Leopards and Devices is a piece conceived as a scenic experience where the public is an active part of the action. With a hybrid language, halfway between theater and dance, the work is inspired by the essay “The Myth of Sisyphus” written by Albert Camus and the concept of the eternal return of Nietzsche. Through an iterative device, a woman channels a collective experiment on freedom.
A woman, curtailed by the absurdity of Camus’ Sisyphus, lives trapped in the quagmire of a cyclical experience. She roams around listlessly, like a female leopard in a solitary cage, denying creeds and flock mentality. Almost incapable of finding the strength to support her own weight, and conscious of her vulnerability, she follows the tracks from her own failure to the vital impulse that enables her to live in the margin of the embellished and fictitious beliefs that set in motion the social mechanisms. She searches for the complicity of the audience in a collective reflexion, and asks herself if we want or can find freedom in the dance to which Nietzsche so often referred.
SUPPORTS
⋅ Award for Best Performing and Award for Best Staging at the XIII CENIT 2021 (Contest of New Theatrical Researchers) / TNT-Atalaya (Sevilla, Spain)
⋅ Candidate for the Premios Max de las Artes Escénicas 2021 in the categories of Best New Authorship and Best Female Dance Performer
⋅ Winning piece of the Research and Creation Residency A GATAS 2019, promoted by Centro Cultural Conde Duque, Teatro de la Abadía and RESAD (Royal Superior School of Dramatic Arts/ Madrid)
⋅ Aid for Choreographic Production 2019 from the Comunidad de Madrid
⋅ Artistic residency at Centro de Danza Canal (Madrid)
⋅ Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
⋅ Dance creation grant from Alcaldía de Medellín (Colombia)
⋅ Pequeño Teatro de Medellín (Colombia)
⋅ Casa de la música (Medellín, Colombia)
ARTISTIC AND TECHNICAL INFO
Premier: 2019. Teatro de la Abadía (Madrid, Spain)
Length: 90 minutes (aprox.)
Genre: Contemporary (theater and dance)
Lenguage: Spanish
No. performers: 1
Direction, texts, choreography and performance
Mercedes Pedroche
Stage concept
Felipe Caicedo, Mercedes Pedroche
Assistant direction
Martina Novakova
External view
Pablo Messiez
Lighting
Inés de la Iglesia
Sound space designer
Borja Ramos
Original music
Borja Ramos, Vidal
Set design and costume
Mercedes Pedroche
Photography
Ciro Pérez, Eva Viera
Video
Eva Viera
Distribution assistant
Elisa Pérez
Production assistant
Mariano Repollés
08/06/2018
