Els ossos de Montaigne Glòria Balañà / Sadurní Vergès

Silence is an essential component of music, the same happens with pauses in life. This show intends to reflect upon the time that stops abruptly and it takes ground in the writings of several thinkers. 

Suddenly the whole world got stuck and our lives became suspended. However, this situation which perhaps had never been so global and of such enormous proportions, was not really such an unusual event. Any situation affecting and stopping the flow of life immediately becomes a break in the continuity of people’s lives: an illness, the war, an accident… The crack through which the faith in a supposedly secure life leaks away and the fortitude of humanity gets broken way too often.

Everything begins with the search for Michel de Montaigne’s bones, the Renaissance French thinker. This author retired from public life for 10 years in order to write his Essais, where he wondered about his own nature and about the way in which life should be lived. The moment it seems that his mortal remains have been eventually discovered, the action gets suspended and we are led to an austere space, dwelt by three feminine figures and several thoughts. A voice-over will tell us what these thoughts are and it will establish a dialogue with the visual dramaturgy on stage displayed through physical language and a choreography. We will listen to some fragments -sometimes in their original language- by authors such as Plato, Montaigne himself, Pascal, John Cage, Susan Sontag, Slavoj Zizek, Franco Bifo Berardi and Paul B. Preciado, among others.

This show comes as the result of the combination of various talents. Among them and the first one in the list, the driving force of the project, the playwright and director Glòria Balañà who, apart from having created her own plays, has also directed theatrical productions such as Decadence by Steven Berkoff; Cloud nine, by Caryl Churchill; The Chairs, By Eugene Ionesco; Boys don’t cry, by Victoria Szpunberg (Grec 2012); and Hamletmachine, by Heiner Müller. The director has worked as well with the playwright and translator Sadurní Vergés, author of about twenty plays (The others’ eyes, Rosa mutabilis, Wolves, Without you, As if I had you by my side, Follow me White Rabat, Hardy Rock, The Catalan verse, etc.) and creator of dance dramaturgies (Lele, Materia, L’escorça…). The main performers are the actress Daniela Brown, the dancers and the choreographers Marina Fullana and Laura Lliteras, a tandem making up the Unaiuna company which has recently premiered its last creation, we do as if we were dancing. The sound has been designed by Àlex Polls, a sound designer and musician with a long career in the scenic arts, while the floor management and the images have been created by the multidisciplinar artist Alfonso Ferri. Lighting belongs to Sylvia Kuchinow and the costumes have been made by Marta Rafa, awarded several times in different shows for her designs. Finally, the show also counts on the complicity of the producer Xavier Gonzàlez, from Escenapart.

This is a coproduction of el Grec 2022 Barcelona Festival, Teatre Principal de Palma, Escenapart and Elecktra Asociation. With the collaboration of Joan Brossa’s Foundation -Centre for the Free Arts.