PI(È)CE is an intergenerational performance creation project that brings together people from different social and cultural backgrounds. It started in 2011, promoted and produced by Teatro Tantarantana (Barcelona), under the direction of choreographer and stage director Constanza Brnčić, playwright Albert Tola and producer Julio Álvarez.

RAPPORT is a cooperation project aimed at promoting integration between refugees and host communities, using and developing collaborative community-based artistic practices between four European partners: ACTA (Bristol), PI(È)CE / Tantarantana (Barcelona), Historieberattarna (Stockholm) and Teatr Grodzki (Warsaw).

This video is the result of the first working period of the CREATIVE RAPPORT project. Because of the Covid 19 pandemic, which was supposed to result in a performance piece, it has turned into a video piece created from the materials that emerged during the period of confinement, through online meetings and workshops.

PI(È)CE COMMUNITY PROJECT AND THE CREATIVE RAPPORT PROGRAMME:

Since the 2011-2012 season, Tantarantana Theatre has been developing an intergenerational and intercultural community theatre project: project PI(È)CE, directed by choreographer Constanza Brinčić and playwright Albert Tola.

PI(È)CE originated as a community theatre project within the classroom: PI(È)CE Educational is an annual workshop held during school hours that consists of the creation and performance of a theatre and dance piece through the collective research of a diverse group made up of students from the reception classroom, performing arts students and elderly people from the Raval neighbourhood. After ten years, the project has grown into the PI(È)CE company, made up of those participants in the different editions of the educational PI(È)CE who have felt identified with the project and want to continue deepening the process of artistic creation. The PI(È)CE company is made up of people from very diverse backgrounds and ages ranging from 15 to 80 years old.

Since last season, PI(È)CE has been part of the European CREATIVE RAPPORT programme, together with three other projects: ACTA (UK), Historieberättarna (Sweden) and Teatr Grodzki (Poland). CREATIVE RAPPORT is a cooperation project between these four European partners that, over the course of 31 months, facilitates spaces for artistic encounters between refugees and host communities, using and developing different artistic and collaborative practices. Each of the four projects participating in CREATIVE RAPPORT develops a work with a common theme: the integration and defence of the rights of migrants from the perspective of different creative disciplines. The company PI(È)CE will approach the theme through a combination of word and movement, turning individual experiences of the members of the company into a collective experience through the recording of a film. The result of the four proposals will be available online from June 2021.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

This place 2020 is an audiovisual piece created during the confinement of spring and summer 2020. The piece, in no way arising from the stage show we had to perform during this period, Gairabé una pregunta (Almost a question) is a testimony to the passing of days, concerns, events of all kinds, as well as our sensations in spaces that suddenly acquired new reverberations: our house and the houses of others, to which we had access thanks to videoconferencing platforms. An overwhelming journey towards the intimate rediscovery of our bodies and our living space in the ghostly uncertainty of the passing months.

In the midst of this artistic and social journey, sharing emotions, impressions and experiences, there was a natural collective accompaniment between us, which was completely transversal. The process required a high degree of involvement on the part of the group, given the difficulty of concentration, due to the different news that kept perplexing us. Subtly, both in the conceptions of the sessions and in the course of them, the powerful historical moment we have lived through during the pandemic in Barcelona, its processes and phases, were leaving their mark. The artistic process of Proyecto PI(È)CE consoled and accompanied us despite the isolation at home. With respect for all individuality and extraordinarily generous frankness, we reflected and expressed our emotions together, as well as constructed a common imaginary at a time when everything seemed to be sinking and the historical context was leading towards introspection. However, our video art piece is not an exercise in the service of our personal processes, but rather, as we seek in our stage pieces, it seeks to give this personal process an artistic dimension that can be transmitted to other people, so that they can see reflected something of what they felt during those uncertain, intimate and also ghostly months.

ARTISTIC DATA SHEET:

CONCEPT

CONSTANZA BRNČIĆ

ALBERT TOLA 

JULIO ÁLVAREZ

DIRECTION

CONSTANZA BRNČIĆ

VIDEO

NUNO REBELO

CHOREOGRAPHIC PROPOSALS

CONSTANZA BRNČIĆ

TEXTUAL PROPOSALS

ALBERT TOLA

DRAMATURGY

ALBERT TOLA

CONSTANZA BRNČIĆ 

NUNO REBELO

MUSIC

NUNO REBELO, EXCEPTE: CANÇÓ TRADICIONAL PAQUISTANESA (CANTADA PER MEHEKDEEP KAUR (AMB ARRANJAMENT INSTRUMENTAL DE NUNO REBELO) / “I WANNA BE LOVED BY YOU” (CANTADA PER MARYLIN MONROE, MUSIC BY HERBERT STOTHART I HARRY RUBY (LLETRA DE BERT KALMAR).

CO-CREATION:  

ADELAIDA SANTIRÓ, AHMAD AL HAMSHO, ALICIA ROVIRA, AMADU ABU, ANJILA KATRIN, ASHRAF BELKAID, AVELINA TEIXEIRA, BEATRIZ GONZÁLEZ MAGADÁN, BERTA PEÑA, CARLA SAUTÉ, CARME VILLALBA, CLINTON KINGSLEY, CORAL MESTRES, DEVON PRADO, GABRIELA BLANCH BRNČIĆ, GERÓNIMO PEREIRA, JAN SERRA, JOAN RAMOS, JOSEFINA RUIZ, JÚLIA FEIXAS, JULIO ÁLVAREZ, MAMADOU LAMARANA, MARTA FERNÁNDEZ, MARTÍ CASTILLO, MEHEKDEEP KAUR, MORY TRAORÉ, MOURAD MAAZOUZI, NESRIN CHARF EL WAHABI, ZAHORI GÓMEZ.

ALSO FEATURED IN THE VIDEO

IGOR BRNČIĆ REBELO, FERRAN MURILLO, BEGONIA MORAL, MARTA ESCOTO.

ILLUSTRATION WORKSHOP

LISA PARTBY / HISTORIEBERATTARNA (STOCKHOLM) 

PRODUCTION AND COMMUNICATION

TEATRE TANTARANTANA (BARCELONA)

WITNESSES: What has the creation of the video of the project Rapport en confinamiento involved?

Beatriz González Magadán

What was it going to be like to rehearse through the screen? For me the encounters with you every week have been like arriving on an island where the sensations about my house, about the objects in it and the spaces, smells, sounds and little ghosts that roam it, have been amplified and occupied by your presence. It wasn’t like in the rehearsal room, where you leave your everyday life a little bit behind to enter to work body to body. In the confinement we could no longer leave our intimacies aside because we were living with them, so there was no choice but to share them with emotion.

Nuno Rebelo

A fragmentary universe of zoom sessions, video clips, photos, written and recorded texts, drawings, a whole boot full of mysteries for which I sought a coherent poetic narrative, a natural flow and a powerful pictorial treatment. And to add the music, searching in my personal boot for compositions I made in the past that could be suitable to emotionally underline the poetry that emerges from the video. A journey.

Julio Álvarez

It seemed that the confinement produced by Covid19 was going to put an end to our dream of creating the PI(È)CE show for the International CREATIVE RAPPORT project! When we were about to start rehearsals, we all had to stay at home! But if we have learned anything during these 9 years of work with this intergenerational creation project, it is to continue creating even in the face of adversity. The pandemic made it difficult for us, and that was precisely the occasion to reinvent ourselves! We learned to take advantage of the technology of online work! It was impressive to see how we all responded to this new virtual adventure! We learned, we improvised, we discovered new possibilities as we went along, and now it’s time to share this great experience with the public! It will be an in-person premiere at the Tantarantana with all the necessary protocol but with the immense joy of seeing each other again, marking a distance, and… To discover what we were capable of! A virtual madness made presence!

Adelaida Santiró (Lala) (Grandmother of the Raval)

The pandemic has led us through a sad aspect of this experience of confinement, because it has cut off the work done with great enthusiasm by the whole PI(È)CE group, but it also brought with it the satisfaction of having learned to connect by ZOOM with the whole team and to work from home doing small things. It took me a lot to learn new technologies at my 80 years old, but with the help of Julio, Constanza and Albert, and the young people, I have achieved it and I am very happy to have done my bit with all of them, so thank you for your patience. A big hug to all of you and see you soon.

Mory Traoré (Refugee Guinea Conacre)

The workshop taught me a lot to learn from others; to listen, to see, to understand and to feel through my screen. It was my first distance workshop and I really appreciated the professionalism of the whole team. 

Carmen Villalba (Grandmother of Raval)

This space has been a pleasant surprise for me. Sharing with the young people, the dance, the joy, the reflection, from mutual respect, the complicit looks, the listening. Losing the sense of the ridiculous at 70 is a little late, but it is very gratifying. Thank you.

Avelina Teixeira (Grandmother of the Raval)

At the beginning everything was a mess and it became a mountain, but with patience and good will (from everyone) we got our way. The first few days it was strange to have people close and at the same time far away. I prefer rehearsals when we are all together on stage, but these “alternative” rehearsals allowed me to look forward to our meetings and to break the monotony of confinement alone at home. Thank you for your accompaniment during the confinement.

Coral Mestres (Grandmother of Raval)

This work we have done has been very interesting. It was the first time that I zoomed in and it didn’t go well. I liked working with the young people and observing their interest in the work. I think that interpreting without physical contact brought us together.

Carla Satué (young journalism student)

The theatre sessions of this project helped me to disconnect from everything, to have those little hours a week in which I could free myself and let myself go. I didn’t know any of my classmates and that could have made me shy – however, on the contrary, they all welcomed me very well into their environment and I was able to enjoy some amazing sessions! Moreover, we have all shared a bit of ourselves in this project, which makes it very special and…. I couldn’t be happier to have participated!

Marta Fernández Tusón (choreography student, political science graduate, on work experience in the project)

Here it is easy to learn to value, to give space, not to judge, to be open and to work from experience. Sometimes I still feel like an outsider participating in something very intimate, but I am really grateful to be able to be part of the group and share its intimacy, its beauty, its transversality.

Ashraf (young person from the Institut Milà i Fontanals host classroom)

First of all I want to thank Constanza and Albert, because thanks to them I have been able to do what I like.

I want to say that what we have done has been wonderful, I can’t even express it in words and I hope to see them again in person. I hope to see them again in person. Thank you.