Carta Blanca for La Tristura (Itsaso Arana, Violeta Gil, Celso Giménez) With Elena López Riera and Carla Simón
15 JAN 2024 at 18:00
Martín Gaite said that if we could speak properly with all the people we love, just as we would wish to, with time to enjoy it, to be heard and to hear, perhaps we would not write.
We think about the communicative act, about the solipsistic era in which we live, about the lack of real dialogue, about the difficulty of understanding what is alien to us. We think about the idea of crisis, the difficulties of living in the city, of having a family, of resisting the onslaught of capitalism. And then we think about the people we love, near and far, the people with whom we share our generation, interests, doubts. We think about the conversations, letters, notes, calls, and decided to generate one more meeting, a day to share this moment we are in, to talk about the mystery that is creation, and to try to elucidate whether Martín Gaite might have been right.
“To grow up is to begin to separate oneself from others, to recognise that distance and to accept it. The enthusiasm of those youthful encounters with people who aroused our interest was based on the fact that we assumed a continuous permeability between our life and theirs, between our problems and theirs, when annexation seemed possible. It is true that there are still moments when this illusion of permeability arises, but they are extraordinary and fleeting moments, from which one cannot hope for continuity or permanent validity.” So Martín Gaite wrote. We feel that in his work there is a desire and a search for that kind of energy, which allows us to feel interest in others, to empathise, to understand. We share that desire with him, and maybe that is why we continue to make theatre.
We will talk about the search for an interlocutor in this time we share.
Moderator: La Tristura (Itsaso Arana, Violeta Gil, Celso Giménez).
Participants: Elena López Riera and Carla Simón.
La tristura has been working and premiering its shows in the city of Madrid for more than fifteen years. Itsaso Arana, Celso Giménez and Violeta Gil met at the Real Escuela Superior de Arte Dramático de Madrid, studying different disciplines. They began creating their own shows in their early twenties. They produce, among others, Años 90, Materia Prima, CINE, Future Lovers and Renacimiento. Always trying to expand the limits of the theatrical, investigating the border between fiction and documentary, between presentation and representation, with the intuition that intimacy and poetry are essentially political concepts.
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Over the years, La tristura has collaborated with contexts, theatres and festivals such as the Autumn Festival in Madrid, the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris, Cena Contemporânea in Brasilia, the Grec Festival in Barcelona, the Sommerfestival in Hamburg, the Théâtre de Liège, the Teatro Central in Seville, and the Noorderzon Festival in Groningen, becoming one of the leading companies in Spanish and European stage creation.
From the outset, the company has had a clear vocation for formal and language research, and this is linked to a strong desire to communicate, always trying to reach the widest possible sector of society. During this time they have also created and programmed cycles and festivals such as Festival Salvaje, la Gran Convocatoria Mundial, and the cycle La tristura 2004-2014.
In recent years, they have combined their activity as writers and creators with educational activity. With the will to take creation further and to understand in depth the mechanisms that set it in motion. Since 2020 they have been running the Winter School project at the Centro de Cultura Contemporánea Conde Duque.
The company’s first texts were published in the Pliegos de Teatro y Danza. In 2022, Punto de Vista published a volume with their last three plays (CINE, Future Lovers and Renacimiento) under the title Nuestro movimiento. In France, Actualités Éditions published CINE (CINÉ).
Elena López Riera holds a PhD in Audiovisual Communication, and is a filmmaker, programmer and teacher. Her work has been exhibited at festivals such as Cannes, Toronto, Locarno, San Sebastian, Cinéma du réel, Vila do Conde, Hiroshima, Fidocs, Cali and Rekjiavik, and at art centres such as PS1 MOMA in New York. His short film, Los que desean, was awarded the Pardino de oro at Locarno, the grand prize at Zinebi and Vila do Conde, and was nominated for the European Film Awards.
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As a programmer, she has worked for the Entrevues de Belfort festival, the Seville European festival, and the Visions du réel festival. She has taught at the Universities of Geneva, Valencia, Carlos III, and since 2019 she teaches at HEAD (Haute école d’art et design) in Geneva and at the Elías Querejeta School in San Sebastián. She has also participated as a speaker at the Tabakalera international seminar (San Sebastian), at the Museo de Arte Universitario de México (Mexico City), ArtBo (Bogota, Colombia), and Territorios y fronteras (University of the Basque Country, Bilbao). She has been artist-in-residence at Ikusmira Berriak (Tabakalera), and at the Résidence de la Cinéfondation at the Cannes Film Festival.
She has directed the short films Pueblo (2015), Las vísceras (2016) and Los que desean (2018), and the feature film El agua (2022), premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and invited to numerous international festivals (Toronto, San Sebastian, Melbourne, and so on).
© Pepe Andreu
Carla Simón studied Audiovisual Communication in Barcelona and California, and completed a master’s degree at the London Film School. Verano 1993 (2017), her autobiographical debut, won Best First Film and the Generation Kplus award at the Berlinale. Alcarràs (2022), her second film, was awarded the Golden Bear at the 72nd Berlinale. Both films have represented Spain at the Oscars, have been nominated for the EFA, and have travelled to numerous festivals. His latest short films are Correspondencias and Carta para mi madre de mi hijo, premiered at San Sebastian and Venice.
© Xavi Rué