Esperpento. Popular Art and Aesthetic Revolution
Encounters Around the Exhibition
This encounter series, which revolves around the exhibition Esperpento. Popular Art and Aesthetic Revolution, comprises presentations of the show by its curatorial team and two theatre pieces which reflect on the notion of “esperpento” and are performed by the companies Lagartijas tiradas al sol and ButacaZero.
The exhibition is devoted to the artistic fortune of this variety of social critique, which is founded in the grotesque, parody and deformation, approaching the concept of esperpento as a fulcrum of aesthetic thought that puts forward a new way of looking at reality. Formulated by writer Ramón María del Valle-Inclán (1866–1936) in reaction to the backwardness and moral despair that blighted Spain in the first third of the twentieth century, esperpento confronted the country’s social, political and cultural constraints, focusing attention on a distancing of the gaze and a set of aesthetic strategies whose prime effectiveness lay in deformation. Eight broad sections build the framework of the exhibition — the theatre companies’ interventions here focus on the rooms of the third section (Marionette Stage), in which esperpento is explored in relation to popular theatre, encompassing elements such as puppets and marionettes, carnival and romances de ciego (blind-man ballads).
The Lagartijas tiradas al sol theatre company will present a contemporary revision of the novel Tirano Banderas (Tyrant Banderas, Valle-Inclán, 1926), setting out from the version in bululú — a genre of theatre whereby a lone comedic actor portrays the entire work — devised by stage director Cipriano Rivas Cherif. ButacaZero, for its part, will premiere Melón pelado (Peeled Melon), a non-infantile farce for a box of dolls based on the “shaved heads of Francoism”, in reference to the women who were harassed at the end of the Civil War and paraded in public processions with their heads shaved after being forced to ingest castor oil, a powerful laxative.
Participants
Lagartijas tiradas al sol is an artists’ community from Mexico City, founded by Luisa Pardo and Lázaro Gabino Rodríguez, who describe their stage projects as seeking to create narratives on events from reality. They have participated at Spanish and international theatre festivals and encounters, such as the Festival d’automne and Festival Impatience in Paris, Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels, Theater Spektakel in Zurich, Festival TransAmériques in Montreal, the Foro de escena contemporánea Re/posiciones in Mexico City, the XII Festival Internacional de Teatro de Grupo in Lima and the Festival Internacional de Teatro de Manizales.
ButacaZero is the theatre company of writer, actress and director Esther F. Carrodeguas and stage director Xavier Castiñeira, who put forward theatre which engages in dialogue with the present day from a critical and ironic gaze. They have participated at festivals and in theatres in Galicia, for instance the Mostra Internacional de Teatro de Ribadavia and Mostra Internacional de Teatro cómico e festivo de Cangas, as well as the Teatro del Barrio in Madrid. Moreover, they have been nominated for the Teatro María Casares Awards and the Max Awards for Performing Arts and have co-produced Iribarne (2023), with the Centro Dramático Nacional de España.
The curatorial team of Esperpento. Popular Art and Aesthetic Revolution, made up of Pablo Allepuz, Rafael García, Germán Labrador, Beatriz Martínez, José A. Sánchez and Teresa Velázquez.
Programa
6pm Presentation of the exhibition Esperpento. Popular Art and Aesthetic Revolution by its curatorial team
6:30pm Stage performance of No tengo por qué seguir soñando con los cadáveres que he visto (I Don’t Have to Keep On Dreaming about the Corpses I’ve Seen) by Lagartijas tiradas al sol. Produced by the Museo Reina Sofía, 2024.
Lagartijas tiradas al sol brings back to Spain the bululú that stage director and stage designer Cipriano Rivas Cherif took to Mexico in exile, setting out from a revision of Valle-Inclán’s Tirano Banderas (Tyrant Banderas). With No tengo por qué seguir soñando con los cadáveres que he visto, the collective leaves the space of representation to rebel and fighting women who are absent from the writer’s narrative but are victims all the same of the tyranny and violence the novel describes. Therefore, women weavers, poets, painters, peasants, community leaders, sociologists, anthropologists, teachers, doctors and seed guardians are invited to write a letter to the tyrant.
During the exhibition period, this stage installation is activated on the following days:
Thursday, 10, Friday, 11, and Saturday, 12 October - 6:45pm and 7:45pm
Sunday, 13 October – 12pm and 1pm
Performed by Luisa Pardo
Monday, Wednesday and Friday, from 14 October 2024 to 10 March 2025 - 6:45pm and 7:45pm (except on Wednesday 16)
Performed by Delia Pacas and Laura Pacas
No registration required
Sabatini Building, Floor 1
Free, until full capacity is reached, with prior registration via email by writing to actividades.culturales@museoreinasofia.es from 30 September to 4 October, stating personal details (name and surname[s])
6pm Presentation of the exhibition Esperpento. Popular Art and Aesthetic Revolution by its curatorial team
6:45pm Stage performance of Melón pelado by ButacaZero. Produced by the Museo Reina Sofía, 2024.
Two puppeteers open a box of dolls which, in reality, is a chest of memories. Here the story begins. Spain, in the nineteen thirties. The Village Music Band (from any village) gets people going. Between the churros stand and anis booth, the procession, the parade, the troupe appears. Yet this is a Dantesque parade of shaven-headed dolls — without doubt, the work resembles an esperpento, but Valle-Inclán’s it is not. Melón pelado sets forth a journey of initiation towards places in a history that is not written or told, and much less photographed, to reflect on the very fact of the memory of the found.
Credits
Cast: Nuria Gullón and Cris Collazo
Text: Esther F. Carrodeguas
Director: Xavier Castiñeira
Design and stage construction: Luchi Iglesias
Sonoplastia consultancy: Juanma LoDo
Production: ButacaZero
Sabatini Building, Floor 1
Free, until full capacity is reached, with prior registration via email by writing to actividades.culturales@museoreinasofia.es from 7 to 11 October, stating personal details (name and surname[s])
6pm Presentation of the exhibition Esperpento. Popular Art and Aesthetic Revolution by its curatorial team
6:45pm Stage performance of Melón pelado by ButacaZero. Produced by the Museo Reina Sofía, 2024.
Two puppeteers open a box of dolls which, in reality, is a chest of memories. Here the story begins. Spain, in the nineteen thirties. The Village Music Band (from any village) gets people going. Between the churros stand and anis booth, the procession, the parade, the troupe appears. Yet this is a Dantesque parade of shaven-headed dolls — without doubt, the work resembles an esperpento, but Valle-Inclán’s it is not. Melón pelado sets forth a journey of initiation towards places in a history that is not written or told, and much less photographed, to reflect on the very fact of the memory of the found.
Credits
Cast: Nuria Gullón and Cris Collazo
Text: Esther F. Carrodeguas
Director: Xavier Castiñeira
Design and stage construction: Luchi Iglesias
Sonoplastia consultancy: Juanma LoDo
Production: ButacaZero
Sabatini Building, Floor 1
Free, until full capacity is reached, with prior registration via email by writing to actividades.culturales@museoreinasofia.es from 7 to 11 October, stating personal details (name and surname[s])