Sidosos is a performance somewhere between videoinstallation and documentary theatre. The result of a comprehensive effort in audiovisual archaeology, the show presents a selection of the different faces and voices who were the protagonists of the early years of the AIDS pandemic in our country.
A videoperformance collage that aims to paint a social portrait of that time, mixing some of the most relevant names with others that are completely unknown and a vast majority of names that have been deliberately forgotten. These are the affected, the infected and their families. The scientists, the priests and the moronic negationists. The hemophiliacs, the homosexuals and the heroin addicts. The junkies and their pushers, the whores and their johns, the prisoners and their warders.
While not avoiding titillation or a certain sensationalism disguised as an artistic research process, the project does hope to operate as more than just a list of victimised losers: as a crosstemporal dialogue between artists from the time and current youtubers, between the experts from then and the politicians who ignored and so caused the spread of the pandemic which, 40 years later, has neither vaccine nor memorial.
After achieving middle grade music studies in flute and singing, in 1999 he began two years of Direction and Dramaturgy at Barcelona’s Institut del Teatre. In 2006, he obtained a degree in Choreography from the School for New Dance Development (SNDO), Amsterdam, and in 2011, a Masters in Choreography from Amsterdam’s University of the Arts (AHK). He also holds a UNESCO Masters in Peace Culture from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
His graduation piece for SNDO, This is a picture of a person I do not know (2006) won the ITS Choreography Award and was selected for the Netherlands’ DansClick tour as well as touring internationally. In 2007 he became resident choreographer for Teatro Frascati in Amsterdam where he created, among other pieces, Striptease, which toured internationally for over eleven years. In 2009 he was awarded the prestigious Charlotte Kohler Prize for his youthful career and in 2011, having graduated as Master in Choreography with his creations Coser y Cantar and Bomberos con grandes mangueras, he returned to Barcelona. With support from Mercat de les Flors he coproduced Sin baile no hay paraíso (2015), obtaining the Aplaudiment Award and FAD Sebastià Gasch Award for Paratheatrical arts, as well as Sweet Fever (2016) and Sweet Tyranny (2017), awarded the Premio Butaca for best dance show. Between 2018 and 2020 he was resident choreographer for Mercat de les Flors, from where he conducted Ballar és cosa de llibres, (2018), Premio Butaca for best family show; Incurables (2019); and Rèquiem Nocturn (2020), Premio Serra d’or for best theatrical show.
He has created choreographies for musicals and theatre productions such as La importància de ser Frank (TNC 2017), Àngels a Amèrica (Teatre Lliure 2018), Aquella nit (La Villarroel 2020), T’estimo si he begut (Poliorama 2020) and El Màgic d’Oz (Teatro Condal 2020), all directed by David Selvas. He also choreographed the Gala Literària Nit de Santa Llúcia 2013, organised by Òmnium cultural, the awards Gala for the Premios Martí Gasuli 2018, organised by La Plataforma per la Llengua, and the 2020 Gaudí Awards Gala for Catalan cinema.
In 2018 he presented and ran the dance workshops included in television programme Ballar, shown several times on Canal 33. His teaching career, in addition to running workshops and classes, includes participating in teaching programme Flipart by the Diputación de Barcelona, running a creation workshop for migrant youth at the Museu d’Història i Immigració de Catalunya and directing the Beethoven en moviment project, led by Vic’s Teatre Atlàntida, for which he choreographed more than twenty groups from seven different education centres.
