Dramaturgy for a conference • Plataforma Fluorescente

Dramaturgy ———— for a conference

Could we create an instruction manual to dictate a conference? Is there a narrative prior to the construction of any speech?

In this curatorial project, a philosopher/thinker is invited to design a series of instructions to impart a conference. This singular manual formulates a kind of dramaturgy, diverse steps that are aimed to be followed for the approach to any subject. Following its rules, artists, thinkers, performers, specialists in diverse realities and disciplines, are invited to develop a performative conference and complete their talk.

This project was ideated by the artist and curator Matías Umpierrez.

Dramaturgy
for a conference
I Edition

Thinker invited
for the creation of the manual:

Paul B. Preciado

(Spain-France)

Artists invited for the conferences/performances: Roberto Jacoby (Visual Artist, Argentina) Mariana Obersztern (Theater Director, Argentina), Juan Onofri Barbato (Choreographer and performer, Argentina) , Tomás Espina (Visual Artist, Argentina) y Paloma del Cerro (Musician, Argentina).

This project, ideated and curated by Matías Umpierrez, was presented in its first edition during the III International Dramaturgy Festival, and in the 12 Festival Internacional de Buenos Aires, in coproduction with Plataforma Fluorescente and with the support of the Centro Cultural Recoleta, Instituto Nacional del Teatro and Mecenazgo Cultural (Argentina).

About the manual
commissioned
to Paul B. Preciado:

Who speaks? What do they say? Is it mandatory to know the speaker’s gender to be able to understand what they say? Is it possible to listen to someone whose gender we don’t know? What is the relation between what is said and the gender of the enunciator? Who listens? Is it possible for us to listen resigning our own gender position? These are questions made by Paul B. Preciado at the time of configuring the instructions.

Intentionally increasing or decreasing the linguistic markers and cultural codes of gender production, the manual constructed by Preciado proposes to produce a cognitive emancipation of the viewer. The question then becomes about who is looking and who is listening.: Why repeat the gender that has supposedly been assigned to me? Would it be possible to introduce change variables? Does the world change if I change gender?

About the invited artists
for the lectures/ performances
of the first edition:

Juana Onofri Barbata
o Juan Onofri Barbato

This performative conference co-created from the manual of the philosopher Paul B. Preciado and the hackneyed concerns of the choreographer Juana Onofri Barbata, invites the public to ask themselves: what is “Danzo Contemporáneo”? Through a series of drifts, Juana puts her body at the service of the “Danzo” opening the dance floor, bottles of alcohol and secret files, which try to elucidate the mystery that provokes them.

Ficha Técnica:
Text: Juan Onofri Barbato
y Carolina Stegmayer / Performer: Juan Onofri Barbato / Controls:
Carolina Stegmayer

This project is a production of Plataforma Fluorescente & Festival Internacional de Dramaturgia, coproduced by the 12 Festival Internacional de Buenos Aires y has the support of Centro Cultural Recoleta, Instituto Nacional de Teatro and Mecenazgo Cultural

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Tomassa Espin
o Tomás Espina

Tomassa Espin still does not know what his talk will be about. It may be that they talk about what they always talk about; of their parents, exile, the school of Fine Arts. Or maybe not, just taking a drawing or clay modeling class while cooking a feast for their lecturers.

Ficha Técnica:
Texts: Tomás Espina, Natalia Di Cienzo y Roberto Espina / Conference by: Natalia Di Cienzo y Tomás Espina

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Mario Bersztern
o Mariana Obersztern

Mariana Obersztern notices that they ask her to give herself completely to an unknown voice. Strictly speaking, it is not a voice, but how can you call a foreign thought, expanded in a fabric of rules that you have to lodge in your body? Also, why would you? Why would you let a compilation of instructions that are not yours command you? Refuses. She would never lend herself to letting herself be swung here and there like a little boat.

Ficha Técnica:
Dj: Gastón Pérsico / Illumination: Gonzalo Córdova / Video: Mariana Obersztern / Edition: Ian Kornfeld / Acting Collaboration: Valentina Pagliere y Guadalupe Sanz
Aristic Attendance: Julia Perette / Dramaturgy and direction: Mariana Obersztern / Camera Live: Nicolás Miranda / Work on field: Mariana Obersztern, Julia Perette y Nicolás Miranda / Thanks to: Laura Santos, Abril Suarez and the boys in the construction site.

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Berta Jacobs
o Roberto Jacoby

He was born in 1944. Most of his works – between partying and social research – revolve around the dematerialization of art and the invention of new forms of life. He composed dozens of songs for the rock group Virus. Starting in 1998, he carried out several experiments in social networks for artists and non-artists, such as Boladenieve.org.ar, Chacra99, Proyecto Venus, as well as other collaborative projects such as Ramona magazine and CIA (Canal de Interferencias Artísticas). The book Desire is born from collapse (2011) was published on his work.

Ficha Técnica:
Text: Juan Onofri Barbato
and Carolina Stegmayer / Performer: Juan Onofri Barbato / Controls:
Carolina Stegmayer

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Dramaturgy
for a conference
II Edition

Thinker invited
for the creation of the manual:

Eyal Weizman

(United Kingdom / Israel)

Einat Weizman

(Israel)

Artists invitades for the conferences/performances: Mallika Taneja (India), Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory (Canada), Mamela Nyamza (South Africa), Erna Omarsdottir (Island).

This project, ideated and curated by Matías Umpierrez, is going to be presented in June-July 2023 in the city of Düsseldorf (Germany) produced by Asphalt Festival in coproduction with Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, and in collaboration with the Theater der Welt Festival 2021 and Plataforma Fluorescente, financed by German Federal Cultural.

About the manual
commissioned
to Eyal Weizman & Einat Weizman:

How much documents can tell? What are its limits? Can evidence lie? How to understand and differentiate fake from truth, documentary from fiction? With the manual Negative Evidence, Eyal Weizman and Einat Weizman provide a ‘grammar ofaction’ seeking to invigorate the practice of documentary theatre today.

The stage, based on these instructions, is asked to become the arena of truth, both for the production and verifying evidence, while questioning the authority of evidence.

Through a Forensic Theatre, the manual proposes the absence of the evidence as evidence in its ownright, the absence is the testimony itself. How could performers occupy this gap?

About the invited artists
for the lectures/ performances
of the second edition:

Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory

I worked with my long-time collaborator, Jamie Griffiths, to create our version of Dramaturgy For A Conference. Our creation is called Pollution Lurks Within the Earth. In my speech, I juxtaposed the manifesto with the current situation we face here in Iqaluit, Nunavut, Canada, with the contamination of our drinking water. Many indigenous communities in Canada suffer from contaminated water. Iqaluit is the largest community in Nunavut and suffers from deteriorating infrastructure, all stemming from historical, racist and colonial implications. Jamie and I created a 3D dome as a “screen” on which our documents are projected.

Ficha Técnica:

Writer and performer: Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory / Video artist: Jamie Griffiths.

This project is a production of Plataforma Fluorescente & Festival Internacional de Dramaturgia, co-produced by the 12 Festival Internacional de Buenos Aires and supported by Centro Cultural Recoleta, Instituto Nacional de Teatro and Mecenazgo Cultural.

Mamela Nyamza

Mamela’s work is entitled “GROUNDED”. The meaning of this concept: “grounded” is manifold: it has both negative and positive meanings in our social life. Positively and verbally, “grounded” can mean stability, reliability, moral compass and self-esteem. Negatively and actively, grounded can mean punishment, confinement, banning and segregation/apartment. The paper therefore describes the situation in South Africa: where its democracy appears to be in good working order, but in reality has small cracks that are not easy to see, leading to significant dangerous and sometimes fatal consequences. The question to be asked about these cracks: are they historical (apartheid-era system) or are they the legendary/popular/current cracks?

Ficha Técnica:

Director, choreographer and performer: Mamela Nyamza / Digital and videography: Kathy Van Denberghe / Videography: Ayanda Msiza / Featured Artist: Amkele Mandla

Erna Ómarsdóttir

Over countless generations, society has organised itself by establishing an active, determining part and a passive, adapting part, a key principle: man and woman. Following this principle, the second of the two parts is the one that is subdued and shaped by the male hands in the world: the female body as a form that adapts to the male silhouette. In her work, Erna explores the centuries-old conception of the female role: how has constant abuse been inscribed on the body of women or people read as such? Her performance is an attempt to find an expressive way to present the results of this research.

Ficha Técnica:

Concept, choreography, text, song, filming and artistic direction: Erna Ómarsdóttir and Valdimar Jóhannson.

Eyal Weizman

Einat Weizman

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