PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT

After numerous choreographic projects situated at the limits of theatre, cinema, performance art or even danced concert with the group Marta & the Psycho Sons, Marta Izquierdo Muñoz immerses herself in a dance project. Her starting point is the border between France and Spain and the traditional dances with sticks that are performed on both sides. “Having voluntarily lived in exile in France for the last 15 years, the French-Spanish border has long been for me a fantasized or abstract geographical separation. A very specific natural border however: the Pyrenees, a border marked by tragic migrations such as that of the Republican exiles”, she explains. In Practice makes perfect she experiments with this border, travelling along it physically, taking interest in the landscape and the legends that inhabit it, and working with a team of people from both sides.
  The choreographic writing integrates a rudimentary object: a walking stick, the characteristic feature of the walker, the tamer, the warrior or the jester. An object which will allow her to connect folk dances practised on both sides of the Pyrenees. The typical stick dances of Catalonia ("ball de bastons") which date back to 1151, a dance both for war and for agriculture danced mostly by men, but nowadays also by women, and the stick dances of Provence, (“l’Arlequine") practised mainly by women, as magical-religious rituals to awaken the forces of the earth.
  “The fighting stick of the Spanish peasants in Goya's paintings, the stick of the bear tamers in Ariège, the walking stick of a rambler to help them cross the mountain, a stick for magical rituals, a stick as a phallic symbol, as an attribute of power, and as a tool for domination, etc... The Harlequin’s stick combines all these meanings at one and the same time, betraying his facet as a poor peasant; here the stick becomes a wooden sword, a fighting object, the comic attribute of an acrobat or a baton with erotic connotations”, Marta Izquierdo tells us.
  MARTA IZQUIERDO

Almost all the information and reviews you can find on the Internet about the work of Spanish choreographer and dancer Marta Izquierdo are in French. It’s no wonder. Although she was born in Madrid, and even though her first performances ranged between dancing in nightclubs in Madrid, on Spanish Television and in contemporary companies, in 2001 she moved to France to enter the Choreographic Centre of Rennes and Brittany. Since 2007 she has directed her own projects in the [lodudo]producción Company, and she has premiered She’s Mine at the Avignon Festival to critical acclaim, and Walking on Thin Ice at the Mettre en Scène Festival.
  Pop culture, androgyny, the exploration of social fringe areas, extremes, trance experimentation and improvisation have been constant in her creation ever since then. Her vital research process led her to obtain the Culturesfrance Hors les Murs scholarship in Japan, where she created Red (Rojo)with Norico Sunayama. She then returned to France, where she has continued to premiere the rest of her work. She also gives regular creative workshops in universities and art schools, aimed at professional dancers and other audiences, such as very elderly people, children or teenagers.   





CREDITS

Concept and performance: Marta Izquierdo Muñoz

External perspective: María Muñoz

Catalan folk group: Fal.lera Geronina 

With the participation of: Asociación Universitaria de Danza El Candil (Madrid)

Sound creation and artistic advice: Benoît Bouvot 

Light creation and general stage manager: Samuel Dosière

Costume Design: Angèle Micaux y María Muñoz

Set construction: Pep Aymerich

Coordination and accompaniment: Nicolas Cadet

Administration: Frédéric Cauchetier 

MADRID PREMIÉRE