (Granada, 2014); Escenas posmarxistas (A Coruña, 2016); alifato (Madrid, 2017); Tres reflexiones escénicas sobre estética (Madrid, 2017); TaiK@milla01 (Madrid, 2018); Sobre la espera (Athens, 2019); Apología de John Graham (La Línea, 2022); and his most recent works: Auge y caída de una ciudad (Baelo Claudia, 2023), which faced censorship by the Junta de Andalucía; Opus 1 (Algeciras, 2023), premiered at the Cádiz International Theatre Festival (FIT); and Opus cero (Madrid, 2024). Each of his works reflects his ability to revisit the contemporary imagination of the Maghrebi diaspora from a unique perspective.
