The permanent images of El Conde de Torrefiel at the Festival d’Avignon
The collective El Conde de Torrefiel presented until July 26 on L’Autre Scène du Grand Avignon and for the first time in France, a show created in May at the Wiener Festwochen: A picture of the interior
Tanya Beyeler & Pablo Gisbert have designed a visually very strong Installation / Performance to illustrate a reflection on reality.
From the start, the show directly challenges the spectator via a screen of surtitles which appears in the middle of the stage, in a rather mischievous effect of immediate distancing, announces to him that he is going to see a show and describes the action of the two technicians who are in front of him installing an element of the decor. So immediately two accesses to reality: what is happening on the stage in front of us and what the surtitles tell us.
This giant canvas covered in fluorescent graffiti which is hung in the background turns out to be, or rather turns out (the surtitles tell us) cave paintings in a museum of natural history and there, the relationship between what we see and what is supposed to be starting to loosen up.
Several scenes will follow one another, passing from the museum to a supermarket, to a clearing in the night where a primitive cult is celebrated, etc. The whole show is based on a juxtaposition of elements that compose it, building a virtual reality. The text is made up of the only surtitles which act as narrator, commentator, chorus and which could exist by themselves, in the form of an article or a demonstration.
The six actors/performers will remain silent throughout the show, playing/miming/illustrating the scenes and could be a choreographic show in itself.
The sets are simple in concept, but very powerful in their effect: the stage, the backstage, the backstage and the sides will be dressed in lacquered red, saturated again with red lighting, then blue electric (lights by Manoly Rubio Garcia), then draperies evoking molten lava, each time allowing an abstract but ultimately very evocative “box” effect. These decorations could be presented as contemporary art installations that are sufficient in themselves.
Finally, the music (Rebecca Praga and Uriel Ireland), made up of infra-bass and electronic sounds, is more in the feeling than in the melody.
Reality would therefore be a mental construction resulting from various injunctions that our brain combines consciously or unconsciously. The subject, which one wonders if it is naive….or a little ironic, takes on all its strength and keeps its freshness thanks to the visual and sound strength of the piece and the perfection of its production.
The work of the duo had already impressed us a lot in Paris in 2016 as part of the Festival d’Automne in 2016 with ”La posibilidad que desaparece frente al paisaje”, he confirms here his ability to intrigue and captivate the public. We think of the work of Christian Rizzo, who also knows how to create hypnotic and almost abstract shows
The show will be presented from September 15 to 17 in Essen as part of the Ruhrtriennale and on September 24 at the Métastasio Theater in Prato, and we would like it to be visible in Paris as well.
Visual: Una imagen interior, El Conde de Torrefiel, 2022 © Christophe Raynaud de Lage / Festival d’Avignon