Inventions

“It's such a beautiful place. It could be here.” Sad and soft strings fill the space of the stage as it slowly lights up. One by one, musicians, classical singers, and dancers enter the light. As in a fugue, they sketch possible trajectories between silence and music. For this next-to-last opus in their tetralogy about the immense work of Johann Sebastian Bach, María Muñoz and Pep Ramis, founders and choreographers of the Spanish collective Mal Pelo, take us on a celestial journey. A crossing where contemporary steps and baroque music create harmonies and counterpoints. The sixteen performers that make up this emotional choir imagine, in the courtyard of the lycée Saint-Joseph, a poetry of movements, voices, notes, and words. Vanishing lines, embraces, conflagrations: bodies brush against each other and draw, through light and sound, moving images of pure beauty. Fragments of Cantatas, Partita No. 2 and of The Art of Fugue break down the space into melodic stratas, a fertile polyphonic sediment, a temporary refuge over the course of a fugue, an infinite shelter for the duration of a movement. Between dance and song, a work that reveals the spaces between heaven and earth, between what’s right next to us and what sits in the distance.

Interview with Pep Ramis and Maria Muñoz of the Mal Pelo collective

Choreography and performance Leo Castro, Enric Fàbregas, Miquel Fiol, Ona Fusté, María Muñoz, Federica Porello, Pep Ramis, Zoltán Vakulya
String quartet Joel Bardolet (violin), Daniel Claret (cello), Jaume Guri (violin), Masha Titova (viola)
Voice quartet Giorgio Celenza (bass) Mario Corberán (tenor), Quiteria Muñoz (soprano), David Sagastume (countertenor, alternating with Hugo Bolívar)
Stage direction María Muñoz, Pep Ramis
Musical direction Joel Bardolet
Music by Jean-Sébastien Bach
Set design Pep Ramis
Lighting Luís Martí, August Viladomat
Video Leo Castro
Sound design Fanny Thollot
Sound Andreu Bramon
Costumes CarmePuigdevalliPlantés
Texts John Berger, Nick Cave, Erri de Luca
Assistant director Leo Castro, Federica Porello
Assistant music director Quiteria Muñoz
Script Pep Aymerich
Photo François Passerini, Tristán Pérez-Martín
Technical Director Luís Martí
Production and coordination Gemma Massó, Mamen Juan Torres
Promotion and distribution AnSó Raybaut-Pérès/Agente129

Production Mal Pelo
Coproduction Festival Grec Barcelona, Festival Temporada Alta (Gérone), Mercat de les Flors (Barcelone), Théâtre de la Ville (Paris), La Vilette (Paris), ICEC Departament Cultura de la Generalitat de Catalunya, Dipùtació de Girona
With the support of L'animal a l'esquena, Celrà and for the 77th Festival d'Avignon: Cultural Office of the Spanish Embassy in Paris.
Acknowledgements Borja Sitjà, Cesc Casadesús, Salvador Sunyer, Claire Verlet, Alberto Conejero, Angels Margarit, Jackie Ohayon for their help in developing the Bach Project.